I know there a lot of Vacation Bible School teachers from the church who are relaxing this week with the knowledge that the VBS program was a huge success and a lot of fun for the kids too.

The end of the program was marked by a graduation exercise on Sunday night where everyone showed off what they learned during the week. The kids also performed at the 11 AM worship service to show what was in store at the evening service. We want to give a very big thank you to Angela Martin, Amy Shruptine and all the mothers and teachers who pulled together to make this last week so great.

The Red Hat group from the church took a trip to Mt. Vernon last Saturday for a general Red Hat get-together of all the groups in the area. Lake Palestine had the largest turnout of any group there, and we hear there was a lot of great entertainment and fun. If you see Ruby Simon, you might want to ask her how she hurt her knee falling off a reindeer, or talk to Dorothy Botts and Kaethe Griffin about their encounter with Elvis. The ladies even got to meet Santa Claus.

Our prayers are with Bill Martin this week as he undergoes some tests and procedures in the hospital.

Also, Larue Owen has been hospitalized again. We pray they can find out what is wrong with her.

Barb Cade's mother was hospitalized with a stroke last week.

We were happy to see Susie Owen back in church on Sunday after her bout with pneumonia.

Debbie Bernard has been away to help care for her father who has been hospitalized in Houston.

We were happy to see that Pauline Johnson is doing well enough now to be back in church.

Bob and Carla Fisher spent the weekend in Austin visiting their daughter and family. Sarah Howard took over pianist duties. We want to thank her for that.

Our condolences go out to the Everett Kuykendall family. Everett died last week. He was a well loved member of the congregation and we will greatly miss him.

It was good to see Rich and Donna Franko in church again after all of their travels. Rich is getting ready to start teaching a new course for pilots in Oklahoma City, so he plans to be very busy the next few months getting his lesson plans ready.

The family fishing day was yesterday, Wednesday, at the church pier. Those that participate in that always have a great time. There is also a movie night coming up for the kids and a trip to Discovery Science Place in Tyler.