Sunday, March 7, we will have a potluck dinner after church. Most items will be provided by the church. You are asked to bring salad ingredients or desserts. As always, you are welcome to invite guests to attend with you for this event. We've not had a dinner in awhile, so let's all enjoy this time of fellowship!

Please join us after church on March 7 to celebrate the 60th Anniversary of Ester and Eva Reed. We will be celebrating with a special anniversary cake created by Sheri Bounds. Don't miss this opportunity to celebrate with Ester and Eva. They were married 60 years ago on February 25.

The Advisory Council election will be held on Sunday, March 28. We have five candidates for the four seats available. Those elected will serve two years on the council. If you will be absent on March 28, ballots are available for early voting on March 14 and 21. You must be a member at least 16 years old to vote, and please vote only once. (No stuffing the ballot box!)

Raul Sifuentes sends us a preliminary report of his recent mission trip to Mexico: A total of 1029 persons were seen by Doctors , Dentists and Optometrists. A total of 150 persons were fitted with glasses. We distributed 2 boxes of bibles and many NT's and other literature. About 722 people evangelized and most important: 635 persons received Jesus in their hearts.

I had dinner with the family of the inmate of Darrington prison. Remember that in the November trip, 6 of his family of 9 were saved? This time 2 more including his grandmother and elder sister, plus the taxi driver that took me back from their home to the place I was staying. Several of the people we evangelized were followers of the Jehovahs Witness sect. In fact all the people that came to me were born again except 2 of the JW's who rejected Christ.

This time I travelled via bus to Mexico. It took me 27 hours to arrive at destination and 28 coming back. It was very tiring but, by God's Grace, very rewarding. Most amazing thing is that all the time I was in the mission field I was completely healthy. I returned on the 19th day and began to feel sick the following day, resulting in pneumonia and bronchitis. I feel better now after seeing the doctor; he prescribed (again) antibiotics and cough medicine. All is well when Jesus is in our lives. We can do all things because Jesus gives us the strength.

Hello once again from Community Christian Fellowship, Why do we suffer? Many have asked this question, and many have tried to answer it. It seems that, no matter who you are, good times and bad times are inevitable. So, the question is why? We could just say because were stupidwe just bring all of this on ourselves, its supposed to happen, and theres nothing we can do about it. Or, we could say God is testing us. This is one of my Christian friends favorite sayingsbut how do you know if you passed or failed the test? And, if you feel you failed, what does God thinkand is it fixable?

In the last verses of Matthew 16, Jesus told his disciples not to worry about a thing, that He would provide all of their needs, even the ones that they didnt know they needed. The same goes for us today. But thats hard for us to focus on when we feel the world is falling apart around us. Jesus understands that part of our thinking also.

In John 16, Jesus covers this concept in detail. He begins to give the answer to the ultimate question, why do we suffer. He explains that when we as human beings begin to understand the depths of what he was then teaching, we will be moved to change many things in our lives, we will begin to care in a way we never have, and we will begin to love.

This seems wonderful at first, but, when you think about it, a lot of our suffering occurs because of the yearning we have for the right things to happen. We yearn for justice and peace. We yearn for the ability to do the right thing in our own minds and lives, and we yearn for good things to happen for those that we love. WE BEGIN TO CARE. When we see the reality of all of humanness, its lack of control, its selfishness, its prejudice, and even its rage and hatred, something inside of us is triggered. We want it to change!! We can sound very righteous and say we want it to change so that the world will be a better place, but in reality, we yearn for it to change because of its emotional, physical and spiritual affect on us personally.

What is the hardest thing to admit is that we cannot control most, if not all of what we yearn for. And that my friends, makes us feel like were suffering. God knows all of thisJesus experienced it all. He told us that in this world we would suffer, but not to worry, because HE had overcome the world for us. So, our perceived suffering really has to do with the perspectives that we lean on when things dont go the way we think they should. Our inner yearnings for peace and love are triggered. But, most of the time, they are triggered for selfish reasons; God knows this too, and He died so that we could be saved from ourselves.

The most humbling thing to try to grasp is that if we were not put into situations that made us experience these feelings and begin to care, we would never begin to understand how much were out of control and need God. So when He said my thoughts are not your thoughts, it wasnt a put down, it was a statement of reality that should really give us hope. He is and always will be in complete control. Our suffering is a result of our struggle to believe that very fact. I thank God daily for His resounding love and grace. Jesus was right, without him we can do nothingand He loves us anyway. Until next time, Pastor Mark