People At The Podium

The next few posts are some pictures from IHC this year. I've divided them up by category (somewhat).
Check back in the next few days. I'll try to post some more random pics.
If you want to see more pics from our trip, check out The Happy Pastor here.
Here are a few pictures of the people who were behind the podium(s) at IHC this year.
Rev. Paul Kauffman - what a message!

Ron Coleman - Patriotic Service
Travis Johnson - Time Of Discovery - This may be when he was doing his "Top 10 Pick-Up Lines That Guys Shouldn't Use."

The one and only - Jim Plank

Outstanding Leader - Leonard Sankey

Song leader - Paul Gray

The Offering Taker Uppers

For the first time in a long time, they actually met their goal of how much money they needed to pay for the convention.
Here are some pictures of the different people that took of the offerings.
Marcus Doddrill - On the first night of convention, he raised something like $11,000.
Jim Plank and Mark Cravens - what a pair! They (with some help) raised around $30,000 the second night of the convention.

Don Bates - he was taking up the offering when they went over the needed $50,000 for the convention. Praise The Lord! There were some happy people that night!

IHC Music

Here are a few pictures to give you an idea of some of the music that we heard at IHC this year.
Aaron McCarty
Patriotic service quartet

The Cassadys

Penn View Quartet

Of course, one of the music highlights is always the Mass Choir.

Some Of Our Friends

Out of the thousands of people that we saw at IHC, there were actually some that we consider to be our friends.
One of the highlights of the trip was finally getting to meet Gene & Angie Davis and the boys!
The Blog King himself - you'll have to ask Angie Davis what her reaction was when Joel walked up!

Tim Calhoun - just as he was telling Dad about how he was trying to sneak a picture of him but couldn't, I walked up and took his picture. What's so hard about that?!

This is Brenda - she took care of the breakfast at our hotel. We had a lot of fun with her. She gave Mom a couple hugs and told her how sorry she felt for her because of Dad & I. I wouldn't know why she would say something like that!

Our Gang!

We had quite an assortment of people on our bus this year.
From the very young (Clayton Plank - who we hardly heard anything out of) . . .
. . . to the not so young (Thelma Rine & Esther Maneval) . . .

. . . to a preacher and his wife from the Turks & Caicas Islands (Martin & Darlene Hanfield) . . .

. . . to the newlyweds (Bill & Alyssa Peters).

This is just a sampling of the mixture that we had!

A Different Object Lesson

Dad did an object lesson at church last night. He got Mom to help him and they used a recipe for chocolate chip-walnut cookies. As Mom would read the ingredient from the recipe, Dad would hand it to her - or at least his interpretation of that ingredient. This led to some very interesting substitutions!
His point was how some people put their own interpretation on how things should be as well as things in the Bible.
The table of utensils.
The two bakers ready to go to work.

Adding the soda - what difference does it make whether it's baking soda or 7-up?!

Adding the chocolate chips - who says they couldn't be in ready made cookies?!

And here's the finished "batter" - ready to be baked!

Some of the other "ingredients" were - flowers instead of flour; white chocolate for the vanilla; peanut M&Ms for the walnuts; sawdust for the brown sugar; rock salt for the sugar; cocoa butter for the butter; two eggs (in the shell) for the eggs - the recipe said "two eggs" not just the insides!

For some reason, no one wanted any cookies when he was done!

Thanks For Dropping In!

God Is Great!

