Friends pointing the way to a safe harbor through the ... · We tend to like going to a picnic. As a matter of fact, we like it so much that we’re going to have TWO of them this

We tend to like going to a picnic. As a matter of fact, we like it so

much that we’re going to have TWO of them this month. One will be on the 3rd and the other on the 24th.

This prompted me to think about picnics and what they mean to us. Thanks to Wikipedia, I learned a bit more about the origins of the word. I’ll give you a brief summary.

The basic idea is that there’s an outdoor meal. But the origins of the word are a bit more uncertain. It seems that the first published use of the word came in 1692 where it is noted that the word pique-nique was of “recent origin.” The term referred to a group of people who dined in a restaurant but brought their own wine. What does seem clear is that there is a gathering of people for a social event that in-volves food and beverage.

The earliest English usage of “picnic” comes in 1748 in reference to card playing and socializing. The practice of eating a meal outdoors as a social event (perhaps during a hunt) traces back to the middle ages. There’s even a painting that depicts the scene of a picnic in the midst of a hunting group—obviously in a pastoral setting.

After the French Revolution, the royal parks were opened to the public so they could enjoy the land. In the midst of this new freedom and equality, many people began to enjoy their outings and “pique-nique’s.”

Of course, today we enjoy pic-nics in a whole different way. Of-

ten, we look to the picnic as a way of getting away from house and work in order to enjoy the scenery of lake, woods, open sky, or any number of other forms of nature. (Of course the down side is that na-ture’s “critters” invite themselves to our picnics, too, so we get to enjoy the ants, squirrels, and the seagulls, too.) It’s the opportunity to do something different. It’s the chance to enjoy family and friends in a more relaxing setting.

All of this leads me to think about the significance of the picnics for our church family. After all, we do some form of picnic a few times each year. For a few years now, we’ve concluded our Vacation Bible School with a picnic lunch to cele-brate the week and enjoy our new friends that we’ve made during the days of VBS. Now that we own the “corner lot” we’ve been having pic-nic gatherings there after church ser-vices. We always have some sort of picnic at various locations through-out the county: Indian Lake, Pines Park, Robere’s Farm, Big Spring, Meade Creek Campground, Rogers Park, and a few others that I can’t seem to remember. The point is, though, that we’ve taken the time to have a picnic.

Sometimes, we need to force ourselves to do things a bit differ-ently. A picnic is a good way of do-ing just that. We work a little harder to get the food ready to take out-side, but in the end its worth it. We get to sit down with one another in a much more casual setting so we can visit and talk and catch up with one another. We can let the kids

run and play games. We can enter into some of those fun and games, too. We can just take it all in … the wind, the trees, the bugs, the com-pany, the families, and just visit with one another.

The Greek word for church has a basic meaning of “fellowship” or “gathering.” It’s a good word. It acknowledges that we come from different backgrounds and different experiences, but we come together as one body or fellowship. Some-times it’s good to just relax and en-joy the “gathering.” Whether it’s a pique-nique or a picnic, the oppor-tunity to enjoy the fellowship of God’s family is very real. We need to make those connections with one another, so I hope you’ll join us at one of our upcoming picnics (Aug 3 or 24).

P.S. - There’ll be brats & dogs!

Thank Yous ........................ Page 2

VBS Cookies Needed......... Page 4

SonTreasure Island ........... Page 5

Anna’s Thanks ................... Page 6

Mission Updates ................ Page 7

Church Picnic Stories........ Page 8

First Baptist Church · 315 Walnut Street · Manistique, Michigan 49854 · Church 906/341-2814 · Parsonage 341-2839

Pastor’s Ponderings

Friends pointing the way to a safe harbor through the light of faith

First Baptist Church Manistique, Michigan

www.FBCmstq.org e-mail = [email protected]

August 2014

The Informer

A L k Inside

Page 2 The Informer

The Book of NUMBERS for FBC (through July)

YTD Income ..................... $76,524.68 General Fund Budget .......... 77,491.19 YTD General Fund Expense 75,402.97

A donation to the CAPITAL IM-PROVEMENT FUND was received in memory of Vickie Dillie by Shirley Patz and family.

Your donations are greatly appreci-ated.

