An Interesting Week

This week was far from normal for us at Grace Baptist Church. We had a foot of snow fall back on Tuesday and was unable to get things cleaned out by Wednesday. So because of the snow and wind chil values near twenty below, we called off church that evening. Now for those who live in the Minnesota, Wisconsin part of the United States would say, "Man that's nothing compared to what we get!" I would agree with that thought but that much snow and that cold of temperatures is not normal for us.

But things really got interesting Saturday. That morning following the men's breakfast at a local restaurant, I was headed into the auditorium to turn on heat to get things warmed up so I could clean. Right before I walked into the auditorium, I realized I smelled chlorine. Upon further investigation I found a water pipe had broke down in what I call our dungeon. It is were our furnances are. To make a long story short, there was nearly five feet of water in the "dungeon" and nearly a foot of water in our basement/fellowship hall. We had the electric turned off to the building because the breakers to those units were under water. We were able to pump all the water out of the church (Took about 6 hours worth of work total.)

I was so thankful though that we were able to get a hold of the city and got access to the community center and we were still able to meet and have our 11 o'clock service there. We are waiting to see what the insurance company tells us we need to do. We will not be able to get back into the building until the furnaces get looked at. All in all though, God is in control. We still had 41 show up at the community center for church. We were missing 15 to 20 people so it was still a good attendance.

As I told the church, God is in control. He knows why this has occurred and there is no need to worry about anything. It's always an encouragment to those who know Christ as Saviour to remember that no matter what we have going on in our lives, God is still God and we still have Christ as our Saviour.

On another note, I found it sad that out of the 12 to 14 churches in town that only 1 was holding an actual service tonight. I didn't feel right sitting home, but I couldn't find a church to attend tonight b/c of the Super Bowl. It's sad how many Christians today find sports more important than God. Oh well, we will just keep serving God and looking for His return.

In His Service,

Pastor Richard Perkins