Welcome Evening for our new minister!!

After nearly 2 years of waiting, the Lord has blessed our congregation with a minister. The Hart family arrived safely 2 weeks ago and on Saturday we were able to celebrate their arrival and welcome them into our midst officially. After much planning and organising the day had arrived and we hoped all our plans would turn out great. And what a great evening we had!(okay, so I was in the organising committee and may be a little biased, but that's allowed, right??!!)
The 'evening' began in a Christian manner at 4:oo, well, in truth we officially began closer to 4:20 by the time everyone had arrived and were seated, by our MC, Hendrik. Then followed a number of items of entertainment:

Our youth band played 3 lovely songs for our enjoyment. Our family figures rather prominently in the group, with Wade, Cody, Meagan, Hailey, Kara and Emma all playing various instruments. With Jim there as conductor weaving his magic, the kids sounded fantastic! It's really awesome seeing the scope of musicians we have in our small church!

Then the school kids came forwards and sang a song about the 'Schoolies of Baldivis", showing off their big smiles and welcoming the 3 Hart kids to their school. Of course Nico (the Principal) had to let his sense of humour shine through and let the kids stick a smiley face to his back.


The years 6-8 had all taken goodies for the "Pantry song" so while we sang, the Hart's had to run around the room and fill up their baskets.

The older youth involved everyone in a game of the "Battle of the Sexes" which much to the males delight, they won, although we think that was a little rigged....

Rob put on an interesting competition about where to do mission work: PNG (where Rev. Hart has just left) or Sumba (where we currently do our mission work). Thankfully we were able to translate and name the bible book and passage more accurately than the PNG group and so our mission work will continue in Sumba... no bias from our judge, of course!!

Keith had an interesting skit from the Men's club which had some kids in stitches trying to dress up in 2 outfits. His underlying message: how satan attacks us and tries to stop us from attending bible study club was quite relevant...

The consistory also had a skit prepared of a "typical" consistory meeting. They had fun making fun of a number of us in the congregation like the ThreeQuarters family living outside our boundary, but wanting membership in Baldivis. When it was made known that Mister ThreeQuarters could teach catechism there was a unanimous agreement to allow this. (family ThreeQuarters referring to Helen and Mick who, incidentally is teaching catechism on Monday nights...) For those who listened carefully, there were many hidden meanings, quite amusing!

The woman's club had a group of dads and group of kids that the minister and his wife had to match up. They did very well, the only mistake being with Jodi and Danielle. Their excuse: when we visit one house they're there and when we go to the other house they're there! Being cousins, they do tend to mix houses a bit!
Hendrik also had a speech about how to lure a minister to come to our church as we are only a small church, with no handicapped parking bays, lights that have a mind of their own, alarms that go off at will, airconditioning that goes from cold to colder and a host of other maladies, unlike Albany (who also called Rev Hart), who have a beautiful new building.... Thankfully Rev Hart accepted our call...

Mum had the privileged duty of presenting a scrapbook the whole congregation had made up of their families and interests to help our new minister become aquainted with who's who in Baldivis.
Rev Hart had some words to share with us and then Brian closed the formal side of the evening and opened for dinner. Then we all enjoyed a spit roast of pork, beef and lamb with salads and buns as well as a bountiful supply of desserts!! How richly God blesses us!!