Catching You Guys Up to the Present

I am going to do my best to keep you guys informed on what is happening in the Northeast. I have been all over the place in the first couple of weeks and today I am settling into the work here in Alabany.

At the moment, I can't connect to the internet at the apartment so I'm sitting in the Uncommon Grounds coffee shop uploading facebook pictures and starting this blog.

I arrived in Albany to see Tim on August 28th. I preached that Sunday morning for the brethren (Mohawk Valley church of Christ) at the Days Inn where they had been meeting for almost a year. I didn't get a total count but I think there were 13 people there that Sunday. And they were the most attentive group of 13 I've ever preached to. They were great! But I had to leave immediately after services to get to Watertown, NY for the Northeast Leadership Camp where I was a counselor.

It took about 3 1/2 hours to get to the Camp Clark. When I arrived the wind was RIDICULOUS! I met the guys I did not know and after dinner we looked outside and there as a double rainbow! It was beautiful. The main one was the most vivid I've ever seen. It started the week off right.

The guys had no idea what to expect. The majority were thinking it was going to be like FC camps where there is a lot of sports and free-time. Well, that doesn't happen at these types of camps. The guys have 6 classes a day, 45 minutes each. Have a morning devotion, after lunch have a man give a 45 minute presentation on evangelism. Have an evening devotion and singing for an hour. Cabin devotion at 10 pm for however long that takes =). Giving them about 3 hours of free time a day. The guys really had trouble on Monday, but by Tuesday they had figured it out.

They had the following classes: Gary Fisher (Lessons from Jeremiah), Scott Smelser (Beattitudes), Bob Waldron (Teaching the Bible), Sewell Hall (The Life and Epistles of Paul), Gardner Hall (Public Speaking), and Ed Smith (Song-leading).

The guys really did a great job learning that the culture of the camp was to be spiritually focused. Teachers and counselors and the older campers who had been to the Alabama camp had to help in that regard all week long. The guys followed in suit very well and by the end of the week were leading the other guys.

I always hate to leave, but the guys gave me so much encouragement throughout the week. I am really thankful for Joe Works asking me to be a part of the camp. It gave me an opportunity to get involved in the work in the Northeast. I met a lot of people I had heard about from Fairlawn, NJ and New York City and upstate NY. It's amazing to see brothers from all over the country trying to do the Lord's work.

So I returned to Albany on Friday evening. The Mohawk Valley brethren met for the first time in the apartment complex. I started a series Sunday morning from 1 Peter. The sermon came from 1 Peter 1 entitled "Being Born Again Should Cause Us to..." 1)Rejoice even though we are grieved by various trials 2)Love Him (Jesus) even though we have not seen Him 3) Believe Him even though we do not see Him NOW.

I personally thought it went very well. I will be continuing the series on Sunday going into detail about suffering from the book of 1 Peter.

Sunday afternoon Tim and myself headed to Manchester, NY to spend the night with Jeff Smith and his wife Jean and daughter Carrie. I met Jeff at leadership camp and he invited us to stay with them and go visit Niagara Falls! Well, we took him up on the offer. I did not know Jeff, but his son Nick married one of my friends from high school Erin Smith and so I've met Nick through Erin. Nevertheless it was so good to spend time with them. They lived 2 hours from the falls and made it easy for us to get over yesterday morning. They cooked us dinner on Sunday night. Breakfast on Monday morning and dinner on Monday evening! Not to mention they kept Tim's dogs because for us. They were tremendous. I'm so thankful that they recently moved to upstate NY to do the work of the Lord.

And that gets us to today Tuesday September 8. Tonight will be the first mid-week study of the Mohawk Valley congregation. I will be starting a study of Hebrews this evening. We have hopes that a couple of Tim's co-workers will be present as well as some brethren that worship with the institutional group in Albany.

There are a lot of opportunities in this city. The University at Albany is 2 minutes from the apartment complex! I plan to head over tomorrow and see if we can get some Bible studies set up. The brethren are excited and so am I. Please continue to remember us in your prayers.

God bless,

Wes