JULY MEETING - "Diamonds!"

"DIAMONDS ARE A GIRL'S BEST FRIEND"

"For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light." Ephesians 5:8

That was the theme for the Phebe Fellowship's July meeting that took place, Tuesday, July 8, 2008. We had 32 ladies present (we even had several missing tonight), and a tremendous spirit! We had such a wonderful time of fellowship. Monica did a great job keeping the meeting upbeat and moving along. Opening your home to 32 women at once is no small chore. There is the cleaning, cooking, decorating, etc. Not to mention the clean up afterwards. It really is a lot of work, and I would like to express my appreciation publicly to my precious daughter in law for all her hard work. She accomplished all this with 2 little ones under foot. THANK YOU MONICA - I love you! And if you truly could "read your mother-in-law's mind" you'd see that I think you are a JEWEL! ;-)


Our hostess for the month was as I said Monica Tharp (our youth pastor's wife). I thought I got a picture of her helpers, but I didn't! I was trying so hard to remember all that I needed to take pics of. I'll get it right one of these days! She had Sarah Tharp, Kylie Ferguson and Danielle Carmoney as her helpers. They did a fine job with the theme decorations! I know what a treasure helpers are, when you are hosting a meeting of this size. So THANK YOU girls! I love you too!


When the ladies walked in, they saw all sorts of sparkles, and glittery color! It was beautiful. There were candles lit all over the house. And you could smell fresh bread, as the hostess and her helpers were just finishing up some of the last minute baking.

.The food was delicious and presented in such a lovely way.

These were the "gold coins" that were finishing up baking, when the ladies arrived. It is homemade pizza dough (just give Monica a hunk of dough and she's a happy woman! She can make it stand up and sing and dance!) with pizza filling sealed in the middle, then brushed with an egg wash and baked to golden perfection.

Then there were the, ever popular, chicken salad stars. I wish I had a dollar for every time these have made their appearance at a ladies meeting. LOL They are just so yummy!

They also served these delicious little tarts. To make them, you cut a crescent ROUND in half and roll it into a ball. Press it down into a sprayed mini muffin tin w/ a tart shaper, like this one, and bake until light golden brown. They will still puff up like crescent dough is prone to do. But AS SOON as you pull them from the oven, use your tart shaper to press them right back down. They will stay that way and you can fill them either with sweet or savory fillings. The top shells are filled with chocolate pudding, the bottom ones with cherry pie filling. Then they were all dusted with powdered sugar. It of course, melted once it touched anything moist, but I kind of like how it just stayed on the edges.
I feel bad that I somehow didn't get it in the pictures, but one of our new ladies brought a delicious cheesecake tonight too. It was half cherry and half blueberry and I don't think she had any leftovers to take home to her kids! THANK YOU Hannah! It was goooooood!

And I can't forget the cool punch they whipped up! I don't even know what all was in this punch, but it was like a party in your mouth - so many flavors and colors! It was all sparkly and colorful and wonderful! *hehe*
It's SO refreshing to have our college girls home for the Summer! They just bring such a freshness and liveliness to the meetings! I love it. Here they are just chit-chatting and giggling with some of our ladies over a game.All good Baptists love to eat Amen?!
Singing "This little light of mine" and "I'll be a sunbeam for Jesus!"My favorite picture of the night. I wish I would have recorded this, so you could hear it. The prayers of God's saints being offered for our beloved missionaries. I can imagine it sounds like music to the Master's ears. I always enjoy this sweet time of our fellowship together. What a precious way to end a perfect evening.

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Monica did a great devotion on "Diamonds in the rough." Describing us as Christian ladies.
"For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light." Ephesians 5:8
One of the characteristics of a diamond is its clarity. That involves whether there is the presence of any impurities or inclusions in the diamond. Depending on its visibility, the grade of a diamond will go up or down. As a Christian, any impurities in us will bring us down in grade as a Christian too. Others may not even see our impurities or our sins because it may not be visible with the naked eye, but remember that Christ can see our hearts. He knows what the scale of our clarity is.

Diamonds don't automatically shine and sparkle. Diamonds that are uncut are rough and aren't like the diamonds we wear in our jewelry. Only the cut diamonds sparkle. A diamond has to be cut by someone who is skilled in diamond cutting for it to sparkle and reflect light. Only the cut Christian woman can sparkle too. We as Christians have to be cut by our Master Designer in order to sparkle and reflect the light of Christ in the way that we should. An idea cut for a diamond causes all the light to be reflected back through the top of the diamond so that it reflects the maximum brilliance that it can.

When we allow Christ to mold us and to work in our lives and to cut the lines in us in the way that He as our Maker wants, then we reflect His light to the maximum in our lives. If we are living that way and allowing Christ to mold us, there are just some things that we will do if we are going to reflect Him in our lives.

• D- Delight In The Lord

"Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall
give thee the desires of thine heart." Psalm 37:4


• I- Increase In Love

"And the Lord make you to increase and abound in
love one toward another, and toward all men,
even as we do toward you." 1 Thessalonians 3:12


• A- Abide In Christ

"I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me,
and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit:
for without me ye can do nothing." John 15:5


• M- Minister To Others

"Distributing to the necessity of saints; given to hospitality." Romans 12:13


• O- Obey God's Word

"And hereby we do know that we know him,
if we keep his commandments." 1 John 2:3


• N- Never Give Up

"Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great
a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight,
and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run
with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto
Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was
set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set
down at the right hand of the throne of God." Hebrews 12:1,2


• D- Die To Self

"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I,
but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live
in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me,
and gave himself for me." Galatians 2:20

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NEWS AND EVENTS:

Our dime collection is coming along. We collect dimes throughout the year, and then at Christmas time, depending on how much came in, we send a nice size love offering to 2 or 3 of our missionary families.

Tonight Amy Maxwell (our treasurer) let us know the balance of our Phebe Fellowship account. She also let 2 ladies draw names to choose the missionary families that we will send $25 love gifts to this month. It was The Burgeois family, and the Rene family.

Summer camp is just around the corner - July 21 - 25. We have asked for all the help we can get with donations to help towards the food supply. Many folks have graciously volunteered to supply paper products and food for the week, greatly easing the initial expense on the church this year.

Also, August 12 is the date of the Ladies annual rafting trip. We will head to Baldwin, MI to raft the Pere Marquette river, and then stay overnight at the Shack bed and breakfast. That is always one of the highlights of our Summer, for the ladies. Rafting will be $20 each. And the cost of the room, when split 4 ways, should be around $20 each.