Pittsburgh District--The Rest of the Story

We finished out the week on the Pittsburgh with services every night and 2 on Sunday. We continued to meet great people, and to have a great time sharing with caring, involved Nazarenes in all the churches.

In Coraopolis we met Pastor Ron and Joan Keller. A member of this congregation is Lenny Baun, who is the district Work and Witness coordinator, and has led many teams to places all around the world.

Friday evening we were at West Mifflin Terrace, a lively, culturally-diverse body pastored by Peter Roy, who is pictured with his wife Sherry.


Uniontown CoN is a church taking seriously Christ's command to go, in their own community. The service included a group of kids from extremely "disadvantaged circumstances." One of these kids was baptised on Easter Sunday! They are finding love in no other part of their lives, except from Pastor Howard and Kathy Foust and the people of the church.

Sunday morning we were with Pastor Roger Diehl and the people of Allison CoN. It was a joy to worship with them, and to tell our story to a responsive congregation. The photo is of Pastor Diehl with his wife, Karen, and daughters Shae and Cassie.

For the evening service we traveled to Deer Lakes Community CoN, and had a great time with Pastor and Mrs. Richard Wise and the church there. A fun fact is that their future son-in-law was one of the young men in the team that came to PNG from Mt. Vernon Nazarene University last January. If you look back at the blogs from then, you could probably see him, if you only knew who you were looking for!

After the evening service, we picked up a rental car and drove east for a couple of hours, getting ready to visit Gettysburg the next morning. But that's a whole new story.

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Interesting Places, Gracious People

We're continuing on our deputation tour of the Pittsburgh District. Every church, every pastor every congregation is unique. Take, for instance, Pastor Gary Smith of Beaver Falls, a single dad who has raised 4 daughters. I met two of them, both really nice girls; I'm betting the other two are, too.

Or consider the Pine Run church in Freedom, PA. I'll remember the folks there for the laughter we shared before and after the service. Thanks, Pastor Burl Ward and all your folks there!

Or the New Brighton church. The unique feature there is the 77 year-old pastor who has the energy level of most 50 year-olds. Someone needs to sit down and explain the concept of retirement to Pastor Don and Ruth Ann MacNiel!

And then this evening we were at the Chartier's Creek church, which meets in the home of Pastor Skip and Jealean Irwin. This is a church that is finding a unique approach to reaching it's community, and it was fun to be with them.

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Pittsburgh District

This morning we spoke at the Lincoln Place Church of the Nazarene, in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania. For those of you who are familiar with the history of our denomination, this church was part of the Association of Pentecostal Churches of America, one of the three groups that merged to form what is now the Church of the Nazarene in 1908. They were organized and completed their building in 1887, so they pre-dated the CoN by 11 years. Of special interest, they believe that they are the only surviving congregation of the APCA that still is using their original building.

They currently are a lively, thriving, growing body. We had a great time with Pastor Joe Stump and his congregation this morning.

Then in the evening, we were at the Beaver Falls, PA church. We enjoyed the fellowship of this congregation. Some former New Tribes Missionaries from PNG attended the service, since they had seen an announcement about our being from PNG. They served at the NTM base in Goroka for many years, working in the print shop. After the service we ate at a place called Eat n Park with Pastor Gary Smith and several people from the congregation.

We are staying in a beautiful bed and breakfast inn, operated by a retired history prof from near-by Geneva College.

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On The Road

Just to let you all know that we are in Pittsburgh, PA. We are starting a deputation tour here in the morning.

Getting here was not simple. When we got to the airport this AM, I discovered that I didn't have my required photo ID. Since one of us needed to be in Pittsburgh for the service in the morning, Judy boarded the flight, and I waited for my brother-in-law to drive back to our apartment and get the wallet. By the time he got it to me, I missed the flight. Everyone at Northwest Airlines was very nice, and got me on a later flight. Despite some uncertainty, I caught up with Judy at our hotel at about 11PM. She had some wonderful barbecue wings and sandwiches waiting for me.

Sorry, no photos!

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Altogether Now

This past Thursday evening, we attended No Greater Love, the Easter musical presented by First Church of the Nazarene here in Nampa. This is the 30th year they have done this massive production. My great nephew, Bobby Ellis was one of the children that the people brought to Jesus. It was, as always, a great job of telling the most important story in history.

