God's Plans, Our Priority

Happy Birthday, Dear Church, Happy Birthday to you. Sunday, the 24th, was the 124th anniversary of our church. Since Brazilians love and cherish big blowout birthday celebrations, (and sometimes it is hard for me to remember HOW very important birthdays are to almost all Brazilians), our church was no exception. All month we've been celebrating. Our theme verse was Jeremiah 29:11, "God's Plans, Our Priority".
Saturday, the 23rd, we had an all day prayer meeting, from 6AM-6PM. It was a wonderful day of prayer. I really loved the day, although I missed a couple of hours, since I came home to do lunch and rest some. Every 30 minutes a different person leads the prayer/Bible reading/devotional/music. So it was very different every 30 minutes, as were the types of prayer and the prayer requests. I loved the whole day.
Sunday morning the church was packed, so the singing was inspired. We had a guest preacher who did a great job. There were a lot of decisions for re-dedication of lives.
Sunday night was the representation of the musical "Experience with God". The invites we used are the figure to the left. We had a goal of 200 visitors. There were many more. Very literally it was Standing Room Only at the church. We had a guest choir singing with our choir. The presentation was much more smooth this time than at Easter. I thoroughly enjoyed it. The message was very spiritual and meaningful. The multi-media presentation that accompanied it, added so very much. The children's choir also had a part and they, as usual, made everyone cry with the sweetness of the message. There were a number of decisions, and the church was well prepared to counsel the people. Afterwards it seems no one wanted to leave, although the service was quite long. I know we didn't get home until 10:30 and there were still people at church.
I am grateful to William Buck and Anna Bagby, who started this church with just themselves and two English ladies on August 24th, 1884. It must have been quite a battle for them. But their sacrifices were quite blessed.
Our anniversary offering was designated for the construction of the sanctuary of our congregation. Our goal is R$60,000 and I hope we reach that goal. We are about half-way there, I think. What a great birthday present! We also have the goal of sponsoring two more congregations over the next year or so. Right now we support our congregation, paying part of the pastor's salary. We also support, financially, another congregation not too far away.
Next year will be 125, so it should be quite a celebration. I'll let you know. Today I need to rest up from all the partying!