On the Way to Little Church

Driving to Little Church under clear blue skies, I saw:

-6 shiny brown chickens enjoying their escape from the yard

-a dead: opossum, raccoon and snake

-one very unusual motorcycle

-a herd of goats

-several pastures full of cattle

-the old man in overalls walking along the road

-green fields, burned fields, empty fields

-two garage sale signs

-a flock of buzzards

I organized my sermon again. I listened to "Speaking of Faith" on Public Radio. I felt content.

St.Casserole

Lovely Christmas with the family. So glad to have everyone home and happy.

Today Songbird arrives for our annual visit! Love it!

She'll see Little Church restored on Sunday when she is our Preacher.

We plan to see our S. and go to Pearlington to meet a RevGal.

Wish you were here,

St.Casserole

Little Church restoration continues!

We have new stair railings, painted doors, columns and porch flooring, and new lighting!

Inside, the original wood floors are refinished and gleaming!

We found someone to restore the antique pews!

Thanks for your prayers! Extra pocket change appreciated.

Gratefully,

St. Casserole, Pastor

Little Church looks beautiful! I'm sorry I don't have pictures to show you the painted walls and ceilings, the front doors painted red, the front porch columns are fresh white and the steps are a safe grey with grit in the paint to prevent slipping!
Oh, we are getting so pretty!

After the carpet was pulled up, we saw beautiful wide plank wood floors! No piecing of odd wood or damage, just old wooden floors ready for refinishing! The acoustics this morning in worship sound crystal clear without the carpet. When the floor work is finished and the pews are returned, I wish we would ditch the pew cushions to keep the lovely sound in the sanctuary.

When I first met Little Church, the pulpit had a microphone for the preacher. I never needed it and, with wood floors, no one who knows how to project her voice will need extra help.

Our singing sounded better and filled the space with joy.

Much more work to do in the coming months but I see and hear progress!

If you shake out your pew cushions and see extra change, send it to us...

Love,

St.Casserole

Non calor sed umor est qui nobis incommodat.

We have rain! Lots of pouring heavenly buckets of rain right now. Our brick back porch is flooding, a reminder that I need to trench new areas of plantings. Only rain shows where trenches or french drains are needed. The new landscaping, added over the past year, changed the terrain.


Traveling mercies to SB and MB as one goes to a conference and the other returns home.


I won't be painting the wrought iron chairs and table today. I bought a charming set for $2 at a garage sale Saturday. With new paint, new seats and a glass top for the table, I'll have a great set for...somewhere...not sure where I'll put these.


I found an office sized shredder at the salvage store several weeks ago. At 90% off, I thought I'd give a cross cut shredder a try. My table top shredder cost more and does less. The tiny pieces look like the cat litter the humane society uses for cats, so I'm adding hand fulls of shredded newspaper to the Cat Boys boxes. Perhaps this shredded paper will be my new cat litter source. At least the local paper will have a use.*


I saw the new paint yesterday at Little Church. The interior is sheet rocked, sanded, and primed. At first look, I couldn't understand why the walls weren't the color we chose. Then I realized I was looking at primer. New sanctuary light fixtures look great! We are all thrilled! Far from finished, we can see what will be, God willing.


I'm missing LD all day long. She phones home but is distracted with all the details of a new place and new people. I'll fetch her on Friday for the weekend. Can't wait!


In 2008 Books Read, I finished the fourth Twilight book by Stephanie Meyers on Saturday. Now I'm picking up Julia Spencer-Fleming's new book.

I miss you,

St.Casserole
*I sound like my Father. He crabbed about the local paper, too.

Interior of Little Church with sheet rock removed


Note use of different wood colors and re-cycled tongue and groove strips nailed to the wall studs.


We treated the down the street Methodists to a show Sunday. We were outside digging in the debris skip for pieces of antique wood. The Methodist drove past us sure we were nuts.


St. Casserole

Great News! Restoration of Little Church begins!

We worshipped in a pew-less sanctuary Sunday. A Virgina Church sent us new folding chairs for a Sunday School room after the storm. We used these and our other chairs to make a cozy worship space. The sanctuary looked wild!

The old sheet rock is removed so that the wood underneath is visible. The walls and ceiling look like Joseph's coat of many colors with painted boards showing in green, blue and white. These boards supported the old sheet rock and will be used to hold the new work. We speculate the boards are salvaged from the old sanctuary which burned 90 years ago. Good old Presbyies! Waste nothing. Save everything!

The old wood burning stove flue is visible. Up front, near the pulpit, the position of the stove must have comforted the preachers with warmth and shortened the sermon when the heat reminded the preacher of you-know-where.

With the sheet rock gone, the perfect acoustics of the sanctuary left, too. I had to use my ultra-powerful-seminary-trained-playground-supervisor Voice. Worshippers left with their eyebrows blown upwards.

Thank you for helping Little Church! Several of you sent money, one of you sent two large gifts TWICE! Your generosity helps us!

Those of you who contacted me about helping, call me back. Thanks!

St. Casserole, Happy

*pic is after the storm of a ceiling edge showing wood underneath. Imagine all dark wood! The sheet rock will be replaced after wiring, etc. etc. is completed!

Lovely service at Little Church today. Plenty of palms to wave, happy children in worship, blue skies and an ordination and installation! God blessed us with two new Elders. I love Little Church.

Did I tell you one of my parishioners named a baby lamb for me?

Blessings to you this Holy Week,

St. Casserole

Many, many thanks to those of you who sent donations for Little Church. I'm in the dark about who you are unless you've told me. I do know that your response is generous.

We are ready to start with repairs. We don't have all the money we need but we are beginning.

Thank you!

Love,

St. Casserole

Your response to my last post about Little Church repairs makes me cry.

