Covenant Update
Dear Covenant Family:
Today was a great day at Covenant! We had 40 folks in attendance for today’s Christmas Musical by the Sounds of Hope titled Color It Christmas. Attached is today’s bulletin, please note that our December Ministry is the Helping Hands Clinic in Gainesville. Note also that because December has 5 Sundays, we are also supporting the Pine Grove paper and cleaning supplies program and Newberry High School toiletry supplies program. Also note that we had a nice letter from Bread of the Mighty Food Bank, our November ministry, thanking us for our contribution of $1,200 to them last month to support them through the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday periods. Also, note that we will have our normal church service next Sunday at 10 AM, but we will not have our annual Christmas Eve service next Sunday night, allowing family time to be together.
We had a number of Prayer Praises today – Frank Dolwick had a praise for a friend of his who attended church today with Frank and Brenda who at 70 has completed law school and is now offering pro bono services for folks in need and also running a part-time dental clinic; Tina Pinkoson had a Praise for her 6 year-old grandson who was competing in a chess tournament in Orlando this weekend; Becky Alexander had a Praise that her latest brain MRI was stable which is very good news; and Ron Marks had a praise report for Marilyn Bishop who he visited last Friday. Prayer Requests were asked for Mack Vlacos who had 4 cracked ribs for over a week before getting them diagnosed so he spent a few days in the hospital this week but is now home again; Larry Noegel asked for prayers for the global Jewish community; Shaw Grigsby asked for prayers for a hospitalized friend; Diane Mauldin asked for prayers for her uncle in the hospital who will need to go to rehab as soon as they can diagnose his specific issue; Lee Pinkoson asked for prayers for the United States as we deal with all these difficulties we are currently facing; and Helen Ann Noegel had both a Praise and a Prayer Request for her son David who just returned home from a 3-month working stint in Wales, and he will return there again in a few months for another work stint.
The Sounds of Hope musical program was excellent, and I was hoping to include a picture from it in this mailout. However, the church lost power shortly after the musical began and the majority of the presentation was made in the darkened church, so I was unable to get a good picture. Hopefully, we were able to tape it and you can listen to it if the sound was loud enough. Please try to access it at https://gainesvillecovenantchurch.org/ and then choose Sermons on the home page, and then choose the message from December 17, 2023. Hopefully, it will be there!
I wish all of you and your families a most blessed week leading up to one of the most blessed days on the Christian calendar next Monday!
Ron
