Church Attendance

[Edwin]

Yesterday, Pastor Zaldy and his wife visit me here in the station. Since i was not able to attend church since i started to attend sunday class. Nice to talk to a pastor and his wife who has concern about spiritual life to us, their sheep.

That is really special that Pastor Zaldy and his wife visited you there, and it is great that they are concerned!

We are visiting one of our twin daughters and her family here near Spokane, so we will be going to church with them at Cheney Community Church in the morning. Their church starts about 10 a.m. They have donuts and coffee there that people eat as they are going into church. I usually eat part of a maple bar and part of an apple fritter. Then the church service happens. We are praying for you grandson who is trying out for a worship leader position in an Assembly of God church on the East Coast. It is always fun to go to church with the kids!

[Edwin]

Well, we were 3 hours away visiting our kids, and we came home a little early, partially because Carol didn't take enough medications with her to stay longer, and partially so that we could be at our church. But guess what? We missed church anyway. Sometimes those things happen. We got up and our daughter her invited us to come each breakfast with them as our grandson was there for a short visit. We did, and our daughter suggested we were still going to church, but they drive faster than I do, and they no doubt could have made it, but I couldn't as the roads are rocks, dirt, and gravel, adn they are too rough for fast driving. There would have been about 35 minutes to get there, and it takes me about an hour to drive that distance. Later in the afternoon I played church hymns/songs on the piano, so it was almost like being in church. We will probably get there next week.

[Edwin]

We went to church this morning. I think the dog wondered where we were at and why we were gone so long. It was a good service, and the minister had a good message as he always does.To my way of thinking there were too many guitars and no one playing the piano, but then that is just me. I look and see a number of very good pianists in the congregation and wonder why no one is playing the piano. Not everyone has my tastes I guess. We went to a house after church, and I changed a service line, and service valve for a toilet. It was supposed to be a really quick job, but by the time I turned the water off, turned the hot water heater off, took the valve off, went 3 miles to ACE to can another valve and service line, came back, put them on, turned everything back on, checked for leaks, and that all took almost 2 hours. We went to eat at KFC afterwards, saw some of our friends from long ago. They came from another town for the Orchestra's Christmas Concert. She played a violin, and I used to play with them, trombone, but I haven't gotten back to it yet, and whether I will or not remains to be seen. Then we came home, I sawed some wood for the stove, and now I am doing this. I will probably play the piano in a minute. Playing church songs on the piano is my enjoyment. It is uplifting!

[Edwin]

Church attendance has been a big thing for us. Of course for about half my adult life I was the pastor or the associate pastor of the church. I taught adult Bible class in Sunday school. Carol was the Sunday school superintendent for many years. I played my trombone in the church orchestra, and Carol and I both sang, sometimes duets, trios, or quartets, and sometimes solos. Many times it was my position to deliver the message, preach the sermon, and often times it was my responsibility to take care of the mid week Bible study. We got into a fairly serious disagreement with the pastor when I was the associate with all these responsibilities. This guy was our friend from many years; in fact he got Carol and I together almost 45 years ago. We were not the only ones that had problems with him. Sadly most of the church emptied out because of things he did; well, that's all I'm going to say about that. He brought in a group into the church to share our services that we considered to have false doctrine. So we changed to another church in town; a Free Methodist Church. Where we moved they had the same false doctrine, so some of us started our own church group. Then when we moved back here we had Bible studies with our kids. We did that for 3 years, and our kids got mad at us over some really stupid things. Well, everything is fine now, but because of the hard feelings we stopped having the Bible Studies. So, about a year later we started going to this same church we were attending 15 years ago. We have enjoyed attending, and the people are wonderful. We have a very small difference in the way we believe the Bible, but close enough to the same belief to fellowship with them. We missed last Sunday as it was Chistmas and our kids don't attend church. They got offended at this same church, so they have not gone back since, but we are going and loving it. We will be back for another Sunday service in 2 more days, and looking forward to it. There is nothing like fellowshipping with other Christians and worshipping with them.

