A Very Nice, Very Good Sunday!

Four days of getting up early -- oh my! Today we had our choice of three services at Bahia Vista Mennonite Church. There was an early 8:00 AM service, a 9:30 AM service and another "contemporary" service at 11 AM. We had talked with Linda and Darryll and decided that the 8 AM service was a bit early and that we really didn't want to go to the contemporary service (after all we are all in our 70s...!). We decided that we would meet and go to the 9:30 service together.

We got to the Bahia Vista church (for those of you interested in this kind of stuff, this is a different Mennonite church then Bethel Mennonite where we had the MDS meetings. Bethel is Conservative Mennonite while Bahia Vista is a Mennonite Church USA member.) a little after 9 and while people were leaving from the early service, the sanctuary was already almost full and they were setting up chairs like mad. We visited with the pastor, Roger Shenk, whom we had met at the MDS Meeting -- he was part of the bluegrass group -- and he encouraged us to go down towards the front and let an usher find us two seats. Sure enough, in that crowd of several hundred souls, the usher found us two seats just a few rows from the front. There were so many people, there was no hope of finding Linda and Darryll! More than three quarters of the congregation are snowbirds who are only here a portion of the year.

It was a very good service. Even though we are most comfortable in small congregations (50 people or so), there is something about three hundred plus people raising their voices in song that makes one think that may be what heaven will be like. Pastor Shenk is one of those personable and incredible young preachers that are the future of the church.

We found Darryll and Linda after the service and went with them to the friend's mobile home that they have been staying with and visited for a bit before we went back to Auntie Violet for a much needed nap.

It was COLD today! The temperature was 38 degrees when I got up this morning! It was windy all day as well and only got up to fifty today. It's a damp cold that goes right through you. I think we've been in the south long enough that our blood has gotten thin! Tonight we've got the heaters on and I sitting here with socks and a sweater on.

As the sun went down, we had a pretty fiery sky to the west --

That disappeared within moments as the sun sunk beneath the horizon --