Second Baptism

At the end of June '08 we had our second baptism service after the AM message at Anchor Baptist. It was a joy to have invited a single mother named Kim 'O Dowd and her children to church while out on our special week of canvassing. She lives in a small apartment complex in town. Although Kim does not have transportation currently, we had been giving her and her baby girl Zoe and her 9 year old girl Kayle a ride to church for several weeks. I scheduled a time with her to go by her house and formally witness to her. While I witnessed to Kim that Saturday, Grace witnessed to Kayle who had been in SS for several weeks listening to the gospel. Both of them individually and in separate rooms trusted Christ as Savior. And of course we took the time to explain baptism. We were at their house for at least an hour. Kayle understood baptism so well that the next day when she came to the morning service she was explaining to everyone, "Baptism is not for babies. They cannot be saved!" So I had the joyous privilege of baptizing them together after the preaching that very next day after they were saved. I baptized Kayle first and then had Kim join us while Kayle waited for a special prayer. All I can say is praise the Lord!!!

King of the Jungle VBS

The pastor of the Sandy Lake Baptist Church is my father-in-law Tom Henricks. While we were back in PA for Erica's wedding, we had the privilege of helping out in VBS at the church. They decided to have VBS from Sunday night through Tuesday night. The theme of their VBS was the King of the Jungle and the basis from Scripture was the Ten Commmandments. Grace and I helped out on Sunday and Monday evenings. We sang, passed out candy, and acted crazy. I also preached on Sunday night using the first commandement: Thou shalt have no other gods before me. I struggled to come up with a way to tie this in with salvation, but found a good object lesson using donuts that worked well. Although, no one officialy received Christ, we had about every kid respond during the invitation time. Seeds were planted that hopefully one day if watered correctly will come to fruition!

Erica's Wedding

Up to Pennsylvania we went again at the first of June for another wedding. Grace's cousin, Erica Osterling, had asked Grace to be one of her bridesmaids. Thankfully, we were able to round up the funds to go and the Lord gave traveling mercies both going and coming. It was a relatively short trip, especially since we worked really hard while we were there. We traveled up on a Thursday and arrived in the evening. On Friday, Grace was with all the other ladies getting their nails done. Friday night was the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner. After wards we helped to clean up and then set up for the reception the next day. Saturday afternoon was when the wedding took place. Grace again in the morning was off to the hair salon with the girls. I was helping out at the church. I also acted as videographer again during the ceremony. If I keep doing it maybe I can start charging!! LOL! Grace was beautiful and modest and of course did a great job. After the ceremony and the reception, we again stayed to help clean up. Finally we made it back to the in-laws house only to crash that night for church the next day. Hopefully the knot was tied tight enough for those two love birds that were off to Tenessee for the honeymoon.

Duke Hospital and University

On June 3 of this year one our church members was scheduled for back surgery at Duke University Hospital in the Raleigh/Durham area. From where we live in Farmville, the hospital is about an hour and a half away. Grace and I got up at about 4 in the morning to try to get there in time to see her before the surgery and have prayer with her, however we missed her by about 10 minutes. We chatted for awhile with her husband, but since the surgery was supposed to last for 7 hours we decided to leave. We left the hopital to tour the Duke Univeristy campus and man is it stately. We were impressed. We had toured UNC Chapel Hill campus previously but not Duke. We were not aware that the hospital was in the same basic location as the school. Yet, there it was right next door connected to their nursing and medical school.

An interesting thing about our trip to Duke was that it was during the same period of time, actually the same week, that Senator Ted Kennedy was at the hospital having brain surgery. We saw tons of reporters and journalists camped out. However, no doubt with the sensitivity to his privacy and heavily guarded access, we did not get to meet Mr. Kennedy. I guess there is always next time!