After the production we all come over to our apartment for food. It's the first time we've all been together at once for a while. Drew and Andrea, Amy, Sam, Aunt Jacquie (Judy's sister) and Judy and me. Fun!

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Deputation Schedule (partial)

In the following, all churches are Churches of the Nazarene (e.g., Lincoln Park Church of the Nazarene) except as otherwise noted.

Pennsylvania:
AM Sun, Apr 19, 09 Lincoln Place
PM Beaver Falls
Mon, Apr 20, 09 Freedom Pine Run
Tue, Apr 21, 09 New Brighton
Wed, Apr 22, 09 Chartier’s Creek Community
Thu, Apr 23, 09 Coraopolis
Fri, Apr 24, 09 West Mifflin Terrace
Sat, Apr 25, 09 Uniontown
AM Sun, Apr 26, 09 Allison
PM Deer Lakes Community
Mon, Apr 27, 09 Travel
Tue, Apr 28, 09 Travel


Indiana:
Wed, Apr 29, 09 Avon Parkside
Thu, Apr 30, 09 United Community
Fri, May 1, 09 OPEN
Sat, May 2, 09 Stringtown
AM Sun, May 3, 09 Stringtown
PM Grace Pointe
Mon, May 4, 09 OPEN
Tue, May 5, 09 OPEN
Wed, May 6, 09 Harvest Point at Greenwood
AM Thu, May 7, 09 Westside Christian School
PM Spiceland
Fri, May 8, 09 Greensburg Community
Sat, May 9, 09 OPEN
AM Sun, May 10, 09 North Vernon
PM Westside

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Lingering Memories

I couldn't resist leaving you with one more image of Orcas Island. This is the view from the living and dining rooms and from our bedroom. It changes constantly with the weather and the time of day. We could see the ferries coming in and out (the dock is just below us and to the left). Every room in the house has a view of something nice--trees, rocks, sea or sky. Rabbits scamper (scamper is something that rabbits do well) in the yard, and occasionally deer wander by.

The house is a 15-minute drive from East Sound, a village with nice shops full of artsy stuff that we can't afford but like to look at, and restaurants that range from basic fish-and-chips to high-end gourmet. Another 10 minutes takes you to Rosaria Resort, which sadly is no longer operating as a resort. On this former estate, the main building is a 100-year-old mansion, which is now open to the public just to look around. The current occupant is a musician named Christopher Peacock, who on Saturday evenings gives a concert in the house's music room. This is a 2-story high room with a 1900 Steinway and a pipe organ. I'll throw in a slightly under-exposed photo of that, too.

So, thanks Mark and Elizabeth for a wonderful week in your beautiful house!

So, we're back in Nampa, and have a fairly quiet week ahead getting ready for a trip "back
East" to Pennsylvania and Indiana.

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Promised Photos

So, we've had a wonderful time over the past few days getting acquainted with Cherith. As you can see, she's beautiful, and you can take it from me that she's brilliant!

The weather in Western Washingtion is cloudy and rainy (surprise, surprise!), with the photo below an exception, but we've had fun with indoor activities.



We'll be here on Orcas for a few more days, and I'll try to get something posted once or twice before we leave. We'll be back in Nampa for about 2 weeks before leaving for a speaking tour of Western Pennsylvania.

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Another Kind of Paradise

At the moment we're on Orcas Island, in the San Juan Islands in Washington's Puget Sound. We are staying in a house owned by friends and graciously made available for our use. We are with my sister Cammi and her husband Denny Ellis, Judy's sister Jacquie Hunt, and our daughter Amy. We have had Brad and Nikolai Ballin (MAF missionaries who have served in PNG and Australia, and who are returning to PNG--Nilolai is from our home church), and little Cherith with us for the past 2 days, and have enjoyed them a lot.

It's cool and rainy, and we haven't gotten out much, but the quiet time at the house is wonderful. We've barbequed the last two evenings, and haven't lacked for delicious eating.

I've been taking photos, but we don't have internet at the house where we're staying, and I forgot to upload photos to the computer before I came down to the internet place, so I can't add any right now. I'll come down later and post a few.

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