Atlanta Reformed Presbyterian Church

(The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly)

April 2019―First of all I must apologise for my lack of articles for many months.  As you may know, our website was hacked in a rather malicious fashion, and, even though it is partially repaired, the most recent Penny’s Pen that can be accessed is from May, 2014!  The latest information about bringing the website back on line fully is that we anticipate that it will happen soon.

We therefore decided that, in order to keep you updated with events here, we would occasionally send my articles as email attachments to everyone on our list of correspondents.

The Good

As reported last year, we started a morning service in addition to our evening service on February 4th.  The average morning attendance for the 48 weeks between starting the two services and the end of the year was 14, and the average evening attendance was 23.  During that time period only five times were there more warm bodies in the morning service than the evening.  This move resulted in an interesting phenomenon, namely that, even though the services, with rare exception, are identical (along the lines of a church having two identical morning services), an average of about 6 people each week chose to come to both, thus making the average total attendance 31 after subtracting overlaps.

As soon as we started morning services, we started serving lunch to those who attended, along with anyone off the street who came in looking for a meal, and we delivered meals to any of our regular attenders who were unable to attend because of sickness.  Those who come in the evening still get their snacks to enjoy during fellowship time or to take home.

Shortly after that, a gift of large print Bibles was made to the fellowship, for which many of our people have been enormously  grateful.

The third Sunday in February 2018 we had the pleasure of welcoming six members of the Selma (Ala.) Reformed Presbyterian Church to our evening service.   André Pickens preached a very powerful sermon, and we raised the roof singing psalms in four-part harmony.  It was glorious.  Just as our guests were leaving to go home, there were gunshots very near our building, so the ladies and gentlemen of Selma maybe got a little more of the Bluff experience than they had anticipated!

That same morning, William (Bill) McCoy had been baptized.  William had started coming to church in April 2017, having been invited by our semi-resident diaconal assistant, Robert, who had also been witnessing to him.  Living in a van and undergoing the final few weeks of chemotherapy treatments for lung cancer, Bill lapped up all that he could learn about Christian doctrine, and asked the kind of probing questions that led to his coming to a point that he could fully articulate the gospel.  With his chemotherapy treatments having ended, he started to look more healthy and his hair started to grow back but then he discovered that the cancer had reappeared, this time in his brain.  William started failing rapidly, and it was obvious, with slurred speech and confusion, that things would only get worse.  He therefore urgently requested that he be baptized while his brain still functioned.  The Atlanta Commission pulled out all the stops to figure out a way that this could be achieved even though APF was only a preaching station with no authority to conduct baptisms. Thankfully, with RPCNA approval, we were able to arrange to have Southbridge Community Church, a congregation of the Reformed Presbyterian Church (Hanover Presbytery) in Savannah, Georgia, to receive him, and we then were able to conduct his baptism at APF under the auspices of that congregation.

The baptism took place on February 18, 2018, and William went to be with Jesus less than four months later.

Adult Sabbath School has been humming along with an excellent series on People of the Bible by our deacon, Sean McPherson.   Unlike many adult Sabbath School groups, there is a lot of lively interaction and Sean has to be ready, constantly, to field all sorts of questions.  He is always prepared to take his time in making things clear, and is even willing to travel down sanctified rabbit trails for a while if it is of benefit to the assembled group.

One unusual event that took place last year was a workshop entitled Ask A Lawyer which was held on a Saturday morning in May.  A colleague of Pastor Frank’s, a business law professor from Georgia Gwinnett College, Dr. Vlad Bursuc, talked to interested people from our group about points of law with which they may have had negative experiences or were concerned about.  These ranged from their rights while being questioned or arrested by police, to how to complain about landlords unwilling to make repairs, to how to deal with unhealthy and unsanitary conditions in their apartments.  He also covered the best way to apply for and achieve welfare, disability income, and other matters.  He left plenty of time for questions, and had a number of printed hand-outs for people.  It was considered a great success, and Dr. Bursuc has indicated his willingness to return and hold another such workshop.

In an effort to get together socially with our brothers and sisters at the Birmingham (Ala.) Reformed Presbyterian Church, we held a psalm-sing with them in December last year.  A large group turned out for the event in Birmingham, and Pastor Frank and I rented a mini-van to take ourselves and five other people to represent APF.  We had a wonderful time, with one of our teenage young ladies even requesting Psalm 23B during the requests time, and another teenage young lady admitting afterwards that she was too shy to make the request but that she wanted to ask for 68E, showing that the young people in our group are really starting to appreciate the psalms.

Several of our young people, even down to almost the youngest of them, are starting to sing some of the psalms without the need of the psalter. They have memorized selections such as 100A, 106A, and 134B, and, according to their mother, can even be heard singing them around their home.

Still a little young to join in singing the psalms, although he does a good job of beating time, just like his mother Anne, our precenter, Samuel McPherson looks like a promising Sunday School teacher, sitting in his father Sean’s chair before the start of the adult class.

The most exciting thing that took place recently was that APF was granted Mission Church status at the Great Lakes-Gulf Presbytery meeting February 28th – March 2nd, 2019.  This is something that we had been working towards and praying for, for several years, and was a cause of great celebration and thankfulness to the Lord.

