Senior Adult and Education News

Day trip for June is to Mississippi Baking Company, Thursday, June 21. We will leave the church at 9:00 am. The tour begins at 10. We will eat lunch at Dukes Restaurant in Pelahatchie and then return. (We had scheduled it for Monday, June 18, but they have discontinued Monday tours, since we scheduled the trip.) 

Please note changes! The Take a Vet to Lunch Day scheduled for July 3 will be rescheduled for the fall. New Jerusalem is using the East Room and Kitchen every week day this summer.

Likewise, the Intercessory Prayer Luncheon scheduled for July 17 is also being rescheduled.

We will let you know when these dates are reset.

Since the Fourth of July occurs on Wednesday next month, the church offices are closed for the holiday and there will be no activities that day.

If you are at home on Sunday mornings and can’t come to church, I encourage you to be a part of an Alta Woods Sunday School class on the telephone. We begin at 10 am and finish at 10:30. It is a conference call and you can hear and talk to others who call in. Several have participated through the years. There is no cost to you. If you are interested, call the church office or call me and I will give you the number to call on Sunday morning. I teach most Sundays, Del Slone teaches on 3rd Sundays. 

We still have our Wednesday morning Prayer meetings each week at 11:00 am. You are welcome to come. Several of our folks come because they no longer drive in the evenings. But I think that since we have been doing this, the group has become more like a family of close friends and there is much love in the room.  Come join us if you can.

I can’t let Father’s Day pass without thanking the Lord for the best dad ever.

I was so blessed to have one of the finest Christian dads in the world.  As a young boy, I saw my dad invite Jesus into his life and Jesus changed him completely. I had the privilege of seeing Dad baptized in the baptistery at FBC, Suffolk, VA where the baptismal pool was under the floor under the pulpit. I had to run to the front of the church to see it because I was too small to see it from where we sat in church. 

I well remember that when I turned 12, my dad took me to my uncle’s grocery store where he had a bicycle hanging on the wall. It had heavy duty spokes and a large basket on the front. He told my uncle that he wanted it. Then Dad said, now we are going to get you a job to pay for your bicycle. We went to the newspaper office and dad told them I wanted a paper route. Turns out there was one available, don’t know how Dad knew that.  So at 12 I began my work life and have been working ever since. Yes, I did pay off the bicycle at $5 a month.  

Dad experienced a deep spiritual change in his life. He quit drinking immediately. Began attending church regularly, joined the men who smoked outside the building before Sunday School every week, drove the church bus to pick up people for church early, rain or shine, hot or cold. He took me with him. Realizing it was hypocritical for him to smoke and tell me not to, he quit... several times.  Then one Saturday, he came home and said the Lord and I quit today.  Cold turkey. Never smoked again.  He began to read his Bible every day, participated in teams of men who cleared land for mission churches started by our church, and took me with him to help. Eventually he started teaching a Sunday School class of 9-10 year old junior boys. I was in his class one year. He was an excellent teacher.  He only finished the 5th or 6th grade because he had to work on the farm while his older brothers went into WWII, but he knew his Bible.  He began to go visiting for the church on Thursday nights and leading people to faith in Jesus with his soul-winner’s New Testament and he took me with him. (I still have that testament.) He witnessed to the men at work telling them they needed to trust Jesus as their Savior.

Dad worked 5 ½ days every week and was paid by cash in a little brown envelope.  Mom laid out the money for the church first and then managed to make the rest of it go around.

He had bad varicose veins in his legs and had surgery when I was young. I don't think he could join the service because of that. He went to work everyday with his legs wrapped up in ace bandage wrappings, heavy support stockings, high top socks, and work boots that came up his legs. When he came home in the afternoons, his legs were as red as tomatoes, but he never complained. He did that everyday because he loved his wife and children and was committed to do whatever it took to earn a living for us.  

He never made much money (rented all his life), but gave us things money couldn’t buy... genuine love, godly wisdom, example of real humility, happiness and smiles, faithfulness, dedication to the Lord, hope for a better life than he had, peace at home, solid work ethic. He never bought us a car or a lot of stuff. But one Christmas he bought me a Lionel train that cost him most of a week’s paycheck. (I know because I have googled the price in 1953.)  We had limits, sternness and discipline regularly, when it called for it, which was most of the time for me., and I deserved it. 

All his life, he read his Bible every night, what an example! Whenever as a teenager I had a question, most of the time his answer was a verse of scripture. Most teenage boys think their ideas are right. Well, how can you argue with the Bible? That’s like arguing with God. 

If I could be half the Christian my dad was, then I will be OK.

So dear Lord, thank you for the wonderful gift of a loving Father. He was so much like you.

My daughter, Rebecca and her twins, Cooper and Caroline, will be with us for a couple of weeks.  We haven't seen them since Christmas and likely won't see them again until next Christmas.  My office schedule will be less regular for these days but I am on call to serve you whenever you need me.