last day at church.

we have had such a wonderful weekend! john bonner came out friday night, after being at the missions conference in murrieta all week. we so enjoyed his fellowship. saturday morning all of "The Men" from church plus a few other friends gathered at our restaurant in the meeting room for a breakfast fellowship. all the reports say it was fantastic! afterwards there were around 8 people from sioux falls calvary who came over for lunch and an afternoon of fellowship. that too was encouraging. then after a quiet evening at home last night, we headed off to church this morning in the beautifully falling snow!
church was great. i led worship with my little bro for the last time before june. :( it really hit me that it was my last sunday with our calvary Body until summertime when i started the last song.. which definitely had to be "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases! His mercies never come to an end! They are new every morning, new every morning, and great is Your faithfulness, O Lord! Great is Your faithfulness!" it was one of the hardest songs ever to get through without breaking down in tears [although several escaped me!]. truly, truly, the Lord's faithfulness is SO GREAT! just looking at how He's blessed our church, our family, how He's blessed me so infinitely beyond what i ever imagined.. what a great God we serve.
so it took a bit during pop's announcements to pull myself together before they called me back up front to be officially sent out by the church to Germany. i explained a bit of what the next year may entail, and then all the men of the fellowship came up and one of the leadership-type guys prayed for me. i was blessed. i cried, haha. but what a privilege to be sent forth into the world!!
john's message was great, just exhortation to truly Know the Lord, and some ways that He might speak individually to us. plus he worked in his testimony. all of it was very encouraging! afterwards our "fellowship feast" [aka potluck to beat all potlucks] was great, with tons of amazing food. plus, i got to catch up with some college friends who are back in town to start classes this week, and nearly everyone stuck around after church for the feast, so that was great!
so we all [my parents and i] compared notes this evening and agreed that we have certainly been blessed and refreshed through these past few days. the Lord is so good.

quickly comes wednesday's departure, and not long afterwards the beautiful donnerstag morgen im Deutschland!

but i get to play with Bryce tonight! no packing till tomorrow! :)