One Thursday in February this year, when Pastor Frank was in Atlanta visiting some of our folk, he spontaneously suggested getting together for a Bible study that evening, and he ended up with 14 people in attendance!  Those studies have now turned into membership classes, with each lesson delving into the meaning of each of the seven vows of church membership.  At the same time, he is continuing his sermon series on the sacraments which he had already begun, but with extra emphasis now that many of our people are looking to the possibility of becoming communicant members.

We continue to have Sabbath school classes for all age groups, with faithful teachers for the older children, the younger children, and adults.

Miss Amy Work continues to invite our two teenage girls over to her apartment once a month to engage in some food preparation followed by instruction appropriate for young ladies.  On one occasion she was joined by her parents, visiting from Ohio.  Her father, Rev. Steven Work, preached for Frank the following day and on one other occasion recently, and her mother, Jeannie, helped teach the girls how to prepare a healthy evening meal.

Miss Amy and Jeannie brought a meal for lunch after the service the following day, and the apple pies turned out brilliantly, providing a wonderful dessert:

The Bad

Given the nature of the ministry, and the fact that people whom we don’t know are often invited in off the streets, we have to be careful about making sure that our valuable items are safely secured.  Since we moved into the duplex nearly four years ago, there have been four occasions on which phones were stolen.  Amazingly, on three occasions they were retrieved when we realised very quickly what had happened (on two of those occasions, we were able to give chase by means of the phones’ GPS tracker).  The first time that happened it was a phone belonging to a Korean-American lady who was visiting and had brought others who were visiting the States from South Korea.  It was all rather exciting, with two of our men giving chase in a white pick-up truck and finally cornering the thief in a back yard behind a convenience store.

In April last year it was my phone that was taken, and when Pastor Frank got near the lady who had stolen it and called it, and it rang, she took off running, throwing things at him including rocks and bottles, two of which smashed near his feet.  A tree branch actually hit him in the chest.  Frank called the police and me to his location and the three of us continued the chase.  She had thrown the phone away but by continuing to call the number we eventually found it. She has tossed it behind a large dumpster located on vacant ground between the backs of houses and an apartment complex.  The thief was let off with a warning.  On the third occasion we were pretty sure that we knew who had taken it, and simply tracked her down near the church building.

Another interesting  incident occurred on a Saturday morning in May, when Frank had been asked to speak at a neighbourhood gathering designed for distribution of food and clothing, and for former drug/alcohol addicts to give their testimonies.   At one point I was driving back to the event from the church by myself when I came up behind a car from which both the driver and passenger were firing into the air, scaring to death four young men who were running, weaving and trying to get away from the shots.  It didn’t look as though the shooters were trying to kill, just to scare–probably a drug deal gone bad.  I turned off onto a short street and pulled over but then heard local residents shouting and begin running indoors or diving for cover.  That was because the car and its quarry had turned around and were coming up behind me, so I slid down in my seat to make sure I was below the level of the car windows.  And I prayed.   I called Frank who came, along with a couple of armed security guards, but the perpetrators got away.

As you can imagine, we try to keep our building as kid-proof as possible, but somehow, a canister of Drano and a spray bottle of bathroom cleaner containing bleach, found their way under the sink of the bathroom used by the little kids’ Sunday school class.  In January of this year, a six year old boy found them, took the tops off both containers, and poured the contents into each other and into the sink, thus producing a cloud of thick green gas that emanated from the drain.  The Sunday school teacher (Miss Michele) picked up the canister which was too hot to handle, dropped it into the sink–and immediately a small explosion came out of the top.  She called out “gas!”, at which point, our deacon, Sean, who was teaching the adult Sabbath School class, tore upstairs, grabbed the canister with a wad of paper towels, flew back down the stairs, out the front door, and tossed it as far away from the building as he could.  The child had made chlorine gas, which, after we opened doors and windows, dissipated quickly.   Even though Cl₂ is very dangerous and potentially fatal, no one, by God’s grace, was seriously hurt (though Miss Michele did have numbness on her tongue for a few days).

And The Ugly

As might be expected in a ministry such as APF,  there is never a dull moment, and disruptions can occur even during the worship service.  Things such as:

–  One Lord’s day in August Pastor Frank invited a lady in off the street during the Sabbath school time.  The lesson was on Elijah and the prophets of Baal.  “Whom will you serve?”.  One of our regular ladies asked a question about how to witness to others, and the visitor became extremely agitated.  She started talking drivel, about how you can worship any higher power as long as it’s not a jar of mayonnaise.  As our teacher and Frank tried to explain to her that Jesus is the only way to be saved, she kept arguing over the top of them.  Eventually she started to walk out but changed her mind and came back and sat down with the obvious intention of continuing to disrupt the lesson.  She continued to talk over the teacher, accusing him of not knowing what’s in the Bible, and, thankfully, did eventually leave.   Our blind lady, who is a true prayer warrior, was sitting right in front of the visitor and became very upset, saying that it had been a demon that was sitting behind her.  Our eyes, of course, are not open to the spiritual warfare that is taking place over the Bluff, but occasionally we do get glimpses of it.

