I Call A Do Over!

Hello Emmanuel,

I'm back from vacation and I understand that Sunday services went ok?  Or should I ask?  Did Pastor Shawn scare away any visitors?  Did Joey jam too hard on the piano?  

Anyhow, I'm back from vacation and I wish I could say it was a good one.  A visit to the Urgent Care was only one moment of a week full of downsides.  The total bummer of the week, though, was with the Treadway family who lost their son Jack at 14 weeks.  It clearly was not a good week for many people.

On a much lighter note, the website is resurrected after being dead for ---longer than---3 days.  This is proof that new life is possible.  Sadly, not all issues are fixed as I am sending this MMP through my gmail.  Shawn helped me figure out all the techno stuff in order to make it happen.  So if he did scare anyone away Sunday, I'm calling it even.

I spent way too much time in bed with a 102.5 temperature and list of symptoms that I won't make you read.  I can only count a couple of times in my life when I actually asked myself the question, 'should I go to the hospital?'.  One was in 2000 when I had a needle imbedded in my foot.  The other was 3 days ago.  I'm feeling much better now, though.  One of the great things about bad vacations is that it helps you get excited about going back to work.  And I am always excited to work with all of you lovable people in any case.  So now I'm super-excited!

As I recover from a Winter I can't forget soon enough (have I wallowed enough yet?), I must be sure to celebrate with you the wonderful Easter that we had.  In addition to the 1,200 that showed up to the Community Easter Egg Hunt, we had 374 people worship together on Easter morning (an attendance record).  Many of them had free food.  AND we evidently had enough parking as there were 2 entire spots open during the 2nd service.  Most of all, we got to hear the story again:  Jesus is alive and because Jesus lives, you can live also...... starting right now.

So no matter how sick you might feel (like me) or how sad you might be (like the Treadways) or how broken you are (like the website), know that Easter still happens and new life is still present and promised.

Christ is Risen,
Pastor Joe