FIRST POST

Today at the Fifth Sunday Fellowship dinner Rev. Munger asked me to create a blog to supplement his new web site for Waples United Methodist Church in Granbury. http://wapleschurch.com/.

Nancy invited her granddaughter, Jacqui, to join our friends Bobbe and Yvonne for church and the fellowship meal today. The members of Waples are a very friendly church. We asked Jacqui what she thought. She is typical of one of the "young" people that the church is trying to attract by offering praise band entertainment. She said that she has been visiting other churches and really enjoyed Waples because she likes singing hymns from a book with music in it rather than seeing words projected on a screen. I agree with her. She enjoyed the small church and friendly people. She is a high school math teacher and decided she wants to teach somewhere overseas. She visited a meeting where overseas schools were hiring and looked at possibilities in Europe that she originally wanted but was one of the first ones hired by a school located in the Marshall Islands. It is on Kwajalein, known as one of the one of the bloodiest battles of WWII in the Pacific. The island is a half mile wide and three miles long. She will be working for a school run by the 2600 people employed by the government to run the KRS (Kwajalein Range Systems) that monitors satellite traffic for the Pacific area. She will be scuba diving in waters with many sunken ships and airplanes from WWII. About the only recreation they have there.

Waples has fifth Sunday meals. Our home church in Cross Plains has third Sunday fellowship meals. I notice that 5th Sundays only occur about every three months. I enjoy them so well I would like to see them consider once a month, every month. Nancy's son in Oklahoma belongs to a Choctaw Baptist church who consider themselves the oldest Native American church in Oklahoma. They have church all day with a meal every Sunday. As Rev. Munger told our church this is a tradition as old as the church for it to share a meal. I know that the women might find it a burden but Ken bbqed 10 briskets that would feed a lot of people for weeks.

Dr. Su described last week when she went back home to Korea to bury her father and told of the three day celebration of feasting and bowing to the ground in memory of her father. They stayed day and night in the funeral auditorium until burying him in their family mountainside burial plot. She appreciated all the love shown through prayers, cards and calls.

Joys included thanks for the prayer quilt the women of the church prepared to give to Riley, who is eight months old and undergoing surgery for brain tumors. His surgery last week was reported to be successful and his only problem now is pain associated with teething.

Today was also collection of food for the local food pantry and the back of the church was filled with boxes and bags of food. Nancy looks forward to the crafts project the women have the first Tuesday of every month, like next Tuesday. She finally found a large crochet hook and is looking forward to learning how to crochet Walmart plastic sacks into usable plastic fabrics.