– Also in August, Pastor Frank had invited to church a lady he had met in Burger King.  He called her on Saturday evening to arrange to pick her up the next morning.  For about a full half an hour she did nothing but hammer him about how churches don’t do anything to help people.  So he tried to bring the conversation to an end and she said, “that’s it?”  So she obviously expected something.  It ended up with Frank saying he’d pick her up so that she could have a hot shower and lunch at the church after the service the next day.  However, the effort to find her was extremely time consuming, as she was not giving clear direction as to where she was.  When we finally found her, she said that she saw a spider crawl into her bag and she wasn’t going anywhere with that spider in there.  We had to give up.  Our relationship with this lady continued for some weeks until we became pretty confident that she was never actually going to come to church.

– In September a very strange man came into the service, peering around at everyone in a most creepy fashion and making movements that made everyone uncomfortable.  His antics eventually became so disruptive during the sermon that two of our men tried to coax him out, but he wouldn’t be moved.  Not long afterwards, however, he left on his own.

Finally

As many of you know, Pastor Frank and APF have been very warmly received and appreciated by the residents of the English Avenue and Vine City districts of Atlanta, where the Bluff is located.  As mentioned in a previous article, City Councilman Ivory Lee Young and his wife Shalise had developed a very friendly relationship with Frank over a period of several years.  We were therefore most saddened when Mr. Young became gravely ill and passed away.  Pastor Frank was honored when asked to participate in Councilman Young’s funeral.  In attendance were the current mayor of Atlanta, several previous mayors, former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young, Congressman John Lewis, police and fire commissioners, and too many ministers to count.  The presence of these dignitaries was a token of the esteem in which Councilman Young was held.  Pastor Frank was able, briefly, to comment on Councilman Young’s faith and compare him with other Christian statesmen in history, specifically Alfred the Great, Edward VI, and Abraham Kuyper.

We were also saddened by the passing of RPCNA elder and friend Bob Shapiro, who went to be with the Lord in September following a lengthy battle with cancer which suddenly worsened in the final few weeks.  Bob and his wife Patty and daughter Abby were supporters of APF and attended when they could, his final worship service attendance with us coming less than three weeks before he died.

Prayer Requests

Please pray that the Lord would give the leaders at APF:

– Wisdom―to know how to deal with some very difficult issues that arise within the congregation.

– Stamina―that we would, like the apostle Paul, be willing to spend and be spent.

– Resilience―in the face of spiritual attack.

“All of our own strength is weakness, and all of our own wisdom is folly”  (John Owen).

Please pray that our people would come to understand the meaning of church membership and be willing to work towards becoming qualified to participate in the Lord’s Supper and, where necessary, to be baptized.

Please pray for those of our number who are suffering physical health issues, and for those who are suffering from depression.

In terms of practical considerations, our most urgent prayer request is for a new meeting place.  When our lease is up at the end of August, the owners of the duplex in which we meet will be upgrading the building and turning it into an airbnb.  We therefore have less than five months to find a new facility.  It would appear that we will have to find a temporary place while we continue the search for something permanent.

Having been ministering in Atlanta now for a total of ten years, and, as of April, in the Bluff for nine years, we reflect on the many ways in which the lord has blessed us, and we look to him to meet our needs.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your paths”  (Proverbs 3:5-6).

By Dr. Greg Burgreen

May 2018―As soon as my daughter Lily and I stepped into the meeting room of the Atlanta Presbyterian Fellowship, we anticipated that this would be an experience involving the conventional and the unconventional. We were standing in an L-shaped living space in one side of a rented duplex. The room had rows of mismatched chairs arranged to accommodate 50 or so attendees.

The setup was quite unconventional and did not fit the standard RP model of worship. Or, did it? Both sections of the room had its chairs oriented to face the centerpiece of this unconventional sanctuary: the pulpit. Front and center in this affair is clearly the preached Word of God. How conventional and traditionally Reformed.

We were warmly greeted by Penny Smith, who said that her husband, Frank, was out and about collecting folks from the neighborhood. Dr. Frank J. Smith is the minister of this outreach effort, which was begun in 2010. Soon enough, Frank arrived and called Lily and me down to take a 9-cent tour of the area. I climbed into a dilapidated 12-passenger van that had seen its better days long ago. “Ding” sounded a hotel service desk bell that had been duct-taped to the dash of the van. Frank explained since the van often was filled with noisy children, eight dings meant to buckle up and two dings meant “QUIET DOWN!” There were only us three in the van, and two of us were too wide-eyed to require two dings.

Frank chauffeured us through the 20-block communities of English Avenue and Vine City. One easily could spot deep decay in the physical and cultural aspects of the area. As we moved through endless stop signs and traffic lights, Frank informed us that this area of Atlanta is known as the Bluff.

As we drove, I noticed the people we passed. They did not walk; they shuffled. It was as if they were burdened with ankle shackles. Frank was a nonstop tour guide speaking of the area’s history and local interests, including the life and fate of C.J. Johnson, a college baseball star years ago. To the east of the Bluff, separated literally by one street, were several of the icons of success and grandeur in Atlanta, including the Georgia Tech campus and the now-imploded Georgia Dome adjacent to its impressive replacement stadium that sports a huge Mercedes-Benz emblem. This stark division was a classic urban example of the Haves and the Have-Nots.