[Edwin]

Normally we have 2 church services every Sunday at the church we attend. When we attended this church 18 years ago the first service was designated as traditional. Basically that meant that in that particular church service they used the old church hymns/songs in the church service. That service was attended by more older people than what they called their contemporary church service. The contemporary church service had more chorus type singing that used more guitars, drums, and the sound level was too loud for many people and the style of the music was geared to younger people. Needless to say we enjoyed the traditional service more, so that is the one we attended. Sometime while we lived out of this area they did away with the traditional service, and went to, 2 identical services which were more contemporary in their style. We have not been completely happy with the change, but we are still attending and making the best of it. We would be much happier with a mix of mostly church hymns/songs, and a lesser number of contemporary type music. Because both Christmas and New Years falls on Sunday they elected to have only one service instead of 2. We normally attend the later service because it is difficult for Carol to get out of bed and get ready for church, and then it takes us an hour to get there. Last Sunday being Christmas we had family that wanted us to be with them, and they don't go to church, so we stayed with them. Tomorrow we are going to church, only we have to go an hour earlier than we normally do because of there being only one church service. This being New Year's Eve, the tradition is to stay up until after midnight, seeing the old year out and the new year in. I am only about an hour away from that, so I think I will stay up. If it were not New Year's Eve I would probably go to bed a few minutes early as we have to leave an hour earlier for church than we normally do.

[Edwin]

Well, we didn't make it to church as we had planned and hoped. Somehow Carol came down with a cold. She thinks our granddaughter kissed her on the lips when the granddaughter was sick. She doesn't know for sure that's the cause, but anyway Carol was not feeling well enough to go. She thought it was going into her lungs, but Carol is feeling better tonight, althought not one hundred percent yet. She sees the doctor tomorrow. Her pancreas is evidently not producing any insulin, and the nurse thinks her cells are resistant to insulin, so her blood glucose readings are constantly high inspite of taking medication and insulin. So, hopefully the doctor and nurse will figure out something for her. It is a strange situation because I think the nurse knows more about diabetes than the doctor, as that is her specialty. We will hope that Carol is recovered by next Sunday, and we can go to church then.

[Edwin]

Well, this is an older reoccuring story by now. Carol was not feeling well this morning, so we didn't go to church. With her it is really not just an excuse because all of our married life she has been the one pushing to go to church, but she just does not feel well a lot of the time. One of our granddaughter's kissed her when the granddaughter was sick; that is what she is saying anyway, and I'm not sure because she kissed me too, what can I say; she loves us. Well, Carol got this cold type sickness, and she is getting better, but she is not competely over it yet. Carol is also stuggling with increased problems with her diabetes. They have her up to 40 insulin, and they have increased her metphormin to the max, and her blood glucose reading are still in the 300s and into the 400s at times. The doctor and nurse are still trying to figure out a solution. So far their solution is to increase the amount of insulin and the other medication to the max, but it is not taking care of the problem. Her doctor told her that if they can't get it controled she will send her to a specialist to see what else can be done. The doctor said that she may have to go to taking insulin multiple times a day. We will see what happens anyway. Last night Carol said that we are going to church, but this morning she was not well enough to go. The Lord knows anyway. So I am playing church songs/hymns on the piano, so in a way we are having church!

[Edwin]

After missing 2 Sundays of going to church, we did attend this last Sunday, day before yesterday. Two different Sundays Carol didn't feel well enough to go to church, so we stayed home, and I played the piano. But it was nice this past Sunday to be able to go, and it was a good service. We got back in time to walk the doggies, so that was nice too, and they appreciated that!

[Edwin]

We are planning to make the run down off the mountain to attend church tomorrow. You who are in the Philippines have already gotten out of church as it is about 2 p.m., Sunday afternoon in the Philippines, but here it is still Saturday evening at about 11 p.m. This time of the year we never know about the changing weather conditions. It has been so cold lately, like -16 Celcius, and much colder than that with the wind chill factor. I elected not to walk as I have been doing because it has been bitterly cold; not just miserable, but even life threatening. I probably would make it back to the house without freezing to death, but I certainly could not do my normal walking routine, and even just walking the quarter mile to the mail box is a challenge when it is that cold and the wind blows. So if it does not slow deeply, and if the wind does not blow hard we will probably go to church, as Carol is feeling better lately, so I don't forsee that stopping us, but you never know. It always feels good to go to church on Sunday whenever possible.

[Edwin]

Well, this seems to be a regular scenerio. I write say we are going to church tomorrow, and I really do look forward to it. Carol wants to go, and intends to go the night before, but when morning comes it is a different story. I don't push her because she doesn't feel well a lot, and for all the years that she pushed hard for us to attend church, now things have changed. When morning came I asked her if we were going to church, and she was not very enthusiastic, but just laid in bed, so I let continue laying in bed. When she did get up she talked about how guilty she felt for not going to church, but she said that she did not sleep well, so maybe next Sunday, who knows!