Here's The Scoop

I wasn’t trying to be a “drama queen” on Friday, but the drama kept coming. Of course, prayer helped calm the drama down and I even talked in my witnessing class that the Lord needs fewer “drama queens” and more rooted and grounded women of God.

First of all, I would like to publicly thank the Lord for keeping me from getting my boss’s “please just bury me” flu that kept him from going to Disney World with his family and the other secretaries’ “I wish I could die” stomach virus that made them throw up for 2 days. God does answer prayers.

Friday:
Slept in a little, then went to Sam’s and to Supermarket to pick up food for Ladies Day. Got to church at 11:40 and started unloading. Wouldn’t you know it, I carried a cooler into the church and then stepped up onto the step that separates the kitchen area from the fellowship area and my shoe caught and made me trip. I caught myself from going down by having one foot on top of the step/floor and my knee jammed all the way. Fortunately, my knee held and was just jarred. Sore the rest of the day, but survived. Then Sheila (my right hand lady) came and we prepared some of the food and figured out which dishes were to be used and labeled their locations on the buffet, so the men could just grab stuff out of fridge and set it on the countertop.

Right when we were finished with the food, we got a call that the weather was getting worse and Sheila lives about 1 ½ hours south of the church. I live about 15 minutes. She asked if I was going home, but I said I wanted to make sure all my props for my skits were all in place. She wanted me to go home, but I felt just as safe at church, as at home. I had too much to do!

I decided to block off pews with string so that everyone would know to “SIT UP FRONT”!!!! So, during that time the tornado sirens started blaring and I did step out and see the pentecostals next door leave their trailer and scurry across the yard into their church basement. I hollered across the fence and asked them what the weather news said…they said, “We don’t know, but we’re going over here to just rest awhile”. Did they invite me to their basement? Oh no ;) (Did I ever tell ya’ll that I never really get along with pentecostals? I grew up with swarms of them in TX and they were haughty & rude. The ones in Alabama don't seem to be better.)

So, I thought…. “I’d rather blow away in my own church anyway” ;) :) so I went back to work stringing the pews. When the siren went off the second time, I did stand in the closet underneath the stairs in the men’s SS. Class for a minute, next to the old set of drums……..And, then I told the Lord… “I KNOW you’re not going to blow away The Church of God in Bessemer…..ESPECIALLY after I’ve decorated for Ladies Day!!! So I left the closet and kept on working. Ha!

The sirens stopped and in pouring rain, I drove the ¼ mile to Dollar General to get the batteries for the camera, so YA’LL COULD HAVE PICTURES of the decorations! Ha!!!

After taking pictures, I drove to member’s house close by and asked the techie husband if he could burn a c.d. of the pictures I took off the church’s website so I could have a slideshow on a T.V. He said yes & I sat and talked with his wife and grandchildren while he did. I unfortunately accidentally saved a good many of the pictures in BMP instead of JPEG, but he was kind enough to re-save them (72 to be exact) and was able to burn them onto the c.d. We watched them on their d.v.d player to make sure it worked an it did! THANK YOU!

Since it was 5:00 pm by this time, I thought I’d like to go home, but something told me to make sure the c.d. worked on the churches d.v.d. player. Crazygirl was there with her children cleaning the church and she helped me set of the player…..and…it didn’t work. We figured out that the church’s d.v.d player was older and didn’t play c.d.’s. Fortunately I had brought my new d.v.d. player and we plugged it all in and it worked!!!! Then she helped me find the microphones and move the sound system for the fellowship hall into the desired location. I couldn’t have done it with her!!! Thank you!

It was 7:30 by the time I got home and then found out that the storm had knocked out my electricity earlier that day (it never went out at church, which was good, ‘cuz I had hundreds of dollars of food in the fridge!)…which meant that it also knocked out my modem which caused my Vonage (yuck) to go down. There is a complicated system of unplugging and resting and plugging back in…whatever!...to make it boot back up. I’ve never paid any attention before ‘cuz Mike or Dustin always does it. So I unplugged one thing and it didn’t work. I looked behind the computer at the mass of wires and told the Lord, YOU KNOW I NEED THE PHONE to see if my husband comes home tonight! PLEASE MAKE THE PHONE WORK! So I sat the phone on the cradle and turned the computer back on….AND IT WORKED! God answers prayers… ‘cuz it has never worked for me in the past by just unplugging one line. I then found out through my daughter that she had received a text message from Dad telling her when to pick him up at the airport because they had lifted the grounding for his flight. He had been the first flight to be grounded and the first to be lifted! She had called her brother to pick him up at the airport so I would be less stressed. Thank you kids!!!

So I then decided to consolidate my witnessing lesson to one location, so I wouldn’t be flitting back and forth between several pages, so I could “seem” to know what I was trying to teach and…..right in the middle, during perfectly calm weather…the electricity went POP and my lights went off, taking my unsaved document with it! I decided to kneel down and pray until the lights came back on (especially asking the Lord, to make the ladies of Alabama so grateful for surviving the storm, that they couldn’t WAIT to get there tomorrow! :) ;) :0 About 10 minutes later, the lights came back on and the majority of my work had been auto-saved and only the last page had to be re-touched. Praise The Lord!

So about 10:00pm, my son and husband drove into the driveway. Relief! We got to bed around 11:00 pm and then got up at 7:00 am to get ready for the event which began at 10:00am.

The next day turned out great! The (other) teacher was wonderful! Sis. Bishop was just grand as always! The food was good. We had mixed greens salad with all the toppings (carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, cherry tomatoes, croutons, black & green olives, petite pickles, chopped ham, chopped hard boiled eggs, bacon bits, cheese, 4 choices of salad dressings) along with red potato salad, veggie pasta, chicken salad with croissants, and assorted colas, teas and coffee. For desert we had coconut cake and miniature cheesecakes. I also sprinkled Hershey’s Kisses filled with New York cheesecake on the tables. DON’T YA WISH YOU CAME?????

We had 30 in attendance (I guess a few ladies just weren’t grateful enough about surviving that storm Ha! ) and 3 men in the kitchen who set out food, served drinks and cleaned up. THANK YOU GUYS, especially my travel-weary husband!!!!

I’ll share the actual service in the next post.