Covenant Update

Dear Covenant Family:

Today was a great day at Covenant.  We had 35 folks in attendance at church and then for the Christmas Social we had after church.  Our ministry for December is the Helping Hands Clinic who provide healthcare to the poor and homeless in our community.  Also, because December has five Sundays, we also support Pine Grove with paper and cleaning products and Newberry High School with toiletries for students in need.  Attached is today’s church bulletin with more information for you.

We had a number of prayer requests today.  Victoria McArthur has a friend who just got out of the hospital but will have to return soon, so she asked for prayers.  Missy Mauldin has a friend at Peaceful Paths in Gainesville and asked for prayers for her.  Patsy Sutton has a 34 year-old friend in the hospital and the doctors have had difficulty in diagnosing his problems, but he is now facing both a liver and kidney transplant.  Larry Noegel asked for prayers for our global Jewish community.  Helen Ann Noegel asked for prayers for the families of two friends who died recently, Melanie Kretzman’s mother and Betty Parrish.  Becky Alexander has two medical appointments this week, including her annual MRI, and asked for prayers.  Bill Mercado asked for prayers for his sister Eva who needs surgery now due to a car accident she and her husband were in a year ago. 

Pastor Don’s sermon today was on peace, or the lack of peace in our world right now.  Don said we can’t have peace without forgiveness in our hearts, and God wants us to forgive others so we can have peace.  His scripture was:

Luke 2:14 – “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among people with whom He is pleased.”  and

John 14:27 – Peace I leave you, My peace I give you; not as the world gives, do I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled, nor fearful.

Don’s sermon was excellent as always. If you weren’t able to be at church today, I would highly recommend listening to his sermon.  Pastor Don’s sermon can be accessed at https://gainesvillecovenantchurch.org/ and then choose Sermons on the home page, and then choose the sermon you want to hear. 

Then, after church, we had a wonderful social time.  I will send a second email after this one with two pictures from our social time.  The first picture shows the Covenant Choir singing Silent Night as the anthem today and the second picture shows all the food that we had for our social, all of it brought by people attending the social.  It was truly a great day at Covenant Church today!

May you all have a most blessed week and entire Christmas celebration with your family and loved ones!

Ron