Smithtown Gospel Tabernacle

With the Women’s Ministry Director and my old youth group “kid” Jaime at Church on the Sound – what a blessing!

Trying to fit 700 women at a sit-down meal simultaneously at Smithtown Gospel.

With my wonderful friend, Linda – what a joy to spend time with her again!

One of the Saturday venues, Grace Church.

This past week I had a number of Christmas events in New York. It started with one large church I’ve been to before booking me for their annual women’s Christmas event. Then the women’s director, Diane, called me one day and said, “we can afford to fly people in, but there are a lot of other churches here who can’t. Would you be willing to do other events for smaller churches while you’re here?” Of course I said I’d be happy to, and the next thing I knew I had four churches in three days! I was so impressed with Diane’s desire to help other churches in this way! It’s not the norm, and it should be because it makes so much sense – I just loved that she wanted to use her church’s resources to also bless others!

One odd thing that has never happened to me before happened here. I had shipped several cases of books and CDs ahead to the church since I can’t carry that much with me on the plane. Well, when I went to get the boxes, they looked like they’d been through a war! Two cases were ripped all over, one was literally missing the outer box and somehow the inner boxes all showed up, but separately (have no idea how that worked!!) and the fourth one just never showed up. I called USPS and they said it was “missing” then “undeliverable” and then, I kid you not, the message said, “DESTROYED.” What, did they drop a bomb on it? And, if you know it was destroyed, you must also know where it is?!?! What the what?! Anyway, super frustrating as it was a huge amount of product to lose and it’s a double whammy since it was all my Christmas CDs I was hoping to sell. Sigh. Live and learn, I guess – always going FedEx from now on.

So, Thursday night I was at Church on the Sound (as in, Long Island Sound for those of you not from Long Island) for their women’s Christmas tea. It was a great night with a really fun team, but personally for me the best part was that this church was literally minutes from where we lived when we were living on Long Island. It’s 3 minutes from where Nathan did his doctorate, and we drove past it pretty continuously, so it was a fun walk down memory lane. And, when I got there, one of the girls from my high school ministry from way back was there, and it was so good to see her! Then I looked toward the back and her mom was there too! So fun to connect with them – she has a special place in my heart.

Friday night was the bigger event I had come out for in the first place at Smithtown Gospel Tabernacle, and it was packed! I think there were over 700 women in the room at tables, and they had used every inch of their space. Sadly, Diane had surgery just before this event, so she wasn’t able to be there after all, but we talked by phone, and her daughter did an amazing job covering for her! I also had the joy of another close friend from my Island days coming to this event with her daughter, so again, just such a lovely blessing!

Saturday was very busy as I had two events back to back. I did a Christmas brunch at Grace Church and then headed straight to New Village Church for their Christmas tea. I was especially touched at these two churches with the number of kids we got sponsored for Compassion. It never fails to bless me when I see people really reaching or sacrificing to do something for kids in need, and I saw that over and over at these churches – what a blessing! I would have come just for that! But again, beautiful teams at both of these churches, and even though I was very tired, I was just overwhelmed with the blessings of the family of God!

The next day I spent services at Smithtown Gospel again, and then traveled home. Long Island is a pretty tough place to do ministry, and I have to say, I was really impressed with these churches. I will be thinking of and praying for them all, and so glad I got the chance to be with them!