catching my breath

Whew! The tenth anniversary celebration is over. It’s been a crazy couple of weeks preparing for a crazy weekend. I MC’d the ministries tour and then led worship and MC’d the anniversary worship service while overseeing all the attending festivities.

The CIT did a great job putting on the ministries tour: Hensen, Fidelia, Robin, Andrew and Marie, plus guest presenters Johann & June, and our bus nanny Marie M. But when it came to all the other stuff, I realized about three weeks ago that I couldn’t do it all myself (doh!). So I’m tremendously grateful for all the people who stepped up to help, even though it took me such a long time to ask.

Uncle Bob made sure we had an abundance of tasty food. Terry helped him pick up the food. Kenny organized the food service so that it moved faster than I thought possible. Brenda, Jason, Jusson, Liz, Dean, Yumi, and Angela did the actual serving. Liz organized the potluck desserts (thanks to everyone who added to the dessert table). Brenda, Angela, Bich and Brian also helped with cutting and serving anniversary cake.

Steve Y organized the set up of the lawn and carried it out with help from Karen, Rick, Dale and Patrick. And then Michael, Andrew, Kenny, Terry and Steve helped put it all away, along with numerous volunteers who pitched in ad hoc.

Marie got a bunch of older kids to help her give away and sell stuff (sorry kids, but I’m not sure who all was helping: thanks to all of you who did). Marie’s friend Erin scanned 200 photos from our early years, which Alan put together into a captivating slide show made more captivating by the great interviews produced by our Visual Grace team, David, Larry and Brian. The DVDs were then copied by Kenny, Brad, Ed, Randy and Terry.

The worship band was a bunch of people who responded to my pleas for help and did an amazing job: Gina, Rob, Eric, Russ and Jocelin. Ed made a worship band that had never worked together before sound smooth and polished. Jackson made sure all my songs and prayers got into the projection database. And Dean handled all kinds of last-minute changes in the projection run smoothly.

Of course, Wendy (and her clan) did all kinds of things behind the scenes, including ordering and picking up the cake. And there were many people who were
Just as we’ve seen over the last ten years, the body of Christ can accomplish wonderful things when we’re working together. Each part may be doing something that seems small, but the whole is becomes greater than the sum of its parts.