In typical Southern tradition, the Bluff is dotted with different houses of worship on every corner, including a building run by a Nation of Islam organization faithful to the original founder and another building run by those loyal to the Farrakhan-led Nation of Islam. Most of the churches are attended by Bluff outsiders and have essentially abandoned the local community.

All along our circuitous route Frank was sharing that “we worshiped there, we held Bible studies there, I preached in that church, I know this pastor well, so-and-so lives here.” Frank knows the Bluff.

In fact, Frank has invaded the Bluff. I began to realize that Satan owns most of the Bluff, and the destroyer has done his job well. Destruction and decay are all around. I also realized that the driver of this dilapidated van is an ambassador of King Christ and a visiting member of the victorious kingdom. This human representative of the true owner of the Bluff had arrived several years earlier and was now freely driving all over it, recounting how the King’s ownership of the Bluff is being exhibited.

For example, the Atlanta Fellowship has openly worshiped in the elements on the front steps of the formerly majestic, but now burned-out St. Mark African Methodist Episcopal Church. The Fellowship has held open-air Bible studies in the Vine City Park. The Fellowship was invited to hold its meetings in a storefront building in the center of the Bluff by its Muslim owner. Frank was invited to preach in a local Baptist church in order to demonstrate that racial epithets spoken against him were without merit. So, as ridiculous as it seemed, the railroad-engineer-cap-wearing, large sunglasses-bespectacled, duct-taped-bell ringing driver of this trashed van is and has been exercising Genesis 1:28 spiritual dominion over this satanically decimated patch of Atlanta. Pastor Smith has been actively and boldly redeeming the claims of Christ in the Bluff through the calling and power of the Lord Jesus Christ.

After making her own rounds to collect folks, Penny called Frank to ask if we should start the Sunday school as Frank, now without us, was making his second collection run, being slightly delayed by our last-minute tour. The L-shaped living room was now bustling with 35 or so people. And what a group this was. Half white, half black in numbers. People from every background. Children running to and fro. Infants in the arms of mothers. Apart from the Smiths, I counted at least four other faithful helpers: Amy Work, Sean and Anne McPherson, and Michele Haag. These helpers are solid young men and women who have heeded a call to invest their talents and energy into this ragtag group.

Sean led an absolutely masterful Sunday school class, eliciting much interaction from the congregation, who answered well and asked solid questions, such as about the relationship of God’s sovereignty and our free will. You would know the questions well—they were the very questions we all have asked at some point along our journeys toward theological understanding. This group is being grounded in biblical truth with a Reformed theological rigor. Upstairs, the children were being catechized and infants cared for by the squad of faithful helpers.

After Sunday school and a short time of loud and lively fellowship, the worship service began. All parts of the various family units were in attendance. I appreciated that Pastor Smith intentionally placed corporate recitation of weekly memory verses and Westminster Shorter Catechism questions prior to the formal call to worship. This was so that any present, including the children, could participate by reading the questions to the group, who responded with the answers, and no consciences were bound in reciting non-inspired catechism passages during formal worship. The service itself was exactly what one would expect in a Reformed Presbyterian church: preaching, singing, and prayer saturated in Scripture. Basic, simple, and sufficient. Highly conventional.

The worship service was also highly unconventional. There were some who understood the principles of the Reformation, the regulated liturgy, and the practice of exclusive psalmody. But there was also a second group who had no background in these matters, who likely have never uttered the word soteriology, and who would likely not know what the acronym EP stood for, much less be able to debate the propriety of exclusive psalmody in corporate worship. Yet here in the worship service in this L-shaped living room were these two groups of people sitting under the same ministry of the Word, singing the same psalms, and jointly praying as one people before the Lord.

Lily and I were warmly welcomed by the Smiths and the faithful helpers. But the extent of the hospitality soon ended, not because they ceased to be hospitable, but because we felt the need to give rather than receive hospitality. As those who have tasted the goodness of the Lord and experienced His kindnesses, Lily and I felt the burden and the pleasure of welcoming, engaging, and serving the various people in this crowded room of our Father’s house.

Some of these folks are the forgotten ones of our society. They needed to feel welcomed. They needed to know that they have a standing and hearing within this small room in which the Lord of hosts was present with us for worship. Were there distractions during the service? Plenty! Movements, crying, whispering. Some of the movements were from the faithful helpers and Penny, who were unobtrusively attending to the needs and mishaps of the people in order to keep the service proceeding orderly and quiet. When I say quiet, I’m excluding the amens and other affirmations heard during the sermon.

The pastor faithfully reminded the people of their biggest problem: it is not their relationships, not their housing needs, not foreign aggressions, but it is their sins before a thrice holy God. One realized many were indeed listening as evidenced by the sudden silence. At various crescendos of the sermon, such as when the pastor was relaying the words our Lord declares in His legal action of justification, “not guilty, not guilty,” all noises in the room ceased. One could hear a pin drop. And one could hear the relief and gladness of the people as hushed interjections of “amen,” “praise God,” and “thank you, Jesus” were voiced. This relief, gladness, and joy also translated in a mighty way into the singing from this group. It was loud. It was robust. It was heartfelt. I could not hear myself singing, and I was singing for all I was worth.

