Wednesday Wedding Bells

This afternoon I had the fun opportunity to officiate the wedding of my friends Ammar & Lina Salameh. It was a very simple ceremony done in their living room with Melissa and the near by neighbor Fariba Kazemi as witnesses.

Afterwards we had some cake and champagne while looking at recent pictures of the happy couple.
You may recall back in April I attended the swearing in ceremony of my volleyball friend Ammar becoming a United States citizen. Well now he and his sweetheart Lina are married and starting a new life together here in Columbus.

Looking forward to Thanksgiving

Most of the 14 years Melissa & I have been married we've spent Thanksgiving with the Wallenmeyer's. Her sister Marcie married one of our classmates named Michael from Moody Bible Institute and voila...we're family. Last year the entire Holman crew got together in West Virginia at a huge cabin in the woods. That's their family pic. from the weekend.
I look forward to seeing them partly b/c we have so much history together and partly b/c Michael is so stink'n funny. His funny is the dry type of humor. The kind where he can tell a joke or say something really funny and not even crack a smile himself. I think to most people Michael comes off initially as a more serious and studious guy but he's a real cut up. Anyway, they're coming here in 12 days and I can't wait.

Orphan Sunday follow-up and next week

Here's a couple things to note from this past Sunday's service:

*Sheila Persall spoke about God's heart for the orphan and updated us on the needs in Cruz Blanca, Guatemala for child sponsorship

*eight more children were chosen to be sponsored by Encounter Church people bringing our number 23

*Laurie Elsass let everyone know about our mission trip to Guatemala next July 20-27

*many people signed up for it

This coming Sunday we're back to our series in the book of Proverbs called, "Making Life Work". This week is titled, "Choose Friends Wisely".

We will also be commissioning our missionaries Mike & Emily McCaman to go to Mexico City. They are joining a team of people committed to planting churches in Mexico, and Central & South America.

These last few weeks have been quite exciting on Sunday mornings. Checkout the website for messages on loving people, being generous, and God's heart about orphans.

Orphan Sunday

Tomorrow is Orphan Sunday, a day to be challenged about what we as Christ followers are doing to defend and care for orphans.
During the service Sheila Persall is going to share about the children our people have already sponsored in the village of Cruz Blanca, Guatemala and others that still need sponsorship. Then Laurie Elsass is announcing the mission trip opportunity for next summer with VisionTrust. My good friend Matt Storer is the president of Vision Trust and preached at Encounter this past June. He sent a video greeting to our church this week while in Liberia. I'll be showing it and one or two other videos during the service.

Encounter Church gives

In yesterdays blog entry I said I'd tell you what our November 1st offering was b/c we're giving it all away to Grace Brethren International Missions (GBIM).

Before I tell you I wanted to let you know how the morning went. As I told you yesterday my friend Rob Comfort was going to co-preach with me. As it turns out when we connected this morning before the service I saw how much he had prepared and felt like I should just hand over most of the service to him. So I opened the morning up with some verses out of Proverbs and some general statements about being generous and then brought Rob up to interview him. After five questions I sat down and Rob spoke humbly from his heart about how essential biblical giving is. You did a great job Rob! If you'd like to hear the message CLICK HERE.

Now before I tell you this amount I'd like to preface it with this:

*I'm not telling you to brag about how great Encounter Church is

*I'm not telling you so you can figure out how much our new church is bringing in weekly

*I'm not telling you so other partnering churches can feel better or worse depending on what they gave

I am telling you so that you can celebrate what God is doing through His people at Encounter.

To God's glory we are sending a check for $5,863.00 to GBIM.