Sunday, December 20, 2015

Church Community

I've not written about church in a bit of time. Yes, we miss living faith in community. We DID continue our search for a church in Yuba City. We found one that "fits" us....they incorporate youth into their worship team, they are very welcoming, the worship is authentic, the preaching is solidly based in the Word - The Rivers Foursquare Church. We've been two or three weeks and all have decided we'll not look further. This will be our church until we move in March - and when we come back for UC Davis visits every 3 months. It has  made us very happy to find a place to worship.

And now......in Eugene, we have an abundance of "body life" opportunities.  Each of the girls attends a different church.  Sunday, we went to our "home church." I was dedicated in this church, came back here on "furloughs" while growing up, attended it in college, Michael did an internship at this church, BreAnne serves as Children's Pastor here, Mom and Dad have attended for eons and Dad is an elder....Calvary Open Bible.  I love, love, love worshiping with A.J. He combines talent with humility and he REACHES the throne of grace each and every time - it's amazing. The message was great too......Pastor Kirk has been talking about the Messiness of Christmas. He shared how sometimes we find ourselves in messes BECAUSE we are obedient to God's call. It was good to consider God's glory, affirmation and provision follows us into the mess. Blog readers are aware life is a bit messy for us right now. ::grin::

We went out to breakfast with Mom and Dad after service.  A group of friends from the church go out for breakfast each Sunday. That's community. Mom and Dad were willing to take a second table, rather than eat with their friends this week. ::grin::

Sunday night, we attended the Church-wide Christmas Party at Lively Stone Fellowship. Krista is an associate here and works  mostly with children and middle school kids. This is  a very welcoming body. There is something REAL and AUTHENTIC about the faith in this church. We always love the Sunday school and services here.  Pastor John and Francie are also Krista and Arielle's landlords. This allowed them to live in a very nice home at a price they can afford.

Here is proof that they were able to get Michael up on the platform....He and Krista (along with Melanie) act out Christmas song titles. 


"I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas," perplexed Michael and stumped many of us. 



The gift exchange was a lot of fun.......I scored a gift for my adopted CA grands.....
 




 We rounded out our day in Church with readings from Ishtar's Odyssey. We are RIGHT ON TRACK to finish Christmas Eve.



I think Yuuki likes Ishtar too. 
In the next weeks we'll visit Arielle's church - Eugene Japanese Baptist Church