To begin, in our Sunday morning service we heard a message from Fikret Bocek (above), Pastor of the Protestant Church of Smyrna, which is located near the ancient city of Smyrna (see Revelation 2:8) in Izmir, Turkey. Pastor Fikret taught from Matthew 28:18 - 20, challenging us on the Biblical commands and purpose for local and cross-cultural outreach.
After our service, we enjoyed great food and warm fellowship as we gathered in the courtyard for our summer kick-off potluck. Pictured below are members of the Bolt family and the Hinrichs family along with Chelsea Rollins (center, back) and Neena Smay (second from right).
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Our prayer for the potlucks is that they would create opportunities to form new friendships and deepen existing relationships. To lovingly obey the "one another" commands in the Bible its necessary to actually know each other! Throughout the summer we hope you will use the environment of a shared meal towards that end.
After the potluck, it was time for our baptism service at the home of Randy and Paula Shultz.
In the photos below Marcelo Tolopilo is baptizing his youngest son Aaron, Josh Shultz and Fikret are baptizing Josh's oldest son Ethan (Ethan's younger brother Travis was also baptized) and I am baptizing my youngest daughter Paige. I always enjoy baptisms, but of course this one was extra special for me.
Finally, when the baptisms were done, we had our monthly leadership meeting, which ended around 8:30pm. There were some great things discussed at that meeting, especially the time of praise and prayer right at the beginning... but that's a post for another day.
God is doing great things in the body at Temecula Hills, and I wanted to post this information and invite you to rejoice along with me.
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