What a weekend!

At noon Sunday, Emmanuel held a formal groundbreaking ceremony on our property.



Several relatively new slideshows are included below, as far back as last Friday's Moles and Mountains entry.

After our first worship service in our new temporary home at St. Brendan's church -- marking Bob's 90th birthday, commissioning the Neah Bay mission workers, blessing of the stewardship pledges, communion -- we trudged or drove up the hill in the rain. Crowding into the narthex, we heard inspirational words from Warren, Steve, Sydney, Presbyter Corey and Pastor Steve. We went back outside as the rain stopped and several of us took a turn breaking ground.

Just as we ended the ceremony, a truck loaded with forms for pouring concrete pulled up. The crew will begin building those on Monday; concrete should start flowing mid-week. Steve noted at one point: Warren cautions that the new building will go up more slowly that the old ones came down. But there'll be more joy in watching the progress.

Steel rebar was delivered Saturday, and Warren had gotten Mound Emmanuel covered with plastic sheeting just before it had started raining Saturday night.



Saturday night actually was our first function at St. Brendan's with a wonderful potluck dinner, testimonies from Steve and Susan and a musing on the nature of faith by our old friend, Mark Rieke. The choir introduced us to our new electronic piano with the singing of Christmas carols. We practiced our setting up and taking down arts in this new place.