Vol. IV, # 19, Dec. 16, 2005

We Party Tomorrow Night!

Maybe that reads a little wild and untamed; perhaps, it would read better if PH wrote: "A group of twenty-nine year old Bible Believing Christians will act older than their age and enjoy drink, food and social mixing and feel uplifted by the spirit of the season."

In case you have forgotten the party/social is at the home of Carolyn and George Thomas. The directions to their home have been published several times in previous PHA’s. PH will publish the directions one more time.

DIRECTIONS TO THE CHRISTMAS SOCIAL
DECEMBER 17TH

George and Carolyn Thomas
12211 Iron Forge Dr.
Midlothian, VA 23113
267-1774

Talk and Drink: 6 PM

Dinner followed by carol singing 7 PM.

Directions from Huguenot and River Road:

From River Road Shopping Center, cross the Huguenot Bridge and go 0.4 miles from the south end of the bridge, past Spring Creek Drive and turn right onto Cherokee Road. There is no traffic light here, but it is the first cross street after the bridge. Follow Cherokee 3.2 miles until it you reach a stop sign at Old Gun Rd. East. Turn right on Old Gun and continue to follow it 1.2 miles along the river and then in a sharp left turn away from the river and up hill. You are now on old Gun Road West. Turn right onto Iron Forge Drive and into the subdivision (Clarke’s Forge). The entrance is well marked with a stone and stucco sign. We are the fourth house on the left. Driving time is 10-15 minutes.

Directions from Huguenot and Robious Rd:

Go west on Robious Rd. At the second light turn right onto Old Gun Rd. West. Go about 1.7 Miles and turn left onto Iron Forge Dr. (the first public road on the left). We are the fourth house on the left. Driving time is about 5 minutes.

Directions from Huguenot and Chippenham:

Dealer’s choice. Either go north and turn left on to Cherokee and follow directions from Cherokee or go south and follow directions from Robious. We would usually take Cherokee.

UNSOLICITED OPINION: Even the Simpsons can find the Thomas home if they take the Huguenot and Robious directions. And Brenda and PH can find it via the Cherokee way if we avoid the deer, high water and any wandering "First Americans" (an SOL requirement).

Also do not forget that two weeks from tomorrow will be the seventh annual New Year’s Eve Watch at the home of Brenda and PH at 301 Westham Pkwy. The annual Bible quiz, various games, good conversation, tasty finger foods and welcoming the new year will all occur from 9 PM until 2006. Your ticket for admission is to bring an appetizer, a finger food, or a beverage.

Prayer Rounds

There is good news from Jane and Norm Vaughn about their daughter Edye Stolz who lives in Peoria, Illinois. The Vaughn’s sent PH two E-mails yesterday. Both are printed below and the second would indicate the possible power of prayer.

"Edye's surgery is scheduled for 3:00 PM today (Central Time) in Peoria. She will be kept overnight if more extensive surgery is required than is now expected. Please pray for "clear margins" and negative lymph nodes.

Our God is faithful and merciful."

Love,

Jane and Norm

"We just received a report from Linda, who is in Peoria with her sister that Edye's results are the "best possible" according to the surgeon. She removed the offending lump and 4 lymph nodes. The nodes were all negative. We won't know final pathology results until next Tuesday or Wednesday, but we're understandably encouraged by this news!

The surgery began at 3 PM, lasted until after 5 PM -- Edye will be spending a couple of hours in recovery, then will be home this evening! She had been talking about a "drive-through lumpectomy," so I guess that's what happened!

Thank you all for your prayers, encouraging notes and phone calls."

Norm and Jane

Kathy Wade sent PH the following E-mail from her sister's friend, Patty Waters who is being treated for breast cancer.

Dear Kathy,

I'm Barbara's friend that the prayer request went out for. Thank you so much for sending the request and forwarding the responses from your friends. Because my veins are breaking down with all the blood work they decided I needed a Port. The doctor told me he wasn't sure if he would be able to put one in because my veins are so small. On Friday he was able to put one in and I know it is because God is watching out for me and hearing all the prayers in my behalf. Thank you for praying for me and God Bless you too.

Patty Waters

Julia Tyler's father remains in a nursing home in his home area and her mother visits him daily.

Remember in your prayers: the family of Don Thomson, Edye Stolz, Kathy Wade’s sister's friend Patty Waters, Bob and Kay Culpepper, Don Bunn and his son's family, Drew Llewellyn, Kathy Wade, the RRCB Micah Team, CrossOver West Clinic, Philip and Shanna Davis, the VCU BSU, Julia Tyler and her parents, the youth of the church, the Church clergy, the church staff and all of the mission efforts of RRCB. Prayers should also be offered for our men and women in the armed forces, civilians around the world in harm's way and for those only known to you.

Our Class Has Many Teachers

Shepson Bill sent PH the following:

GENE DAMON: 30 YEARS AS A SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHER, 9 OF THEM AT RIVER ROAD CHURCH. Gene taught children for a church in Toronto from 1972-1975 and adults in Kitchener, 50 miles west of Toronto, from 1975-1982. He supplied a class of adults in Kitchener from 1983-1986 and then taught adults in Boston from 1987-1991 and in Denver from 1992-1996. He and Betty moved to Richmond in 1996 and Gene has taught adults here ever since. In addition, he has presented programs in four different Catacombs Lectures seasons.

