TGIF Covenant Update

TGIF

Wednesday was a great day for Covenant Church.  We had a wonderful experience feeding the police once again. Lee Pinkoson and Tony Domenech cooked many hamburgers and hot dogs as the main dish.  Numerous other volunteers recruited by Lee and Tony contributed chips, baked beans, cole slaw, potato salad, and iced tea.  Of course, Covenant was asked to supply desserts, and you did not disappoint.  We had plenty of desserts from warm out of the oven peach cobbler to Rose’s famous pound cake, and an assortment of great pies, brownies, and chocolate cupcakes.  The police ate very well and all remaining food, drinks, and desserts were sent back to the police station for them to finish off later with their co-workers.

This feeding of the police was different from our past experiences in a number of ways.  In the past, the shift change meeting was actually held at Covenant.  After we served the food, we had to remain in the kitchen because we were not allowed to hear the report that was shared with the police officers coming on duty.  This time, the shift change meeting was held at the police station.  Instead, we fed officers coming off duty between 4-5 PM, and the officers coming on duty after their meeting ended from 5-6 PM.  We also had a few more people attend from the police station such as the delightful administrative assistant to the Captain of this shift change, a few additional internal police staff, and even a retired policeman and his wife who all the police were happy to see again and touch base.  It turns out the retired policeman knew Don Mauldin well as he and his wife had attended Tower Road Baptist Church when Don was there.  I think all the police greatly enjoyed the more relaxed atmosphere and many hung around awhile to visit with each other and the volunteers who many also knew.

Also, Steven Dose was there as well.  He now works for GPD and grew up in Covenant Church.  Unfortunately, he arrived too late to enjoy the meal, but we did get to have a nice visit with him.

I believe all the police and volunteers had a great time.  We are already talking about doing it again in the future with the same group of volunteers, and making some changes to improve the experience even more for the police.

Note that I will send a few photos of the event in a separate email as I could not attach them to this email.

Matthew 28:19-20 – Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to follow all that I commanded you; and behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

God is constantly challenging us to serve others and feeding the police is a great ministry at Covenant that it looks like may get revived – God is good….. all the time!!  All the time….. God is good!!  Covenant is blessed to be involved in a number of wonderful ministries, some very local and also two that are international, one in Ghana and one in Brazil.  We have been involved in the Ghana ministry (called Alabaster or the King Ministry after its leader) for a number of years now, and God has clearly blessed Covenant Church through this ministry.  The Brazil ministry (called Costas Ministry named after its leader) is newer, we have been supporting it for only about 2 years now, but is a very important ministry and was brought to us by Carl Romey.  I attach the latest newsletters of each of these international ministries to this email.

It is our responsibility to God to serve Him in many ways, and Covenant has done so throughout its long history.  In August, we will be supporting Pine Grove with paper and cleaning supplies because the month has 5 Sundays.  We will also meet with them soon to see if we can restart the visitations out there that were going well until COVID-19 forced us to stop them over a year ago.  We will also support school age children in August in need of food and school supplies who will be going back to school this month.

There are so many needs in our community, country, and world, and God wants us to do our share to spread His name and His glory.  Are you ready to continue in our existing ministries to spread God’s message of love and grace?  Are you ready to see where God may lead us in the coming months and years as we open our hearts and minds to hear what He is whispering to us?

Matthew 4:19 – And He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of people.”

Please note that while I am gone on vacation the next 2 weeks, I will not be sending out the TGIF message or church update.  It turns out that sending the message out when away from my home computer has become quite difficult.  Many external computing service providers now block sending group messages because they don’t want to be used by groups with illegal or less responsible messages.  So I will look forward to connecting with you again in 3 weeks after I have returned from vacation. 

May God bless each of you and Covenant Church as we continue our service to Him!!