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Evergreen Outreach

By Charlene M. Jett
What a beautiful day to share with friends, sunny and warm – a day to be remembered.
SoftFire (David and Patricia Pence and five border collies) started our meeting with music to lift our hearts. They are from Hillsboro, and were all set up ahead of schedule.
We shared our refreshments and Cindy Hunter, our leader,  told stories about being a St. Louis Cardinals baseball fan. She also shared a story about helping her new 8- and 11-year-old grandsons cut trees with a chainsaw! This tied in with our devotions on asking God to help us. She also told a story about seeing big and little owls, and how it was very unusual to see them in daylight. I bet it was a cool treat to see them.
We sang "Happy Birthday" to Joyce Mueller, who was having to take care of her dog, and missed our meeting. We also sang to David Pence, Nanette Havener, Lori Kimmel, Laura Mulvaney, Verneva Roberts and Ethel Hoffman. We were so glad to see Beulah Brown, fully recovered and with her daughter, Cindy Harding, from Texas.
After almost too much socializing, the Rev. Tom Farris of the Church of God took over and led our devotions. He started out very simply, talking about our attitudes and proceeded to explain the difference between good and bad attitudes. He reminded us that we need to be careful about being too independent and not leaning on God. We must never do hurtful things, and that to achieve things we must work and trust God, always asking for his mercy and grace. He carefully distinguished between the meaning of "get" and "receive." Get means we put effort into achieving an end (like baking cookies). Receiving means accepting from a provider (God) what is offered. God really likes to be ASKED for his blessings on us, and, naturally, we want all the blessings he has to give us. Including great music, which takes me back to SoftFire.  
SoftFire started with a new Calypso beat that Patricia had written. It was so rhythmic and smooth; it made us feel like we were in the Bahamas. They followed with several songs that got us warmed up, and we got to dance our special EO dance and run a train march. They played numerous songs, in which we could clap, sing, dance – or all of the above. One was “Praise Ye the Lord.”
David is a retired preacher, but I bet Patricia can give him a run for his money. She took the microphone and started telling about how God helps us make it through all the hard times in life.  With that, they sang one of our all-time favorites, “Build Your House Upon the Lord,” and we got to use hand signals to mimic the words. There were too many beautiful songs and notes for me to keep track of, as usual, so we just played, doing whatever the Holy Spirit moved us to do.  This led Shirley Locke and I to do a rather fast twirling end to a dance. That was fun!
At the pinochle table, Shirley Locke and Ruth Ann Scott tied with Rosamund Hobler and Mary Woolsey, with one game each.
I hope everyone is ready for winter, because it may be coming fast!
God bless everyone. See you next week.

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