Sunday we are having a pot-luck to welcome our new Youth Director and his wife so that means today I'm cooking like a crazy woman.  (I would do it tomorrow but we are at camp all day and with the 4 hours there and 4 hours back that doesn't give me a whole lot of time. )  The other reason I have to cook so much is that we always have a large number of people who come but don't bring food.  For some there are very good reasons, for some they just chose not to bring anything. On some levels this can be very frustrating but I think that there's a part of me that is glad that I can cook for people.  I really do like to cook for people and take care of them.  I love when I can put on nice table cloths and centerpieces and make people feel good because things look nice.  I also think that potlucks can be good object lessons in servanthood.  Maybe just maybe at some point there will be someone who decides to help the older lady with the walker get her food, maybe someone will decide to hang back and help clean-up, and maybe someone will decide at the next potluck they would like to prepare that special family dish just to feed someone who is hungry. 

Even though it's a lot of work I really do look forward to Corps family meals together.

In His strength,
Tammy

Yesterday was perhaps one of the best Sunday's we've had since we've moved to Waterloo.  If you were to walk in off the street you might not have realized that it was different from any other church meeting anywhere else that day, but it was.  There was this very subtle shift in attitude that change the entire tone of the meeting.  People just seemed a little happier to be together and I think that our congregation was beginning to catch just a glimmer of the Holy Spirit.  When people left they were talking about how good they felt, but they just didn't know why.    Praise God that He reveals Himself to us in ways that we can handle it.  Not every congregation is ready for a full blown, holy fire experience.  For some God chooses to put the curtain back just a tiny bit, and peek around hoping that someone will notice.  Today our people noticed!  It was beautiful to see and experience.

The evening Bible Study was also absolutely amazing!  There are a group of seven of us that meet every Sunday evening.  When we first told our congregation that we were going to start a Sunday evening Bible Study all we heard was, "It won't last." "Nobody will come."  We decided to forge ahead because this was something God laid on our hearts.  We are now on our second study.  The first was a 5 week study on the Christmas story and now we're doing a study on worship.  I love Sunday night, it is probably my favorite time of the week.  We have seven people gathered together who are hungry for God's word and who are growing.  It doesn't get any better than that.  We started talking about what to study next and someone brought up Revelation.  Hurray for people who want to dig deep!

This may not seem like much progress to most people but let me tell you right now God is moving a mountain in Waterloo! 

In His strength,
Tammy