New Grill for Memorial Day

Grace and I had been wanting a grill for sometime. We had never had one since we were married. Then out of the blue, the weekend before Memorial Day, we had a love gift of $100 given to us. So on Memorial Day Monday we traveled into town and went to Wally World (Wal- Mart) and picked up just a standard ordinary grill. Since we did not have alot of extra room here at our house-apartment we decided that although we really wanted a nice gas grill we would just go ahead and get a standard grill and take the rest of the money and use it for charcoal, several marinades, lighter fluid, and food. I also wanted to purchase a grill tool set which I got on sale for $10. It even came with a free electronic meat thermometer fork. We stocked up on some goodies and had a great cookout! Of course I still had to put the grill together and we had a wonderful meal of 4 kinds of marinated grilled chicken and Bush's Grilling Beans. YUMMMY!!

First Baptism

On May 18, 2008 we had our very first baptism service at Anchor Baptist Church. Of course, it was not without some labour. The baptismal is a very different kind of baptismal. It is built into the floor under the platform with access by a large heavy two-handled door. Because the church was without a pastor for quite some time the baptismal had not been cleaned in forever either. As a result, the water was dismal and dirty. It was filled with bugs on top of it all. So, my wife and I set to clean it. That Saturday morning we had led a man to the Lord who had commited to be at the services to be baptized the next day. Later that evening we figured we had better make sure the baptismal was in proper condition to have a baptism. After the determination was made to clean it we discovered several interesting other facts about the baptismal. It has no drain that operates independently. The drain only operates with a pump system which is also used to recirculate the pool. All the access to the drain and the recirculation valves are located underneath the church. So off I went to investigate and figure the system out, which I did in time. Unfortunately, since the pump only pulls out the water using about a 2 1/2 inch pvc pipe located inside the baptismal and the pipe doesn't go all the way to the floor all the water is not removed when you try and pump it out. And even when you are pumping it out, it is a slow process. Needless to say the only other option to remove all the dirt and grime was to scoop out the water by hand which Grace and I did. Once that was completed, then it was on to the actual cleaning. Finally after a long 5 hours we were finished cleaning and refilling the baptismal. The filling had to be done manaully also with a water hose. Oh the joys of a small country church!

Thankfully all the work paid off and our baptismal candidate attended church the next morning and submitted himself for baptism. His name is Leroy Smith and we had had the privilege of leading him to Christ the day before. He was so humble and said when I led him to the Lord that I had answered many questions for him about the Bible he had been having for some time.

One other thing of note was that the baptismal is heated by a plug in baptismal heater. We had plugged it in the night before, but had only left it on the halfway setting thinking it would get too hot. As a result the water was not like ice, but it wasn't really warm either. The weather thankfully was fairly warm and Leroy did not complain at all. Overall it went extremely well!

Visit From In- Laws and New Spring Decorations

Grace and I were very happy to have my mother and father in law visit with us here in Farmville for a few days the week we left from Pennsylvania from Beth's wedding. They flew down to Florida for a business conference with Mars National Bank, the company which Bro. Tom has worked for over 20 years. Instead of taking the flight back they decided to rent a car and drive the 20+ hourse home by way of Farmville, NC during the middle of the week so that he and Mrs. Henricks could stay a few days with us. Thankfully, since we are still in the process of setting up our guest bedroom, another independent baptist church had their prophet's chamber open and allowed for them to stay. I'm sure it was nice to have a little privacy.

I experienced a bought with a 24 hour bug upon arriving home early Wednesday morning from PA. I was so sick I really did not feel like I could preach, although I had preached sick several times throughout the space of time of being at the church. However, this time I only felt like sleeping. So I slept and trusted that Bro. Tom and Mrs. H. could make it in time to preach since they were going to try. If not, then I always have at least one message ready for cases like these. It was so good to see Bro. Tom arrive in time for the evening service. He preached on "The God of the Impossible" and I was able to simply listen to what God had for the church through him that night. Praise the Lord!

While they were in town they helped alot with the church. Mrs. H helped Grace shop for some new decorations for the springtime of our church. Of course, Bro Tom and I went and had some coffee while the woman shopped. They worked so hard on finding things within our budget and then putting things together and decorating the church after shopping all day. Once it was completed with the project it looked trememendous! There were some good compliments at the first service after the new decorations were up and rightly so.