In case you're wondering what this picture is - it is a lot of 71 books by Zane Grey and one about Zane Grey. Now, you may be wondering what the title of this post has to do with a bunch of Zane Grey books! Well, keep reading and I'll try to explain. Before I go any further though, please understand that I am not telling this story to brag on myself, but to praise God for a blessing and His faithfulness.
As you know if you read my Dad's blog - The Happy Pastor - he likes to buy books and resell them on Ebay. I sell stuff on Ebay from time to time myself, but I sell pretty much anything and everything - within reason of course!
A few weeks ago, we were at an auction where they had a large amount of books - about 88 boxes to be exact! I bought these two boxes of Zane Grey books because I thought they looked like I might be able to sell them. I brought them home and they've been setting here. About a week and a half ago, Dad started encouraging me to list them on Ebay, so I got them out and started typing up a list of the titles.
I noticed that the back cover was sort of bulging on the one book, so I checked it out to see if it was damaged. It wasn't - instead, there, inside the back cover was a bank envelope with $403.00 cash in it!
Again, without bragging, I can say that there really wasn't a question of what to do with the money. Dad got in contact with the people that the books belonged to and returned it to them. They were quite surprised as you can probably imagine!
A couple days later, a card from these people came in the mail. Inside the card was $40.00! I said to Mom, "You know something about that money?" She said, "It's the tithe on what you found?" I said, "That's not what I was thinking. What I was thinking was, that's how much I paid for those two boxes of books!" Talk about a blessing!
But, the story continues.
I went ahead and listed those books on Ebay last week. They got a bid pretty quick, but they didn't really do anything spectacular. They went up yesterday, the last day they were on (the auction ended yesterday evening) - nothing real big, but I was satisfied. When we clicked the "Refresh" button the last time, there were shouts, there was a "Hallelujah" and there was three very happy people in this room.
Final sale price - $258.87! - and I already got the notice that the payment is pending!
Who says that honesty doesn't pay?!
God is Great!
God is Faithful!
Thanks For Dropping In!

The Storm

This is something that I recently received in an e-mail. It is a little lengthy, but is well worth reading. It was a great encouragement to me - I trust it will encourage someone else as well.

A pastor had been on a long flight from one place to another. The first warning of the approaching problems came when the sign on the airplane flashed on: Fasten your seat belts. Then, after a while, a calm voice said, "We shall not be serving the beverages at this time as we are expecting a little turbulence. Please be sure your seat belt is fastened."
As he looked around the aircraft, it became obvious that many of the passengers were becoming apprehensive. Later, the voice of the announcer said, "We are so sorry that we are unable to serve the meal at this time. The turbulence is still ahead of us."
And then the storm broke. The ominous cracks of thunder could be heard even above the roar of the engines. Lightning lit up the darkening skies, and within moments that great plane was like a cork tossed around on a celestial ocean. One moment the airplane was lifted on terrific currents of air; the next, it dropped as if it were about to crash.
The pastor confessed that he shared the discomfort and fear of those around him. He said, "As I looked around the plane, I could see that nearly all the passengers were upset and alarmed. Some were praying. The future seemed ominous and many were wondering if they would make it through the storm.
"Then, I suddenly saw a little girl. Apparently the storm meant nothing to her. She had tucked her feet beneath her as she sat on her seat; she was reading a book and everything within her small world was calm and orderly.
"Sometimes she closed her eyes, then she would read again; then she would straighten her legs, but worry and fear were not in her world. When the plane was being buffeted by the terrible storm when it lurched this way and that, as it rose and fell with frightening severity, when all the adults were scared half to death, that marvelous child was completely composed and unafraid." The minister could hardly believe his eyes.
It was not surprising therefore, that when the plane finally reached its destination and all the passengers were hurrying to disembark, our pastor lingered to speak to the girl whom he had watched for such a long time. Having commented about the storm and behavior of the plane, he asked why she had not been afraid.
The child replied, "Cause my daddy's the pilot, and he's taking me home."
Let us remember: Our Father is the Pilot. He is in control and taking us home. Don't worry.

HE IS RISEN!

This morning, Dad and I were at an Easter sunrise service on top of Jack's Mountain. Dad had been asked to speak, so away we went. Dad thinks it was the shortest message he ever gave. Before he started, I told him to remember the five Bs of public speaking - Be Brief Brother Be Brief - he was!
In case you're wondering - yes, it was extremely cold up there!
There was actually a pretty good group of people there. It was a very ecumenical gathering: A Brethren-In-Christ pastor was in charge, a God's Missionary pastor spoke, a Methodist pastor prayed, and there were Mennonite people in attendance, and these are just the ones that I know about!
This is the sunrise that we were privileged to see during the service.
Here is the crowd of 43 people listening to my favorite pastor speak - very briefly - about Christ's resurrection.

Thanks For Dropping In!

A Good Evening

This evening, we attended the annual drama presented by the Mifflin County Home Schoolers. This year's was titled Bridge of Blood. It was the story of the five missionaries who gave their lives for the Auca Indians in Ecuador.
It is a great play with a great message and they did a great job presenting it!