Church Family,

Thank you for the gift of a plant. Louise always preferred plants instead of flowers. She could enjoy them year after year. Thanks and God Bless, The Zirkelbach Family Dear First Baptist Church Family, I would like to say THANK YOU for the numerous cards of encourage-ment and thoughtfulness, food, flowers and most of all your prayers while I have been out of the office most of the summer. I am truly blessed to have found this amazing church family. A special thank you to Jan Martin for all she has done to make my com-ing back to work stress-free with her amazing organization skills. Sincerely, Lisa Slavinski (Church Secretary) Thank you Don Linderoth and Mike LeBrasseur for striping our parking lot. It looks fantastic!

Quarterly Business Meeting News At our July Business Meeting, the

church voted to pave the remaining portions of our driveway. Some time in August, the excavation will begin and the blacktop applied to the East side and South side of our church.

Please be patient with us in the process of getting ready for the paving work to be done.

Keeping up with the reading pro-gram for the Bible this year? Here are July’s readings (beginning on Mon-day): August 3 = 2 Kings 25:22-26,

Jeremiah 40-44, 50, 51, Psalm 79, Lamentations 1-5, Ezekiel 32-39

August 10 = Ezekiel 40-48, 2 Kings 25:27-30, Jeremiah 52:31-34, Daniel 3-12, Psalm 137

August 17 = 2 Chronicles 36:22, 23, Ezra 1-6, Haggai 1-3, Zechariah 1-14, Esther 1-10

August 24 = Ezra 7-10, Nehemiah 1-13, Malachi 1-4

August 31 = John 1:1-4, Luke 1:1-4:32, Matthew 1:1-4:17, Mark 1:1-15

August 2014Friends pointing the way to a safe harbor

through the light of faith

Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday

1 210:00 AM Bridal Shower

39:30 AM Sunday School

10:30 AM Morning Worship

12:00 PM Church Picnic at Lindsley Frenette Park

49:30 AM Hospital Aux. Flower Show inMPR

51:00 PM Bible Study

4:00 PM Men's Bible Study

7:30 PM Closed AA Meeting

61:30 PM Medicare Chapel Service

5:00 PM Eva Burrell Animal Shelter Meeting

5:30 PM Basketball in MPR

7:00 PM W orship Choir

8:00 PM Mid-W eek Bible Study

710:30 AM Agents In Action ReadingClub

1:00 PM Recorder Group

8 9



7:00 PM Indian Lake Outdoor Service

116:00 PM Art Club


6:00 PM Heart Seekers w/husband's at Espinoza's



14 15 16




18 191:00 PM Bible Study







5:30 PM Board Chairmen

6:30 PM All Boards

22 23


10:30 AM Morning W orship

12:00 PM After-ChurchPicnic at the Corner Lot


25 261:00 PM Bible Study







29 30




Jul 2014

S M T W T F S

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26

27 28 29 30 31

Sep 2014

S M T W T F S

1 2 3 4 5 6

7 8 9 10 11 12 13

14 15 16 17 18 19 20

21 22 23 24 25 26 27

28 29 30

9:00 AM SonTreasure Island Vacation Bible School

Page 4 The Informer

That’s right! Two picnics in one month!

Mark your calendar for an AF-TER CHURCH SOCIAL at our corner lot just down from the church. We will gather there immediately fol-lowing our morning worship service for food and fellowship.

August 3rd at Lindsley Frenette Park 12:00 pm (following our service)

Please drop off your food before our service or bring it to the picnic!

The Church will provide brats, dogs & buns. You can bring your own lawn chairs & table

service & beverages. This is our Annual All Church Picnic—Please

make plans for great fellowship and fun!

In August we like to have our Sun-day evening worship outdoors if weather permits. This year our outdoor worship services will be held at Mike & Jan Hickey’s at 7:00 pm (Aug 10, 17, 24, & 31).

In September we will resume back to our 6:00 pm evening service sched-ule.

As your son or daughter heads off to college this month, won’t you please share their address with us? We have many church members ask us throughout the year for our college youth addresses so they can be re-membered with a card or treats. We also send them the Informer so they can keep up on FBC news!

If your son/daughter is returning to school please give us the updated address as they usually change too. We will publish the list in next month’s Informer and want to be sure your son or daughter is included. Please email us at [email protected] or call us 341-2814.

Our Vacation Bible School stu-dents love to be surprised with the many delicious cookies you so gener-ously donate!

You can drop off cookies anytime in the church kitchen. Please label them with “VBS” so we know what they’re for.

