Dear Edgeboro Friends & Family,
Welcome to fall! Though the official start of the season didn’t happen until September 22nd, plenty of fall-related church events have already taken place. After participating in them, I have a lot of numbers on my mind and I thought I’d share them now since by sharing them I’ll also be describing what happened at these events.
On Rally Day, September 8th, 5 Sunday School classes met to kick off the new Sunday School year. Some had good discussion, others made long train tracks (pre-school class), and others rotated among 4 story-telling groups based on the movie Inside Out 2.
Later on Rally Day, over 120 Moravians (a 69% increase from last year’s attendance of 71) attended the BAM (Un)Picnic to assemble 600 water filters. We give thanks to the Bethlehem Area Moravians Ministries Committee and the Board of World Mission for each making $15,000 donations to purchase these water filters which will be distributed to families in the La Moskitia region of Honduras. Each of these filters can last over 10 years and filter over 1,000,000 gallons of water!
On the Moravian Day of Service, September 15th, 65 people gathered to eat breakfast together before breaking off to organize 4 Sunday School rooms, cover 5 sidewalk segments with encouraging chalk pictures and messages, write over 20 cards to congregation members and ministry partners, write over 70 “love notes” with encouraging messages that will accompany the aforementioned water filters, prep the water filters to be shipped so there were 50 in each box, and applied 100s of square feet of paint in the donation room.
As the calendar turns to October, I have another number on my mind: 110. J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings made famous the use of “eleventy” for 110 when in the book Bilbo Baggins celebrated his eleventy-first birthday. Eleventy has since been used a little differently in order to describe an indefinitely large number, just like “lots” or “tons.”
Edgeboro will be eleventy years old – “lots” of years old – later this month on October 25th. (We will celebrate this anniversary during worship on October 27th.)
May all these numbers be a fun and timely reminder that “lots” of ministry has been done, is being done, and will be done here at Edgeboro. There are “lots” of opportunities to serve, “lots” of people to love, and “lots” of us needed to share the good news of Jesus and his love!
Grateful for “lots” with you,
Pastor Dan