Saturday morning 42 children attended the annual Easter Egg hunt with lots of smiles and happy faces to go around. Sunday morning brought the Sunrise Service, followed by breakfast, then the regular worship service when the Chancel Choir presented their cantata “Amazing Grace”. The church sanctuary was filled with dozens of potted white lilies given by folks either in honor of or in memory of loved ones. Everything we attended was absolutely lovely. We feel blessed to have been a part of all of them.
Speaking of Easter, during my Sunday School lesson on Palm Sunday, I talked to my teens about how the calculation was made every year to determine the actual calendar dates to celebrate Easter. This was as much of a lesson for me as it was for them. I knew it had to do with the full moon, but I wasn’t quite sure of the details. According to “The Amazing Bible Facts Book”, in 325 A.D., the Council of Nicea decided that Easter should be celebrated on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox. This calculation causes it to fall on a Sunday sometime between March 22 and April 25. There’s your theology lesson for the day. And, remember me telling you I was reading a 1981 Daily Guidepost every morning as a devotional because it corresponded with the same days of the week? However, the full moon must have fallen on a different day that year as Easter fell on April 19th rather than April 5th. Interesting.
Last Wednesday my mother-in-law Beverly and I visited Elwin Roberts at Troy Hospital Cardiac Rehab where he is recovering from heart surgery which replaced a valve. He’s doing much better now and enjoyed our visit and the beautiful potted lily that Beverly took to him. He told us how he can see the deer and turkeys come out of the woods to graze from his window, which certainly tends to lift his somber mood as he recovers. He is in hopes of being released to go home in the next couple of weeks.
Continued prayers are needed for our neighbor Dave McKerrow who continues to battle cancer.
Congratulations to our neighbor Tricia Hojnowski on being elected to participate in the “PA State Homecoming Queen” competition. Tricia is a senior at Troy High School and was Homecoming Queen last fall and will be going to Lancaster later this month to compete, and upon winning that segment would go on to nationals, I believe. Tricia plans to attend Penn State this fall majoring in some sort of animal husbandry curriculum and winning this scholarship would certainly help in her endeavor. Good luck Tricia! And, it would be no surprise to me if she won it all! She’s a great young gal – and a beautiful one, too.
My many thanks to my husband Ron for the beautiful hand-made rag rugs he bought for me for Easter. A friend of his from Nichols NY made them and I just love them!
Last Sunday afternoon Ron and I and his mom Beverly met up with his sister Shirley and her husband Bud and we tripped off to Williamsport to the Chinese restaurant for our Easter dinner. It was just great – and there was no clean-up!
The annual Maple Festival is coming up the end of this month, being held at Alparon Park in Troy. We are looking forward to camping for a night – as once again I’ll say – IT’S BEEN A LONG, HARD WINTER!
Rural Brotherhood is next Thursday April 16th, hosted by East Canton Methodist Church, starting at 7 PM. All are welcome.
There are finally several signs that spring is actually here. I’ve seen several newborn lambs and calves, a pair of honking geese out back in the swamp, the peepers at dusk and birds chirping even before dawn, folks out for walks, joggers out and about, and me starting some vegetable seeds to transplant into the garden – soon, I hope.
On April 10, 1790, the U.S. patent system was established. On April 10, 1849, Walter Hunt patented the safety pin. On April 14, 1828, Noah Webster obtained a copyright for the first edition of his dictionary. On April 15, 1912, the Titanic sank. The 15th is known as “U.S. Income Tax Pay Day”. Did you ever notice that when you put the words “The” and “IRS” together, they spell “THEIRS”?
Quote by Adlai Stevenson: “There was a time when a fool and his money were soon parted, but now it happens to everybody”.
Chinese Proverb: “Weather is not as important as good soil, and good soil is not as important as human harmony”.