First Baptist Church Page 5

You're Invited to Vacation Bible School Are you ready for a VBS program your children will

never forget? "SonTreasure Island" creates a fun and ex-

citing island atmosphere where children will have a great

time singing, creating crafts and playing games. But most

important, they'll discover the treasure of God's amazing

love. We're looking forward to sharing this exciting event

with the children in our community. We hope they will

join us at SonTreasure Island!

Our VBS program is for grades 1-6 and will run Monday-Friday 9 am - 12:30 pm ~ August 11

-15 Registration forms can be picked up at the church or can

be found on our website fbcmstq.org.

LAKE LOUISE—Can you spot Megan Espinoza and Madison Swartz in the picture above? And say “Hi” to Trevor Ayotte pictured below! Oh, and Matt Wood is pictured at the bottom. Lake Louise is a great place to be in the summer!!!!

ATTENTION Board Members …

Because of VBS our board meet-ings will be postponed one week. We will meet at the regular times on Au-gust 21. Thanks for adjusting your schedules for the month of August.

Mad

ison

Sch

war

tz &

M

egan

Esp

inoz

a

Matt Wood

Page 6 The Informer

GIDEON’S CALL By Peter Leavell

Here’s what one of our readers had to say: I recommend this book for mature adults who are able

to handle some graphic scenes. This was a great book that unglorifies the Civil War and helps put it into its true perspective.

Using the rating scale 1-5 with 5 being the highest here is how they rated this book:

Interesting = 5

Easy to read = 3 Challenged my Christian Life = 4

THE CAXLEY CHRONICLES Miss Read

Here’s what one of our readers had to say: I recommend this book for anyone who loves to read a

sweet book about people. I loved this book and the characters soon became like

family and neighbors. When the old fellas died, I cried. It was like I also lost someone very dear to me.

Using the rating scale 1-5 with 5 being the highest here is how they rated this book:

Interesting = 5

Easy to read = 5

The next meeting of the Heart Seekers will be held on Tuesday, August 12th in the home of Leann & Randy Espinoza. Heart Seekers Bible study members are encour-aged to bring their spouses. The meeting will begin at 6:00 PM and will include a dinner meal.

Heart Seeker’s Bible Study

READING REVIEWS & RECOMMENDATIONS

First Baptist Church Family, I want to express my deep gratitude for all the prayers

and support that you have had for me during my recent missions trip to China this summer. God was (and still is!) very good. It was a wonderful experience to see Him at

work on the other side of the world. I learned so much: Chinese language and culture, evangelism training, what the missions field is like, and more about who God is and how he reveals himself to his people. I know I will be able to take what I learned back to campus and be-yond. Thanks again and God bless! Anna Mooi

First Baptist Church Page 7

POULTRY FOR PROTEIN AND PROFIT IN SOUTH AFRICA

Each day at Vacation Bible School we collect an offering from the students for a special mission project. We teach the students about the mission project so that they feel included as part of the mission project. The offerings we collect can be earned by the children doing small chores around the house and yard. This way it means more to them as they place their offering in the plate. This year our goal is $350. This amount of money will provide 12 hens, 2 roosters and an incubator and the promise of many future eggs! The mission project is one that Rick and Anita Gutierrez (one of our missionary couples that we sponsor) are a part of.

Here is the story about this mission project as told by Rick and Anita Gutierrez:

Clusters of brightly painted huts sit on hilly grasslands decorated by aloes in orange flower in this rural area of Zululand. The scenery masks the high unemployment rates, limited access to education and increasing food prices. Many people lack high-quality protein such as eggs in their diet. Brian Zuma was an unemployed young man until he met us. But since he undertook our mentorship in poultry, Brian has become a local player in layer chickens and quail. People are always buying his eggs and he is organizing friends and lobbying the government to get land to start a poultry cooperative. Not bad for a guy who was unemployed six months ago.

Building on previous success, this project seeks to raise $30,793 per year in the next three years to enable 60 Health Builder trainers in South Africa to establish egg hatchery and hen layer operations. This project is managed by Drs. Anita and Rick Gutierrez. It is anticipated that this project will improve the overall health of the community, impacting the lives of 4000 Zulu women, men and children. It will provide a probable career path and living wage career for many young people who never considered hatchery poultry production as a viable career. Please keep our VBS program and offering project in your prayers. Thank you for your continued support in our Va-cation Bible School ministry.