Thank you for wanting to help!

If you want to contribute or find out about Little Church's repair needs so you can help, please contact Martha-Lee Bohn (she is auntieflea at American On Line abbreviated dot com) She is the Community Outreach Co-ordinator for the presbytery handling disaster relief.

I feel the Spirit moving. Thank you, God.

St. Casserole

2 years, 4 months, 14 days

Where the walls separated from the building.
More wall damage. The silver rectangle above the fuse box is a strap to hold the wall to the building frame.
Same here.
More damage here.
When the roof was replaced, the work was shoddy. All we could find. Can't call them back to fix where water runs down the walls into the building. Roofing company left town.

We received 1/10 th of what we requested to repair our sanctuary building from all the donations people sent to our denomination. We have enough money, we hope, for enough materials to make repairs but no money for labor. Costs for labor and materials are much higher than before the hurricane.

We have requested help from presbytery but no one helps. We get referred from one person to another.

I am sad about this. We need skilled people to help us. We need to make repairs. People have been so generous but we were told that our repairs would be taken care of. We were told this over and over. We are waiting.

We are not stupid or lazy. We are a small church, the only church not yet repaired in our presbytery.

I am beside myself and wake up in the night worrying about the building.

St. Casserole

The tradition of making faces at the preacher continued yesterday in worship at Little Church. Begun years ago by LLS, the entertain-yourself-while-listening to older sister/Mom grew to new heights of silliness with LD crossing her eyes, smushing up her face and performing the slack-jaw-bored expression.

The preacher was grateful the actress sat on the second row.

Humbly because that's all one can be when LD is present,

St. Casserole

On the Way to Church Report

Left for Church: 20 minutes late
Saw as I left: Methodist putting up a tent in their church yard
Took as I left: Bible, sermon, alb, Advent stole, agenda, coffee
Road Conditions: clear, blue skies, dark clouds off in the distance
Animals Escaped: two goats by the side of the road
Birds Observed: 4 buzzards
Christmas Inflated Yard Decorations: lost count
Stops: one for cough medicine, one for coffee
Number of Hunters at Coffee Stop: 6 in parking lot
Thought About: sermon, beginning of Year A, Advent
Felt: full of cold
Emotional Status: happy

St. C, just reporting in

Little Church is a happy place for me.

I walk up to the pulpit and feel a rush of joy and gratitude about being there.

Church redevelopment (or whatever it's called now) suits me fine.

We elected two new elders Sunday.

Couldn't have done this two years ago, but now we have the people and the energy.

Yours,

St. C.

News from the Neighborhood

Our colleague, Edward O'Connor, will leave the Gulf Coast to become Dean of the Cathedral in Jackson. Edward accomplished many things during his time here. I am sorry to see him go. He mentored a clergy pal of mine, calmed his congregation, preached well (so I heard) and moved his congregation forward after the hurricane. One of his great skills is his ability to listen. You know he hears you when you speak. I told Mr. C. that I was going to try to be a great listener like Edward so I cocked my head and stared at Mr. C. Finally, after being silent for several seconds, Mr. C. said, "Now you've gone creepy on me." Let me work on this...

We at Little Church heard from our denominational funders this week about our hurricane rebuilding grant. We received about 1/10th of our asking. I suppose that we didn't receive more because we haven't spent our cautiously saved funds down to zero (how can a tiny church of older people do this???) and have not cleaned our membership rolls since before the storm. We didn't think it wise to notify members that we were deleting them from our rolls after the storm. It would be another loss for them even it they aren't attending.
So, here we are, almost two years from the storm, without the funds to repair our church building. The building is secure and functional but has broken sheet rock, shows storm damage and looks bad. We put in new windows, replaced the roof, replaced the front columns and porch flooring, added ceiling fans and now we need to finish. We waited all this time, having been told that the millions donated by the faithful would complete our repairs. We applied for the money last Fall. We heard this week.
Very little of the needed work can be done by unskilled volunteers.
We are stuck. Pray for us.

The Southern Gulf is getting pounded by Dean the Hurricane. Lord, have mercy on your people there!

Fish the Cat's leg is healing well! Dr. Jen, our dear Vet before the storm, was back at Dr. D.'s Saturday! She watched Fish walk and trot then pronounced "He's doing great!" Fish returned home exhausted but happy that he may have only two more weeks in his Hermitage (confinement pen).

I feel rushed on Monday's to catch up with last week's leftovers, recover from Sunday and get started on this week's tasks. Do you feel the same?

Lovingly,

St. Casserole

Lord, give us a full measure of your grace today. Amen.

Blessings to all you Preachers, worshippers and those unable to worship in community.

St.Casserole

Yuk Yuk Yuk

Little Church is in a small town with a large agricultural festival. Thousands of people drive in to buy the ag product, hear stories, music and buy crafts. Townspeople participate or hide in their homes behind locked doors.

I attended the festival years ago before I knew Little Church. The weather sweltered with humid heat.
Two times in my life I believed that I would die of heat: at the Neshoba County Fair during a National election year political speech fest and at Ag Fest.

I suggested we open the church for the festival during my first year there. No one seemed interested. No one. Turns out that the crowds would overwhelm our antique plumbing and no one wanted to stand around and watch this happen.

A laughing church member just called to say she was sorry but she couldn't find where they were doing the "Dunk the Preacher" booth this year. She asked around but no one seemed to know. Maybe I was off the hook this year, she said.

Like I'd go there to be dunked. First, it's not dignified. Second, it might cool me down but nope, and, third, like I'd get on a bench to be hit by a softball.

I'm serious about minstry in the community but not that serious.

Yuk,Yuk,Yuk,

St. Casserole, dignified as ever