One of the Micah Kids May Need a Shrink

Micah Team member Norm reported the following:

"Today's activity involved playing a board game which required identifying two letters, their initial sounds, then rolling a single die to advance a piece on the board. In addition to alphabet skills, this game brought in the skill of counting, which is new to some of the students. It seemed to keep the children's attention fairly well. One of the young boys, however, appeared somewhat delusional -- he kept calling me "Mr. Shepherd."

Arlene Perry Wants to Know What Is Going On in Richmond?

Henry

Favor: The way it is looking right now I will be in Richmond on the evening of the 23rd and perhaps some or all of the day on the 24th. I’d like to find out if anyone knows of any Christmas Events going on in Richmond that I might be able to enjoy. I know about the River Road services at 5:00 and 11:00.

Perhaps you could ask this question in your next Newsletter.

Arlene A. Perry
ACA Home Repairs and Improvements
252-480-2375
50jbpg76c@charter.net

The Nativity at the Carillon occurs on the evening of the 23rd and Lewis Ginter has beautiful lights in their gardens.

Brief News

No Shepsons have birthdays or anniversaries until next week’s PHA.

Teacher Bob will start with II Samuel, chapter 17 this Sunday.

PHA is will be published each week during the holiday season unless the creek rises or freezing rain falls upon us or an earthquake occurs.. There will be no combined issue of PHA as something is always happening in the SSBSC.

A Voice from the Past

In June 2003 PH reported to readers about the death of Peggy Hollingsworth. PHA at: http://www.riverroadchurchbaptist.org/ministries/adult/sundayschool/sspha/sspha20030613.html

She was traveling from Greenwood, SC to Charleston SC when she fell asleep while driving with cruise control. She was on her way to visit her aging father, the Reverend Doctor John Hamrick. Her car hit a tree and death was instant. She was Brenda’s college roommate and these two ladies and their families were friends for over forty years. During the 1970s Peggy wrote a book, a religious novel. She submitted it for publication under a pen name, but the book was never published. Following her death her older daughter found a way to get this religious novel published. The name of the book is As One Unknown. What follows is an excerpt from the foreword of her book.

"There are no perfect parents. There are no perfectly loving parents. All of them were children once themselves, receiving from their parents distorted perceptions of themselves and God and others. So the sad distortions of humanity perpetuated themselves and often outweigh the accumulated knowledge of mankind.

However, always there is choice! With every generation new hope comes into the world. For whatever the circumstances of his life, and whatever the choices of those around him, each man in the end chooses his own direction, and the attitudes he brings to his choices, even in childhood.

The man called Jesus had that choice. The two who served as parent figures for him surely were not without their own inner distortions. They had grown up in the midst of dull, insistent poverty, accompanied by national upheaval, military domination and religious oppression. They had known the self defensive, frequently malicious pettiness of small provincial village life. All of this was part of his early environment, and theirs. From all appearances they loved him and each other deeply. They seemed to have shared their faith in God with him, and then allowed him freedom to grow in his own way and to respond in his own way to the beginning consciousness of self and God.

When does awareness of the bond to God become a conscious understanding for the child? Perhaps it is early and as gradually as the consciousness of self. At first, of course, this consciousness is wordless. Even later, when the words come, the consciousness transcends them.

So perhaps it was with Jesus. As he grew into the consciousness of God and self, the power of choosing his own response came to him, just as it does to us. A positive response to consciousness at any age brings heightened awareness: it is a joyous leap in understanding of the self and others and the complex world. For Jesus, it was the beginning of a quest for understanding and relationship, with God and man and self. The first three decades of his life were spent in this quest: drawing on the love of God for daily life, and learning from that love; allowing its reality to fill his life, until at last he stood a free man, ready to be one with love, and with the God of love. For the first time in history, a man had chosen all of God's image in him. For the first time, a man had recognized and chosen all of his own love potential.

This was just the beginning! For the love that is God's nature must reach out, must give itself to the beloved. In man's terms, it must become a word: a conscious, tangible expression of its own reality. Love is more than a state of inner being. It is life-energy; its joyous life force is compelled to revelation.

As he made the love his life perspective, his direction and his attitude to life, Jesus the Son of God and Man became the Christ, the Word of God, the revelation of the love of God to men. In that love, he could see all men in depth, and face to face. In that love, he could recognize their potential selves, and by the energy of love enable them to turn their own potential to reality, if they so chose. Above all, their potential for love; for becoming whole in love as he was, and for reaching out in love to others became possible. Thus, he set in motion on the earth a new strain of the ancient life virus: the love that had been God's first gift to man, and should have been man's first gift to earth, the key to all his future growth. Jesus the Christ gave man another chance to know and be his deepest self; to rediscover and reclaim within himself the image of the God of love; to be immersed as he was in the Spirit of God. ……………………….As always, the choice lies with us."

(Margaret "Peggy" Hamrick Hollingsworth – 2/22/43 to 6/8/03)

PH

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