We had a lovely evening, Friday, July 11, when International Missionaries, Pieter and Nora Kalk-man came for a visit and told us about their mission work in Europe. We offer a special thank you to the Mooi family for hosting the Kalkman’s while they were here in Manistique. Nora and Pieter are based in Prague, Czech Re-public where they serve through International Min-istries as liaison and volunteer coordinators with the European Baptist Federation (EBF). They

match the skills and interests of short term mission volunteers from the United States and Puerto Rico with the needs of more than 50 Bap-tist unions that are part of the EBF. There are only 2.4% Bible believing Christians in Europe, making this is a priority mission field.

If you missed the presentation; you can find out more about their mission work at Www.internationalministries.org/teams/70.

Announcement in a church bulletin: “The annual church picnic will be held Sat-urday afternoon. If it rains, it will be held in the morning.”

At a church picnic the priest has set out a

table of oranges and cookies. On the one side of the table, by the oranges, the priest has placed a sign, “Take only one, God is watching!”

Little Johnny walks up to the cookies

and sure enough he starts stuffing his pock-ets.

Upon seeing him an altar boy ex-claims’s, “Johnny, what are you doing?”

“It’s Okay,” says Johnny, “God’s watch-ing the cookies!”

Imagine a man who goes to a church

picnic, and only brings a dry balogna sand-wich. He sits alone and begins to eat his sad excuse of a sandwich, when a grandmother

and her family come up and sit by him. They take out of their picnic basket mouth-watering fried chicken, home-made whole-wheat bread, potato salad, and a couple of huge, juicy apple pies. As they are getting ready to sit down to their scrumptious feast, the grand-mother leans over in his direction and says, “Why don’t we just put yours and ours all together?” That’s what God does—he takes our poor rags and gives us his riches.

First Baptist Church 315 Walnut Street Manistique, MI 49854-1413

ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED

Nonprofit AUTO

U.S. Postage Paid Manistique, MI Permit No. 11

Church Picnic Stories

August Birthdays & Anniversaries 1 Jennie Monroe Dean & Barb Wood 2 Terry Knoph 3 Barb Honekamp 4 Aletta Hepworth Annie Carroll Erik & Alyssa Mason 5 Bill Buzzo Megan Espinoza 6 Robert Knoph, Jr Rudy & Mary Monroe 8 Cory Way 9 Brandon Burnis Amy & Ken Seeley Donnis Fair 11 Denise Vanderville Susette St John 13 Bill Carlson 14 Ron Pawley Don & Susette St John 15 Cory & Holly Way 16 Theresa Henry Ashlyn Thill 17 Luke Mooi Joe & Connie Frenette 18 Cheryl Kane Mark & Marlene Videtich

19 Chuck & Julie Baker Ken & Barb Honekamp Elizabeth Hyde 20 Don & Janine Tyrrell 21 Rob Giles Corinna Swanson Dave & Christine Partyka 22 Corey & Laurie Barr Bill & Ruth Buzzo Eileen Martin 23 Mike & Jill Johnson

24 Dennis Barton Jay Martin Russ & Beth Schroeder 25 Spencer Agawa 26 Chris & Kim Hayward 28 David & Val Rosebush 29 Karen Adkins Steve Lander

Todd & Holly Thill 31 Elna Jones

Kathy Mickelson Amy Seeley

Communion Setup: Stan Zirkelbach Children’s Church: Karen Mooi Hostesses: Open Men's Set-up: Open Greeters: Summer Elementary Sunday School Teacher: 8/3: Moe & Jackie Fagan Brenda Swanson 8/10: The Corey Barr Family Brenda Swanson 8/17: Moe & Jackie Fagan Stacey Morrison & Family 8/24: Moe & Jackie Fagan Brenda Swanson 8/31: Beverly Marks Brenda Swanson Media Operators … Joe Block, Matt Block, David Pratt & PJ BIrr

Worship Leaders: Brenda Swanson — Song Leader: Vern St John

The Informer

Published monthly for members and friends of FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH

315 Walnut Street Manistique, MI 49854

(906) 341-2814 - Church (906) 341-2839 - Parsonage e-mail = [email protected]

www.FBCmstq.org

Ministers: All Members and Friends Pastor: Jay Martin, D.Min. Secretary: Lisa Slavinski

Custodian: Jeff Syers

Church Services Sunday School 9:30 AM Morning Service 10:30 AM (Nursery care available) Sunday PM Service 7:00 PM

Documents

Friends pointing the way to a safe harbor through the ... · We tend to like going to a picnic. As a matter of fact, we like it so much that we’re going to have TWO of them this