This was perhaps the most alive worship service I have ever experienced. There is something amazing occurring in Atlanta at the Bluff. This is no liberal, feel-good-about-my-selflessness social justice ministry. This is no unbiblical exercise of Marxist liberation theology.  This is the pure-and-simple gospel of Jesus Christ being proclaimed to a forgotten, discarded, and destroyed community. It is the gospel preached to all men everywhere.  The message is delivered with faithful words, but the message is also communicated in practice via the Fellowship’s genuine embrace, love, and service to the people of the Bluff. The message delivered in the power and uncompromised truthfulness of the Holy Spirit. The worship is confessional. The worship is Reformed. The worship is regulated. The worship is pure Acts 2 worship.

In the midst of gifted students at Georgia Tech who are cramming advanced material to excel on their Monday morning exams, in the midst of the throngs of faithful fans cheering the Atlanta Falcon football warriors in the shiny new Mercedes-Benz Stadium, in the midst of international businessmen who are strategizing future fortunes and powers across the street from the Bluff, on every Lord’s Day, there in the small L-shaped living room of the Atlanta Presbyterian Fellowship, for a few short hours and perhaps, for some, for eternity in the next age, the roles of the Haves and the Have-Nots are gloriously reversed. I pray that those in the Bluff who have responded to the call to “come out of her” and bend the knee to the true owner of the Bluff will come to fully understand this grand truth and great mercy. May our Lord be pleased to continue to bless the efforts being invested in downtown Atlanta.

Our guest writer is Dr. Greg Burgreen, a professor at Mississippi State University.  A ruling elder in the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, he is a member of the Birmingham (Ala.) Reformed Presbyterian Fellowship.  The above article, describing his experience in Atlanta when he first visited APF in November 2017, appeared in the RPCNA’s denominational magazine, the Reformed Presbyterian Witness, in its January-February 2018 edition.

January 2018―It takes a village to raise a child. I am part of the village for the girls in my Sunday school class.  I only see Miyani (age 16) and Diamond (age 12) once a week for a few hours, but an idea has been bubbling around in the back of my mind for a way that I could do more to address specific needs and weaknesses I observed.  I wanted an opportunity to show the girls a healthier way to eat and how to do some basic cooking.  I also noticed that practicing table manners would benefit the girls.  I knew that they could also benefit from learning various domestic duties.  And, listening to the kind of questions they’d ask and comments they’d make during Sunday school, I am convinced that we need to address some specific issues from a Godly point of view.  So, I invited them to come to my place for an evening of cooking together, eating together, cleaning up together, and studying together.

A couple weeks in advance, I broached the idea to the girls and their parents, all of whom enthusiastically agreed to the girls’ night out. I sat down with Miyani and Diamond to go over food allergies and likes and dislikes.  But then we ran into a little trouble.

Me:  “Ok, I thought we’d cook something called Barbecups.  It’s biscuits filled with barbecue flavored beef and—”

Diamond:  “I don’t like barbecue sauce.”

Me: Sigh. “Ok.  We’ll make you a couple without the sauce.  Also, we’re going to have some vegetables.  What kinds of vegetables do you guys like?”

Silence.

Me:  “Do you like corn?”

Diamond:  “Yes!”

Miyani:  “No!”

Me:  “Hmm.  Ok, Miyani.  Do you like peas?  Beans?  Asparagus?  Broccoli?”

Miyani: “No, no, no, no!”

Me:  “You don’t like any vegetables?”

Miyani:  “I like collard greens.”

Collard greens?  I’ve seen those on TV, but I’m not sure I could even pick them out in the grocery store, much less cook them!  Plus, I’m pretty sure collard greens is something everybody has a different way of making, so I’d never make it the right way.  And I bet any way that Miyani would like it cooked would be unhealthy!  Uh-oh.

Me:  “Ok.  We’ll come back to vegetables.  So, we’re also going to have salad.  We’ll have lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers—”

Diamond:  “I don’t like cucumbers!”

Miyani:  “I do!”

You get the idea.  No matter what I said, one girl liked it and the other didn’t.  It was a discouraging start.  We ended up sticking to the original plan and I just explained that sometimes we have to try a little bit of something, even if we don’t like it.

I spent the next week making final preparations, most of which consisted of a lot of prayer.  I was so excited about the event that I had trouble going to sleep the night before.  The day at work seemed to last forever, but finally I was able to leave and drive down to Atlanta.

I picked up the girls from their apartments, and we headed to my place.  We chattered about the days off school they’d had because of weather, books they’re reading, and the fact that, no, Miss Amy is not going to teach Miyani how to drive on the highway!  Miss Amy needs her car!

When we arrived, Diamond was so excited about being at my place, she insisted on closing her eyes as she stepped in so it would be a surprise.  I don’t think I disappointed!  I gave the ladies the grand tour and kept laughing at their comments.

“This is exactly like what I imagined your apartment to look like!”

“It’s so peaceful here!”

“Everything is so decorated!”

