A men’s breakfast will be held on Saturday, April 29 at 8:00 a.m. in the Mission Fellowship Center.
Recipes Appreciated!
Each week we include a recipe in the Church Chimes and we hope that you are enjoying reading and trying them. You can add your favorite recipes to the Chimes by sending them to Cheryl Beck at cabeck@ncsu.edu. This is an ongoing WMU project.
Thanks for participating!
Book Buddies Begins April 11
Thank you to all the folks who responded to the plea for help with the 1st Explorers reading program. The program will begin on Tuesday, April 11, at 3:30 p.m. with a "meet and greet" time with your book buddy when you will work with them to select a book from the Children's Library to read. Reading time is from 3:30 to 4:00 with 15 minutes of reading with 2 different children. Other reading dates are April 18, May 2, May 16, and May 30.
If you would like to spend a little time with a child and share your enthusiasm for reading, please let Cheryl Beck or Melanie Stokely know. We can use some other people to make this program successful.
Punch
Ingredients
Combine:
1 12 ounce frozen lemonade
1 46-ounce pineapple juice
2 quarts water
1 cup sugar
(These ingredients equal one gallon of liquid.)
Add 1 –2 liter ginger ale when you are ready to serve.
–Provided by Ruth McConnell
Punch
Click here to download a printable version.
Provided by Ruth McConnell
Family Fun Event Was Fun!
Around 20 people attended the Family Fun Event on April 2nd. After a hearty sandwich lunch, the group enjoyed creating "critters" from Easter eggs, making a jelly bean/chocolate bunny Ball jar for shut-ins, and playing games outside. There was even a practice Easter Egg Hunt to get the children ready for the big hunt next Sunday! Cheryl Beck read the book "The Flowering Cross" to the group and gave each family a small cross to decorate with flowers for Easter Sunday. As they departed each child received a goody bag and each family took home a flower pot to enjoy.
Thank you to all the families who attended.
Heck-Jones Mission Offering
The GA’s handed out envelopes and information on the Heck-Jones Mission Offering. If you have not returned your donation, please do it as soon as possible by placing the envelope in the offering plate on Sunday or leaving it in the office with Janice. The WMU office in Greensboro uses these donations to be self supportive of Cooperative Baptist Woman’s Missionary Union. The staff uses these funds to help with education for the churches in NC. They do a wonderful job!
Mission Moment 4.5.23
Lita Sample
CBF Field Personnel in Fremont, CA
Prayers are often said in hopes of asking God for something specific. Sometimes we pray for direction. And a few times, we ask for God to give us a word on what we need to do. This is what I prayed for months before our Easter Egg hunt. How many Afghans will you bring to us at this special event? In my logical mind, I planned for 250 people. I hoped that maybe we would have 200 in total to come. Then, in my doubt, I actually wondered if 100 would come to our Easter event. It was a Christian holiday. Why would they want to come?
As we prepared for the 250, in faith that God would bring that many and as we continued to pray for the Afghans we would invite, God revealed something surprising. God said to prepare for 250 CHILDREN! That would bump up our overall total to hundreds more! We reserved four picnic areas near each other to have a great big grassy area for all the crafts, games, face painting, and six hunts we would have. Halal meat was on the invitation to be sensitive to our Afghan friends. I have seen God work in miraculous ways in bringing people and children to events when we had been unsure. I knew God would work again.
Okay, God, we will be ready. The weeks before the event, as we made so many visits to families, texted, emailed, left flyers, and sent hundreds of invitations, we were encouraged as so many said they would be there.
The day of the hunt, we had Afghans pouring into the large picnic areas we had decorated. We loved connecting and serving and seeing the joy on the faces of Afghans who may not have had reason to be joyous in a long time. We had people being prayed over, reading the Christian literature in their own language, hearing the Easter story. It was an amazing day and God was in the midst of it all. At the end of our time, we went home exhausted but happy. We counted the registration cards and the lists of volunteers who signed in to help.
Here’s how God blessed in numbers: 74 volunteers; 8,000 eggs; 103 families; and amazingly—exactly 250 kids and 493 people—all Afghans! God is so good. God must have been delighted to see our amazement at God’s hand. So now, we pray in thanksgiving. Who would have ever guessed that around 500 Afghans would come together to celebrate Easter and hear the good news? Only God could do such an amazing thing and we praise God for His greatness!
Pray. . .Give. . .Go.
Care Team to Make Cards
Andrew Beck worked with the CARE Team to make cards for Mrs. Hattie Lee who is at Skyland Care Center. The children enjoyed games and snacks afterwards.
The CARE Team will schedule more visits in the future.
Hurray for Our Nursery Workers of the Week!
It was a busy day in the nursery this past Sunday! Thank you to Sandi Allen, Lexi Allen,
and Sophie Powell for giving their time to work in the nursery.
There is still room on the schedule to serve “the least of these”
on Sunday mornings. It is a blessing to see their smiles and enthusiasm as you spend
time with our infants, toddlers, and preschoolers.
Please contact Cheryl Beck (cabeck@ncsu.edu) if you would like to help.
VBS: Save the Date!
Vacation Bible School will be here before you know it! The date for our community VBS is June 12-16. First Baptist is in charge of the set-up and take-down each day, the daily Bible story, and youth activities. Be thinking about how you can help with this very important summer event!