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From Our Community Lay Director...
Dear Emmaus Community,
I have ask God how I can write my thoughts to all of you. It has been so long since we were able to enjoy each other's company, fellowship and worship together and like you, I really miss that personal contact.
But then I realize, all in God's perfect time. I ask God to reveal what He wants me to do today. How can I honor and glorify Him with my words, my actions and my thoughts?
We were all very happy to say goodbye to 2021, but January is giving us new challenges. Often I feel like I am not doing enough. Then I started re-reading a booklet written by Mary Geegh called “God Guides”. She was a missionary to India for 38 years. If I could use one word to describe her ministry it is “Listen”.
The first chapter in this powerful little book is titled....."Anyone Can
Have The Victory if He “Listens And Obeys.” Ask God for guidance, then sit quietly. She says to write down what God is telling you to do.
It sounds so easy, but sitting quietly is difficult for me. However, it says in Psalms 46:10, “Be still and know that I am God! I will be honored by every nation. I will be honored throughout the world”.
Praying that we have ears to hear as God guides us daily.
God Bless you my friends,
Patty Johnson,
TRWE #36 Table of Debra
From our Facilities Coordinator...
So far, in 2020 and 2021 the Covid situation has not allowed our
Community to have in-person Gatherings. There have been some Zoom Gatherings – that’s not the same.
We are working to get back to our normal schedule, and as soon as we can we will meet again in person at a place yet to be determined.
We are exploring various locations, some old, some new, hoping to
make it a bit more travel friendly for those who live farther away.
Until then, don’t anticipate!
Dave Griffith,
TRWE #27 Table of Paul
From Our Fellowship Coordinator...
Romans 12:11 Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor,
serving the Lord
Let me introduce myself. My name is Mary Pellett and I was on the
TRWE # 54 and I sat at the table of Deborah. (clap)
I am the new Fellowship Board Rep. for the TRWE Community. I
have been active, inactive, and active in the years beyond my Walk. You may have seen me serving as 4th day help at any number of men's and women's walks or setting up for walks, gatherings and closings.
As the Fellowship Board Rep., I would like to offer three types of opportunities for you to serve our community:
- Opportunity #1: It is recommended that I form a committee to help me fulfill the intent of Fellowship at Gatherings. I would like you to pray about it and seek God’s guidance to serve Him and each other on this committee in any capacity. Then contact me!
- Opportunity #2: You may be at a time in your life that you’d like to share a 4th day talk at any one of our Gatherings. I am seeking people to speak for a time of 10-12 minutes at the Gatherings.
- Opportunity #3: You may be well connected to the community and could offer some assistance for lining up 4th day speakers, hosts and hostesses, suggestions/volunteers for our in-person gatherings. Those persons would set up, tear down, and clean up our refreshment and communion table at end of Gatherings.
Let’s talk.
Please contact me at mrpellett@gmail.com
or call/text me at 724-822-3721
DeColores
From Our Agape Coordinator:
In the Emmaus Movement, agape refers to special acts of prayer, sacrifice, and expressions of Christian love on behalf of a Pilgrim by another Christian. Think back to when you were on your first walk and how it felt to receive the many items of agape in the dining room and on your bed at night. Did you feel the love? Maybe now would
be a great time to start an agape project for the next set of walks scheduled for the Fall of 2022. You have plenty of time, and maybe a project would brighten up the overcast winter days in western Pennsylvania.
There are hundreds of easy ideas for agape that you can make if you do an online search of Emmaus agape ideas. Most of the supplies you’ll need are already at hand or available online.
If crafting is not your thing, consider writing Speakers agape. Since the Teams are not finalized yet, the names of speakers are not available. However, you really don’t need to know names in order to write a letter of encouragement and thanksgiving. There are 15 talks and the titles are: 1-Priority, 2-Prevenient Grace, 3-Priesthood of all Believers.
4-Justifying Grace, 5-Life of Piety, 6-Growth through Study, 7-Means of Grace, 8-Christian Action, 9-Obstacles to Grace, 10-Discipleship,
11-Changing our World, 12-Sanctifying Grace,
13-Bodyof Christ, 14-Perseverance, and 15-Fourth Day.
DeColores!
Jan Brooks
TRWE #52 Table of Mary
From Our Community Spiritual Director:
February – the month “between”. We are still experiencing the brilliant light of Epiphany but coming quickly upon Lent. Epiphany ends at the end of February with the story of Jesus on a mountaintop meeting with Moses and Elijah who represent Israel’s covenant and prophetic
traditions. Jesus is transfigured and the light he projects leaves the disciples who have hiked up that mountain with him awestruck. They struggle to understand what it all means. Peter has the idea to set up tents and stay a while. It’s like a great party with all the best people.
Who would want to leave?
Who can blame Peter? In our time, we’ve been slogging through the day-to-day changes in health regulations, fear, loss, trauma, loneliness and fickle internet connections the pandemic has brought upon us for 22 months now. We’re all eager for a safe place to celebrate too!
The vaccines are beginning to turn the tide, but it isn’t magic, and we won’t be teleported back to our pre-pandemic lives. Even with the hope ahead of us, the losses are real, close at hand, and totally unpredictable. No vaccination can sweep these things away as we continue to find out new things about this virus.
This month takes us on a bridge from the stage of luminous light and points us toward the road that leads to Jerusalem. At the end of the bridge, we hear the words, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Perhaps these words are more poignant right now
with all that we’ve been through – not just as individuals or families, but as communities, as a nation, and as the whole world.
In a prose poem entitled WARNING TO THE READER, Robert Bly writes:
Sometimes farm granaries become especially beautiful when all the oats or wheat are gone, and wind has swept the rough floor clean. Standing inside, we see around us, coming in through the cracks between shrunken wall boards, bands or strips of sunlight.
So in a poem about imprisonment, one sees a little light.
But how many birds have died trapped in these granaries. The bird, seeing freedom in the light, flutters up the walls and falls back again and again. The way out is where the rats enter and leave; but the rat’s hole is low to the floor. Writers, be careful then by showing the sunlight on the walls not to promise the anxious and panicky blackbirds a
way out!
I say to the reader, beware. Readers who love poems of light may sit hunched in the corner with nothing in their gizzards for four days, light failing, the eyes glazed . . .They may end as a mound of feathers and a skull on the open boardwood floor . . .
- Robert Bly, from What Have I Ever Lost by Dying, 1992.
On the Mount of Transfiguration, depicted with such light to fill one with awe – as the disciples were and the birds in Bly’s poem were – that light suggests that in those slats of light lies freedom! But the downward trail of Lent testifies to a deeper truth: the only way out is down and through – through the rat’s hole. The only true gateway to the resurrection is the cross.
Our hope for this life and the next does not come from any power we have, any attribute we
possess, or even any medication we can develop. Our hope comes from trusting that we do
not journey alone. Christ journeys with us; we have each other; and we are accompanied by
the Spirit, who in our darkest, most lightless days “intercedes with sighs too deep for words.”
And that, my friends, is enough.
De Colores!
Pastor Cyndi Bloise
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