Dear Covenant Family:
Today was a great day at Covenant, with 28 folks in attendance. We had a good number of prayer requests and praises raised, so I will try to summarize each of them. Maurita McKee asked for prayers for an old friend who is having cardiac bypass surgery this week. Larry Noegel asked for prayers for the peace talks to be held this week between Russia and Ukraine. Don Mason had an unspoken prayer request. Helen Ann Noegel asked for continued prayers for Carolyn and Mack Vlacos; Carolyn is doing well but Mack cannot stand by himself and will fall if he tries to stand. Patty Sanders asked for prayers for a friend not in good health working in a law firm that has been hit hard by COVID recently. Tina Pinkoson also asked for prayers for Joe’s niece who had a stroke a few weeks ago, seemed to be recovering okay for awhile, but who had a setback this past week. Please continue to pray for all these people.
Tina Pinkoson raised praises for Larry and Helen Ann Noegel’s 60th wedding anniversary and Vernon and Maurita McKee’s 75th wedding anniversary which we celebrated last week by singing to them. She also had a praise that the benevolence fund created by Covenant Church in honor of Joe is now working to support church members in need; to date we have received $25,000 in donations and are still accepting donations from church members and friends. Today, we celebrated Sam and Carol Parker’s anniversary (about 55 years on Monday) and Shaw and Polly Grigsby’s 45th wedding anniversary to be celebrated next Saturday. Michelle had a praise for her granddaughter who was baptized last Sunday by Pastor Don and for the 18-year old who was also baptized by Don. Carol Parker had two praises, one for her son who has now had his needed eye surgery and is doing well, and also for her 99.75 year-old sister who continues to recover from her recent fall.
Pastor Don was unable to be with us today at Covenant, as he needed to travel to Alabama to visit with family. So we were blessed to have Shaw Grigsby provide our sermon today. Shaw and Polly had two long time friends with them, and the husband also shared his story with the congregation. I cannot begin to do justice what these men shared in their messages, but the message was incredibly Godly and compassionate for others. I would strongly suggest that anyone who believes in God should listen to the sermon these men shared with our congregation. If you would like to listen to this sermon, all recorded sermons can be accessed at https://gainesvillecovenantchurch.org/ and then choose Sermons on the home page, and then choose today’s message.
I told you in church this morning that I would likely not be able to send out today’s message to you, as I am having significant wifi issues in my home. If you receive this message, it is only because God led me to use the church wifi to produce and send this message – and somehow it worked! May God provide you a most blessed week!!
Ron