“Is it always decorated like this?”

“There’s a picture of your mom!  And your dad!  Do they ever come here?”

They were interested in everything.  I showed them my room and my bulletin board where I have several of Miyani’s drawings on display.  I showed them my keychain collection of goals I’ve accomplished and some of my childhood toys.

Then we got down to the business of cooking. Miyani was in charge of browning the meat and Diamond and I tackled making a tossed salad.  Miyani had never heard of browning meat, but she took to the task quickly after a short demonstration.

Diamond and I washed the vegetables and I gave her a knife to start slicing the carrots.  After a little coaching, she was on a roll and slicing like a pro.  I complimented her and she said, “My mom never lets me do this. I don’t know why.”  I fought down a small moment of panic when I realized I had given her a very sharp knife before asking how experienced she was.  But I figured I had plenty of bandaids and the best way to learn is by doing.  And then I handed her the cucumber to cut up, too.

As she sliced away, I popped a piece of cucumber in my mouth and crunched in satisfaction. “Mmmmm,” I said.  “This is what you get to do when you’re the cook, and we’re the cooks!”

Diamond raised an eyebrow.  “Can I try one, too?” she asked.

“Sure!”

She tentatively put a cucumber slice in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully.  Then both eyebrows shot up.  “I do like cucumbers!” she exclaimed.  “I don’t know why I said I didn’t!”  I had to laugh.

In fact, there was a lot of giggling that went on as we sliced and diced, stirred and mixed.  Miyani declared she was an Italian chef, so Diamond became an English chef and I was a French chef.  We proceeded to narrate what we were doing in our respective accents.  That is, until the giggles made it hard to understand!

There was also a lot of mess-making.  Run-away carrot slices made a break for freedom across the kitchen floor and barbecued beef dribbled down the stove.  But, the girls learned my favorite cooking adage: Good cooks make a mess!  So each time some messy mishap occurred we laughed and declared what good cooks we must be!  Diamond was fascinated by the designs on wash cloth, napkins, and paper towels we used to clean up our messes.  “Miss Amy,” she said to me later. “Your house is like a dollhouse. Everything is decorated—even the paper towels!”

When our meal was ready, we sat down and put our napkins on our laps like proper ladies.  I even let the girls light the candles so we could dine by candlelight.  Wanting to make sure the girls were comfortable with this new dish, I was going to show them how to eat it with their hands.  “Oh, no, Miss Amy,” Miyani chided.  “We’re ladies.  We have to eat it with a fork and knife.”  I laughed again.  Here I was so concerned about teaching these ladies proper table manners and they had shown me up!  So, like ladies, we ate with forks and knives.

I was so pleased with the girls.  They were polite, respectful, eager to please, and quick to help.  I had envisioned a battle getting Miyani to try some of the corn, but she took a small helping without complaint and finished it all.  Diamond even made sure to eat all of her barbecued beef, saying she didn’t want to be rude . Everybody helped clean up and did so cheerfully.

Next, it was time to bake brownies for dessert.  More messes were made, but they were chocolate messes and a lot of fun to clean up!  Diamond was excited to use a spatula that was also decorated!

While the brownies baked, we sat down to do our study.  Diamond cuddled up with a couple of my stuffed animals and both girls were attentive and interested.

I am using the book, Lies Young Women Believe and the Truth That Sets Them Free by Nancy Leigh DeMoss and Dannah Gresh.  It covers a range of topics teen and pre-teen girls may face such as, “Beautiful girls are worth more,” “I can’t overcome my sin,” “It’s not really sex,” “I need a boyfriend,” “God is not really involved in my life” and “Having a career outside the home is more valuable and fulfilling than being ‘just’ a wife and mom” to name a few.  We covered the introduction and took a little quiz to see in what areas of our lives we may be believing unbiblical lies.

The evening ended with packaging up samples of our cooking for the girls to take home to their families.  I drove them home and watched to make sure they got to their apartments safely.

It had been an incredibly fun time and I am still thanking God that everything went so smoothly and pleasantly.  I was, however, pretty tired.  How do you parent people do this all day every day?

Still, I am very much looking forward to next month and will pray, as I have been, that our times together will be glorifying to God and will cause us all to grow.

Now, what shall we cook in February?  Hmmm…

April 2017―Over the last twelve months we have had to say goodbye to some old friends and hello to some new ones.  We were very sad to lose the Myers family (Chris, Misty, Trinity, Houston, Elissa and Anastasia) in May when the United States Army transferred Chris, who had been recently promoted to the rank of captain, to Fort Lee in Virginia.  The family had been an invaluable asset to the ministry for more than two years.

We then had to say goodbye to Paul Struwe, who, with a big heart for inner-city ministries, used to travel about 45 minutes from his home in Dallas, Georgia, to be of service in whatever way he could.  For many months he taught the teenage Sunday School class and was beloved of everyone in the Fellowship.  Paul moved to North Carolina to take up a new teaching position in a school in Gastonia.

