More Than Today

What an afternoon yesterday was around the Thornton house! Our oldest daughter, Rosie, was doing her final packing for her mission trip to Haiti and we were preparing to get in the car to drive to Baltimore for her to join her mission team. Meanwhile my wife was online looking for information from an airline and searching for some Creole phrases, the language in Haiti, that Rosie could know for simple conversation. In the process, my wife came across news of a Travel Warning issued April 30, 2008, that had been issued by the United States Department of State. It advised Americans to defer non-essential travel to Haiti until further notice because the conditions that led to civil unrest a month ago had not been entirely resolved. She showed me the information online and I read it all several times. Fourteen kidnappings of Americans so far this year marked by deaths, brutal physical and sexual assault, and shooting of Americans. It read that there is a limited capability of local law en...

This past weekend Spirit Force , a drama ministry from Messiah College, shared a musical drama at all three of our worship services at Friendship Community Church. It was something to not only watch it but to see and hear the responses of people who were in the audience. The drama was all about grace. Of course grace only means something if you have lived without it, as the husband/father/alcoholic did. The stresses he put on his family were so real that the rawness of it was felt by many, and had been experienced by at least some present. To say the least, the presentation was a grabber that reached in and pulled out emotion from the viewer even if you hadn't experienced all that family trauma yourself. I'm thinking that's because all of us have experienced some distance from God and difficulties with people at some time in our lives, or at least known others who would admit to that. At each of the performaces I put visual images from the computer onto the screen and...

So many of us want to help others, do help some, but want to do more. Sometimes the cost seems to be too high. Watch this clip to be reminded of how what we do can make a difference, and yet there is more to do, more people to help.

This week I had the opportunity to see someone that I have been mentoring for five years achieve quite an accomplishment. Tracey Utermahlen--busy wife, mom, grandmother, full-time employee, volunteer...and now ordained Pastor (and really so much busier than even all of this). What a joy to see her stand in front of the hundreds attending the ordination service and receive her ordination certificate and her new Bible, her authority for ministry. For five years she has taken classes through Winebrenner Seminary and served faithfully as a volunteer at Friendship Community Church. Just last year she became a licensed Pastor and came on board the church staff officially. Tracey is quite the fun person and is so gifted and caring. Congratulations Tracey! And to all the rest of us, let's join Tracey in serving God and sharing Jesus in exceptional and ordinary ways. The picture is of Tracey and her husband Greg on their wedding day a little over four years ago. Blessings on you both ...