Below is the snowball fight during our lunch stop on the way to Latty. A few of the girls had a whole stock pile of snowballs all ready to throw when Craig Stickling walked by. They were throwing them and he was not dodging but catching them and throwing them back. We were watching from the safety of inside the bus.
What a blessed weekend! We arrived in Latty, Ohio to find the fellowship hall very beautifully decorated just waiting for us.
We took an hour to practice and truly the songs are so uplifting that hour just flew by.
The Latty brethren were so welcoming, first explaining who we would be staying with. As Wayne's sister-in-law Desma, was reading off first the names from Peoria, then the Latty hosts, it seemed like they were either a Stoller or a Sinn, finally after about the third time calling off a Sinn, she says, "I just need to apologize, there is a lot of Sinn in Latty."
They then fed us a dinner that was better than ANY restaurant, everything was so delicious, Wayne started getting worried and kept reminding us we needed room for breathing during the songs for the program.
When the songs were sung with our whole heart, one could feel the Spirit of God in the room. We were singing praises to the ONE, the only ONE worthy to be praised, our Holy Holy Holy Father.
Once the program was over we went with our hosts to their comfortable home. Mark and I stayed with Steve and Joy Sinn and their 4 children. We talked much too long into the night having such wonderful fellowship of a kindred couple.
This morning Steve had coffee waiting for us, not just any coffee but Starbucks coffee, the first time I've ever tasted that and it was GOOD. Joy served us the typical AC visitor breakfast. Two different breakfast casseroles, fresh fruit, then a friendship braid with cream cheese and strawberries inside, along with 2 kinds of fruit juice and more Starbucks coffee, all was just wonderful, Joy is a great cook! Then it was time for the best part of the day, CHURCH!
Craig Stickling had the first service and all of us were wiping tears, even the ministers sitting on the pulpit. Another visitor, Randy Gosser had the afternoon and he had everyone's attention with much food for thought. He talked about how Moses was up speaking with God when Aaron made the golden calf and caused the people to worship. How Moses pleaded with God to spare the people even saying blot my name out of Your Holy book but don't destroy Your people. Randy went on to describe this amazing dialog with our Creator, how marvelous it was. Craig spoke on How we know God is real and also told the true story of the little Chinese girl dirty, head full of lice, working in the orphanage changing 500 babies diapers all day long but was still chosen to be adopted giving us the example of how God chooses us WHILE we are YET sinners. Of course both services were so much more than my weak skills of remembrance.
The Sunday afternoon program was even more amazing than Saturdays program. We really don't have that much talent but God surly blesses us when we make a joyful noise. At one point we were singing, He's Emanuel with all our hearts and tears were running down our cheeks. During the prayer at the end, sounds of sniffing and holding back tears could be heard through out our group. Spark said when he got on the bus, he must have had allergies the entire weekend, his eyes kept leaking.
Karen had to bring her grandson over to the bus before we left, he wanted to DRIVE the bus!
Mark Kieser was our bus driver and did a wonderful job getting us home safe the 6 hour trip through the storm, much lighting, thunder, and sheets of rain.
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