His Last Command--Our First Concern Banners by Mary Peterson and her neighbor

Special banners for the new auditorium were planned by Pastor Miller, based on a saying BIMI missionary Ken Love uses on his prayer letters:  “Christ’s last command - Our first concern”.  He gave the patterns to Mary Lou Peterson and she and her neighbor made the banners which were hung over the platform for the anniversary.

Yet another hallmark day, another deadline loomed before us.  In April of 2004, as we were arranging the ticket schedule for Rachel’s return home from Russia, Pastor felt led to schedule the actual dedication of the building for September 5, 2004, Labor Day weekend, two days before Rachel’s return to Russia, so that she could be here for this great moment, along with her sisters.  There were few funds left in the building coffer, but here a little, there a little.  This would also be just two months short of the 20^th anniversary of the building’s ground breaking.

Pastor continued to finish what he could, putting in cabinets and donated mirrors in the new restrooms.  A gift allowed the purchase and arrangement of artificial plants  for the plant boxes in the auditorium stair way. The arrangement along with some trim painting was done by the Bryant family.  At this writing there is much to be done to make it ready for an open house on Sunday, September 5, but God has done so much.  Fifteen years ago, there was only dust and dead bugs where now white walls, wine carpet, and finely fashioned pulpit furniture greet the worshippers.  “The Lord hath done great things whereof we are glad.”  As Pastor Miller is fond of saying, “We want this building finished in such a way that all can see the fingerprints of our Mighty God upon it.”  Surely, the Lord has shown Himself strong on our behalf and he is worthy of all praise and honor and glory.

It is our prayer that this book of remembrance will be an Ebenezer, a stone of help, or like the stones that each tribe placed by the side of the Jordan so that when their children would one day ask why the twelve stones were piled there by the river, they might answer and tell of the great and marvelous things that the Lord had done for the children of Israel in taking them across on dry ground and then delivering their enemies into their hands.  Of course they would also tell them of how they had gotten to that place and all that the Lord had done for the children of Israel from Abraham to Egypt and on to Jordan.  May those of us here at Grace Baptist Church who have witnessed the great things that God has done over the past 15 years and have seen the fingerprints of God firsthand, never cease to tell those who come along all that the Lord has done.  May these remembrances and our lives be living stones, Ebenezers, for the generations to come. 
 

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