The Christmas season has begun-always a wonderful time of year! England celebrates Christmas in a big way. The local garden Centre has blue neon trees in the car park and Christmas scenes from around the world. Our town will host Victorian Christmas nights, all the children are getting ready for nativity plays at school and folks are "queuing up" to give their wish list to Father Christmas.
Our church is also planning special ways to celebrate: including a ladies' carol sing and supper, children's plays and, of course, a family service on Christmas day! And everywhere - I mean EVERYWHERE - there are mincemeat pies. :)
I hope that you will enjoy this magical time of year, when we celebrate the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ.
European Conference
Nov. 13-17 was our big European Church Leaders' Conference, held every two years in Budapest. Around 90 people came from across the continent for worship, encouragement and teaching. A high light of the conference this year was the ordination of three pastors for the work in Europe. We were also blessed to have the first Area Director for Europe Stephanie Crouthers LaVan, and Bishop Emeritus Gerald Bates with us to help celebrate ten years of work on the continent. It was wonderful to see things through their eyes: from one church ten years ago, there are now 17 churches and work in 10 countries on continental Europe.
Around Garstang
It's been a busy month at Garstang Free Methodist, as well. I've had the joy of dedicating two of our new babies. The Young Adults group has been meeting and is making plans for a Christmas party when everyone is home from "uni". David Carr was up for a weekend with our youth, a men's prayer breakfast, meetings with the leadership and an outreach event on Saturday night.
Some News
Recently I was offered and accepted a full-time position as assistant pastor in our Garstang Free Methodist Church here in northwest England. Whereas I am very excited about this, the decision comes with some sadness, as well. This transition means that I will be resigning as a missionary at the end of March. It is sad to say goodbye to many folks that I've come to know and love over the past 11 years working on the continent. And it will not be easy to say "goodbye" to many of you who have supported and encouraged me in this work over the years. Thank you for all that you have done to help our work in Europe, and for me personally. I hope to see many of you this winter while I am in the states to be able to express my thanks in person. "You have encouraged the hearts of the saints."
The work on the continent will continue. And there are many ways you can continue to learn about and support that work. In coming months, I'll highlight some of those opportunities.
May this Christmas be a very special time for each one of you. "The virgin will give birth to a child and they will call him Immanuel, which means God with us." What a wonderful promise.
Happy Christmas,
Marcie
Sunday, December 6, 2009
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