A WING AND A PRAYER....APRIL 15 2012.....

Crossing the Canadian Rockies the year we flew to Alaska

What are the first 2 things you think of -different movies, one a war story, one and one an  airplane disaster. 

I am not talking about either of these today.  I am talking about Church.  My Church.  It was quite a different Sunday, definitely not the norm.

It all started yesterday morning. Our Pastor, his wife and 18 other volunteers left for Joplin Missouri on their mission trip.  The weather forecasts for that area were horrendous.  I learned they arrived safely, but spent the night in a Church basement - because of the weather.

Last night there was a scheduled power outage by West Penn Power to commence at 11 p.m., and power would be restored by 7 a.m. today.  Right?  Wrong!  First the outage did not start until after 1 a.m.  Second the power was not restored until after 9:30 a.m.

Early Church is 8:30 a.m., then Sunday School, then regular Church.  

I can only tell you what I experienced.  I go to the regular Church service.

First I had no electric, had to become a contortionist to pull the rope and open my garage door.  Bossman was not available.  I got that done ahead of time so I would know whether to dress for Church, or dress to stay home.  Car out of garage.  Going to Church.

Just before leaving, electric came back on.  Talk about perfect timing.  Already had the car out and had pulled the door shut.

Arrived. Only 1 or 2 cars.  Had Church been cancelled?  Then another car, and after discussing the situation, we decided to see if the doors were unlocked, and if so that obviously meant we would have Church.

Doors unlocked, 5 other folks in the pews.  We had  parishioners arriving 1 or 2 at a time.  When the service began at 11 a.m. there were 28-30 of us in attendance.  We usually have between 80 and 100. 

We had our resident lay speaker today, who by the way, always does a great job.  Today was a real challenge.  Her sermon was about her disaster of a day on Saturday, starting with getting her husband and daughters to town in time to join the caravan heading to their mission trip.  From there her day was down-hill all the way, we laughed, what a sermon!  But by the conclusion it made perfect sense. 

Also, our organist/choir director could not be there.  Our back up pianist was not available.  No one to play the music for the hymns listed in the bulletin.  After a mad scramble, CD's were located for some hymn music, then had to find on what pages those particular hymns appeared.

At the beginning of the service it was announced that we would be given the proper page numbers for each hymn.  Nothing went quite the way it usually does, but I must say Rosie (our lay speaker) does a fantastic job, her sermon was on her computer, with no electric, so she had to "wing" it, say a "prayer" and hope for the best.

I have to say, it was one of our more fun Sunday services, because there was so much to laugh at, and we all coped.  Every so often we need a "wing and a prayer" kind of day, whether it be Sunday, or Monday, or whatever day, just to keep us on our toes and to remind us of what we really are capable of doing.

There is absolutely nothing like a little white country church with it's very flexible congregation, willing to step in and help, if in no other way than going along with the bumps in the road, and enjoying them instead of complaining about them.  That, my friends, is what Church is all about.

How was your day?  God Bless.