Miriam Shuell (usually known as Angela Sickler) giving her testimony
The missionaries' wives talking

Pete Fleming (also known as Adam Sickler) and his wife

All of the missionaries and their wives - from left to right - Jim Elliot, Ed McCully, Nate Saint, Pete Fleming, Roger Youderian

Thanks For Dropping In!

Scenes In Church

I thought I would put a post on here of some of what goes on during the course of a typical service at our church. These pictures weren't all taken during the same service, but on average, this is what takes place.
Please excuse the quality of some of the pictures - I had the wrong setting on the camera for a couple of them!
Steve Aurand leading the service
Offertory music

Special music

More special music

A great message from our pastor - my Dad

Checking out the bulletin board at the back of the church.

Fellowship after the service.

Thanks For Dropping In!

New Camera!

I just got a new camera this past week!
This picture isn't my actual camera, but this is the kind that I got. So far, so good - I'm happy with it!
Hopefully, this will be an inspiration to do some more posting on here.
Thanks For Dropping In!

Just A Note

This is just a short post to let you know (if there's anyone that actually reads this!) that I haven't forgotten about this blog. Things have been kind of goofy for the past few weeks. Maybe I'll blog about some of it sometime - maybe not!
I'll try to get something else on here shortly.
Thanks For Dropping In!

Something For The Scrapbookers

Here's something for all of the scrapbookers and / or cardmakers out there - or maybe it's for their husbands!
I'm not trying to offend anyone with this, but I read this recently and got a laugh out of it and I thought someone else might too!

She learned to stamp on Monday;
Her embossing was quite fine;
But she forgot to thaw out dinner,
So we went out to dine.
She did backgrounds on Tuesday,
She says they are a must;
They really are quite lovely,
But she forgot to dust.
On Wednesday it was birthday cards,
She says that chalking is fun;
Shading, blending and water coloring,
But the laundry was not done.
Her card swap was Thursday,
Using green, blue and red;
I guess she really was engrossed,
But she never made the bed.
It was shaker cards on Friday,
Using techniques she just adores;
Bet she never seemed to notice,
The crumbs on all the floors.
I found a maid on Saturday,
My life is now complete;
My wife can stamp the house away,
The house will still be neat.
Well, ‘tis already Sunday,
And my forehead is feeling damp;
I fumed, I raved, I ranted,
The maid has learned to stamp!

Thanks For Dropping In!

You Never Know!

You never know when I'm going to show up on here!
After Christmas, I guess there just wasn't anything going on that I considered bloggable (is that a word?).
We had a great Christmas - we managed to spread it out quite a bit!
Now, I guess you could say that we've settled back into our normal routines - Mom got some of her scrapbooking supplies organized in her new storage unit. Dad built a set of shelves in the basement, so now we have some more storage space. I've been trying to do some organizing myself besides working my regular job.
We went to an auction today for a little while. We didn't get a whole lot - the stuff was going pretty high. Among my purchases was a box of cassette tapes - it looks like I got some pretty good ones there.
You may also be happy to know that I've removed the Christmas songs from the music player at the side of my blog and I rearranged the other ones!
Thanks For Dropping In!

IT'S CHRISTMAS!

I just wanted to share my contribution to the Christmas decorating as a way of wishing everyone out there a very Merry Christmas!
Here is part of my collection of light up buildings. I actually just got these a few weeks ago.

This one has a light in it too, but for some reason, it didn't get plugged in. It also has a music box in it.

Merry Christmas!

Thanks For Dropping In!

Christmas Program

Last night was our annual Christmas program at church. Below are a couple pictures that I took.
Please excuse the quality (or lack thereof) - I have trouble taking zoom pictures with my camera.
The wind trio - at this time, they were singing, not blowing!
Our resident string trio along with "Mary" holding the baby.

Lights In The Park

For a couple weeks around Christmas this year, some people decorated the one park close to Lewistown. There are quite a few lights there. Mom, Dad and I went out last night to see it. It's really nice.
Here is the nativity scene that they had.
It doesn't show up the greatest here, but I thought this flag was nice.

There was even a "sailboat" there. No, there's not a fire in the boat - those are lights!

Mom & Dad under the arch coming out of the park

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Thanks For Dropping In!