Been a little occupied

We call this Quartzsite Church of Christ, the stone-soup church, no not officially...just between us. Do you remember the story of the poor soldier who walked into a poor town and no one would share any food with him? He built a fire, borrowed a big pot from someone, added water, and announced he was making stone -soup. He then placed a large clean stone in the pot. People watched and asked how that was going to turn the stone into soup. He told them it would be better if he had a potato...someone ran to get one, and then he said carrots would make it better, and someone ran to get some, and so forth and so forth until all the town ate and shared a wonderful soup made from just a stone. Well, that is how this church has been furnished and equipped! Everyone has been thinking about it all summer, it appears, and when they arrive, they bring something for it. How fantastic! It is just wonderful to see and feel the support from so many!

Let's catch up now.
First Sunday of November, worship services began again in the building onEmelia St. with Wendell Seawright preaching. Since then we have added a Sunday evening service and a Ladies' Bible Study! A small group of us cooked and ate Thanksgiving Dinner, as well as Christmas dinner in the single-wide that has a kitchen in it. We have also purchased 500 DVDs, "Searching for the Truth" and "The Kingdom" and are working on an informational insert to be added with the DVDs and other tracts in anticipation of a town-wide canvas to let residents know The Church of Christ is here! We praise God for this great freedom to be able to spend what time we need and want in our own buildings, on our own time-table, i.e., we don't have to get out of the Senior Center before the next group comes in. We do not ever want to take all of it for granted: how the Holy Spirit just pulled it all together for us, when God's timing was right!

The contributions and pledges and surprises just keep coming in. To remind you, we have a huge lot, and two older modulars, and a new garage/storage area. The double wide modular is where we hold worship services, the single wide is our "potluck" area. It also has a small bedroom to accomodate someone who may need a temporary place to stay. The selling price was only $125,000, and because money had been being regularly deposited from contributions for the last several years, we were able to pay $60,000 down. The seller was kind and lenient towards us and said we could make interest-only payments until we were able to pay more, but he told us the balance of $65,000 had to be paid in five years. So, since March, we have been paying interest-only payments. But because of the generous gifting, just last week, we made the first of what we hope to be 5 payments of $13,000! Our account still has over $6,000 in it for emergencies and repairs, etc.
Our hearts are full of gratitude and our heads are now turned towards making the second payment next fall.
If you want to be a partner in this with us, the Quartzsite church of Christ now has its own P.O. Box, #5073, Quartzsite, AZ 85359 (yes, this is the new zip code for the P.O. annex in Quartzsite.)
Contributions can also be made directly to the church's bank account at Horizon Bank at Quartzite. To learn how to do this, or for any other questions, feel free to call Vern Miebach at 541-619-4443 or Wendell Seawright at 603-707-8408.