Having lost these seven people in such a short space of time we felt very thin on the ground in terms of helpers, with only Pastor Frank and myself, and our three stalwart Sunday School teachers.   The Lord was most gracious, however, in bringing a new family, the McPhersons, to join us.  Frank first heard from Sean McPherson while we were on vacation in early July.  It was while we were sitting on the balcony of our hotel, looking out over the breakers of the Atlantic Ocean at Old Orchard Beach, Maine, that the surprise phone call was received.  Sean and his wife Anne were intending to move to Georgia which was very exciting news, of course, and we were thrilled to welcome them to the ministry in late July.  Starting in August, he has been teaching the adult Sunday School class, and has demonstrated not only a deep theological understanding but also a tremendous knack for patiently answering deep questions.  Anne has been serving as our regular precentor, and also is a substitute children’s Sunday School teacher.

As you already know, since June 2015 we have been worshipping in one half of a duplex, which has worked very well for us.  Our Sunday School teachers are particularly thrilled as they have their own rooms that they could decorate, and in which they can store their teaching materials.  The occupants of the other half of the duplex, however, turned out to be your friendly neighbourhood crooks!   The first of two sets of neighbours comprised a ten year old girl living there with her grandmother because her mother had passed away.  At some point a male friend of the grandmother moved in and problems started to develop.

On arriving at the building one day in the middle of a week in early April a year ago, we found a heavy-duty extension cord running from the neighbours’ side to our outside light fixture.  To begin with we tried to be gracious and allowed them to continue to use our electricity until the weekend.  After that, we threw the circuit breaker to that light whenever we left the building.  A week and a half later as we got to the church on the Lord’s Day, I noticed a number of bits of pink attic insulation on the floor in the upstairs hallway.  At first I couldn’t imagine what it was doing there, but then it dawned on me, with a shiver, that someone had entered our locked building via the attic stairs since we were there last.  It was one of our helpers who suggested that the most likely explanation was that someone from next door had cut a hole in the attic wall separating the two halves of the building and had accessed our side in order to steal electricity.  This was confirmed after the service when someone climbed up into the attic and reported that there was, indeed, a hole big enough for a man to climb through.

We said goodbye to these people when they were evicted in the middle of the year and shortly afterwards we said hello to the new family that moved in―a man and a woman and seven children.  To begin with we had a good relationship with them.  We were happy to have their children come to Sunday school and church and they were not too badly behaved.  Very quickly, however, another couple moved in with four children.  The man was quite an unpleasant character and the children were very badly behaved, which rubbed off on the first family.  Then the grandmother of the first family moved in, making five adults and eleven children living there.

The children from next door came to the Vacation Bible School which was held in June courtesy of a group of seven members of the Columbus (Indiana) RP Church (See Penny’s Pen dated June 24th, 2016), and every week a few of them came to Sunday school and/or church.  Sometimes we were overwhelmed by the sheer numbers who “invaded”, and, because they lived next door, they wandered in and out as they pleased.  Some new rules had to be written to prevent serious disruption of the worship service.

As time went by, our relationship with the adults really deteriorated.  The grounds became a real mess, with enormous amounts of trash which grew every week.  Many Sundays when we arrived Miss Amy or I would walk around picking up trash, often ending up with a bag-full.

The water bill was paid by the landlord because there was only one water meter.  We aren’t sure what the neighbours were doing with regards to water, but the landlord ended up with a $6,000 bill.  Even taking into consideration the high cost of water in the city of Atlanta, this was extraordinary.  The landlord had the water turned off for a while which really angered the men in the house.  To do that was illegal, however, so he had to turn it on again.  Eventually these families were evicted, leaving a dreadful mess behind them which was quite costly to clean up.  As a parting gesture they turned all the water taps on full as they left the house.  Thankfully the property manager came by the next day and turned them off.  When we arrived on the Sunday, however, we found that water was pouring onto the ground from beneath the kitchen and running down both driveways.  As the door was unlocked we went in and found that someone had torn out the kitchen sink leaving it in the living room, and had stolen some of the pipes leaving the main pipe gushing water without any way to turn it off or cap it.  One of our men had a tool with which to turn it off at the street.  In addition, a truck parked on the property which the owner had purchased for the property manager to use was stolen.

Not surprisingly, the owner, a church in the Los Angeles area, decided to sell the building.  So we now have a new landlord and an uncertain future.   We are hoping and praying that we will be able to stay on here, at least for the time being.  And one would think that, even though our lease calls for a monthly rent of less than the going rate for the area, the new owners would be more than happy to have us continue as tenants given the fact that we actually look after the property.

We are in the process of trying to start a building fund so that we can raise funds in earnest for a property of our own.  One challenge is that, with the increasing gentrification of our ministry area, prices have gone up rapidly.  However, as Pastor Frank has said, “Nothing that half a million dollars can’t solve!”

We celebrated two birthdays this year―the first was a celebration for Miss Rose’s birthday in January, when we surprised her with a birthday cake:

The second was in March when we welcomed the arrival of Wynter Nicole Franklin, whose mother, Tawana, is a regular attender.  Baby Wynter is pictured here with her mother during her first visit to APF, and with big brother Cornelius:

Those of you who have visited Atlanta Presbyterian Fellowship will remember Jenario and Miyani Robinson who, along with their mother, Miyoshi, have been with us since shortly after we started a Bible Study in 2010:

Other prayer requests include the following:

• That Jenario and Cornelius would soon find work.
• That those to whom we minister would be protected from the fiery darts of temptation.
• That Tawana would continue to seek the Lord and that she and her other children would soon be able to enjoy the blessings of the covenant as expressed in Christian baptism.
• That one or more workers, such as a ministerial intern or pastor assistant, would be raised up.
• That we would be able to acquire our own permanent location.

Overall, the number of people attending the service on any given Lord’s Day is down relative to last year.  But this is a community that moves around a lot so we never know for how long we will have the opportunity to minister to any given person before he or she moves on.  Even Jenario and his family have moved nine times in the six-plus years that we have known them but, thankfully, always to somewhere close enough that we have been able to pick them up and bring them to church.

Even though we are averaging fewer people in attendance we do feel as though we have a stronger core group, which gives us the time to minister to individuals more effectively.  With fewer undisciplined children attending, and with the addition of a nursery/cry room into which the service can be piped by intercom, our worship services have been quieter and more reverent, which has been much appreciated by the adults who are thereby developing a deeper knowledge of biblical doctrines and the application of them to their lives.

. . . it was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.  August the twenty-first, 2016, that is.  Even though, as Christians, we understand that God is sovereign over all things, and that even terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days are foreordained and intended for our good and to drive us closer to Christ, we insist on kicking at the pricks and allowing ourselves to become depressed when we find ourselves having to deal with such days.

Such was the situation a few Lord’s Days ago.  It was a grey and dismal day, but dry with no particular signs of rain as we left the house.  On the way to the building Frank indicated that he was not feeling all that well―a little bit shaky, a little too hot, definitely under the weather but willing to carry on.

We arrived at the duplex only to discover that we had left our “Atlanta Box” behind at the house, and there was no time to go back and get it.  The Atlanta Box contains such not-so-minor things as the sermon outline and the bulletins, and sundry other things such as printouts for little children to use during the worship service and large-print Scripture printouts for those who need them.

There was a spark of hope, however, because I always carry a spare copy of the sermon outline in my Bible.  “Where is your Bible?” says Frank.  “In the Atlanta Box,” say I.

I immediately took the blame for this state of affairs―in fact I suffered a full-blown guilt-trip because I had been the one lining up the things we need to take, near the car, ready for Frank to load them.  I felt crushed at my incompetence and immediately felt physically sick and, shortly thereafter, somewhat shaky as well.

Frank, however, found some notes on Genesis that he had prepared for a Bible Study and said he could preach from those.  So, again, we decided to carry on, and he left in the van to go and pick up the family that lives furthest from the church building.  When he was about five minutes into the drive he called to say that he was feeling so unwell that he needed to come back and pick me up to travel with him to help him concentrate on driving.  As I waited for him I realised that maybe we should think about calling off the service and getting to our family’s house (where we were going to be spending the night) so that he could lay down.

As we discussed this, Frank received an extraordinarily distressing text message from someone who used some horrible, disrespectful language followed quite quickly by something else which was distressing in another way.

We laid a sleeping bag and pillow on the floor in the worship area and Frank laid down.  Struggling in his own mind about what to do, he decided to call a trusted friend for counsel.  He got to his feet as they talked, and I, now close to tears and weak with guilt, laid down in his place.  There was an air of spiritual darkness in addition to the darkness of an approaching storm.   A nearby clap of thunder added to the drama and the heavy rain started.

The handle on the back door turned, and as the door opened I leapt to my feet, very grateful to see Miss Amy arrive.  Not surprisingly she was a little bit stunned at what she saw and I think her words were, “This is ridiculous!  This is a bad idea.  You cannot carry on.  Everyone will understand. ”  Those words were similar to those that Frank was hearing from his trusted counsellor, who reminded him that though it would be a hard thing for him to call off the service, it would be an act of faith in affirming that the Lord is the one in charge of the ministry.

Shortly after that our two other Sunday school teachers arrived and concurred with the decision, and we set about calling people who would be driving to the service, including our own family.  Several of them were already on their way and had to turn around.  Frank was then able to call those who would be relying on him to pick them up.

It was a happy Providence that we were going to be spending the night with our son and his family because they were able to welcome us warmly and shower us with tons of TLC―just what we needed.  Frank, it turned out, just needed to rest.  I just needed to calm down.

I am not proud of my “melt-down”.  But I learned a lesson.  I may be full of confidence in the Lord’s promises in an academic way, but I showed that evening that, to all practical intents and purposes, I was unable to act upon them.  I know that this ministry will continue to put us in trying situations and I trust that I will be better able to deal with the pressure in the future.

The following Lord’s Day we felt physically and spiritually refreshed, and we arrived at the duplex in good shape.  We were warmed by the love and concern that our congregation showed us and we had thirty souls in attendance.   That evening was not without drama of its own, but, by God’s grace, I remained spiritually strong and able to fulfill my duties with a cheerful demeanor.

But God really is sovereign, and we need to understand this not just academically but absolutely, as we reflect on each trial and see how it does indeed bring us closer to Christ, upon whom we can absolutely cast all our cares for he absolutely does care for us.  Even on terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days.