Amanda and I were about fifteen minutes early for church today, but parking was tough anyway. It was the first regular service in the new building for Port City Community Church, and man was it packed. We later heard that a lot of people couldn’t fit into the 10:30 service. The parking lot was full, the line of trees behind the parking lot was full of cars and cars were parked up and down Cardinal Drive. People were sitting in the aisles. Anna told Amanda they were already thinking of adding on to the building, which there were apparently plans to do down the line anyway. I think they’re going to stream video into the Overflow auditorium, letting it live up to its name, and use it like the Video Cafe was used at Roland-Grise, just a place to fit more people. What an awesome problem for a church to have, huh?
I mean of course attendance was high because of all the hype, so you had people who don’t always come and you had people who had just heard of it and wanted to check it out, but I’d bet that a bunch of those people stick around. How crazy is it that the church is already outgrowing its brand new building?
They did a little something different to start things out. There was a video before the service with news and updates and info and such that counted down to the start of the service. At the end of that they had clips from the last service at Roland-Grise while playing All Because of Jesus by Steve Fee. As that was playing the band picked it up live on stage as the lights hit. It was a pretty awesome moment. The energy in the building was really high. After the first song there was a video about the history of the church that included a bit about a Kenyan fellow called Pastor Jackson who started an orphanage that Port City heavily supports.
A little later Mike Ashcraft, our preacher, took a moment to recognize a few people and at the end of that called Pastor Jackson and his wife out on the stage. he got a standing ovation. He’s just such a dynamic guy. Mike told a story about how the church had sent a few people over to Kenya early on and a collection had been taken up for them that was worth about 25 cents, but that in faith it was all the people had, and now their faith was being rewarded as our church body was about to give them a $25,000 check.
All in all it was a pretty emotional service. After it I was going to go talk to Mike Paschal but on the way I stumbled into Don and Laurel on the balcony. We talked a minute then Don showed me the ring he gave Laurel yesterday. I think I said, “Oh wow” about a hundred times before I finally just gave them both a hug. I dragged them downstairs to talk to Amanda and when they showed her she did that thing girls do where they fan their faces with their hands for a while and hopped like a little kid who had to pee. So yeah, they’re engaged.
Don said they had gone out surfing yesterday and he was going to propose out in the water, but it was so choppy that once when they tried to get close to each other for a kiss they couldn’t even do that. So at some point Don paddled in then Laurel followed him and then he proposed. he said the water was so rough he couldn’t even go down on one knee, but I don’t think that mattered all that much to Laurel.
Don also said he had to keep checking his pocket to make sure the ring was still there. It was in a bag inside his velcro pocket. Once he got tumbled about and couldn’t feel it at first.
Despite the rain, which was light at the time, Amanda and I decided to go out to the beach. We sat on Anna and Barry’s porch for a bit then decided to go on out. It was windy, but otherwise it was nice out for the rest of the day. I grabbed a board, but there was almost nothing to catch. I tried going out twice and after the second time we went on in. Amanda was covered with sand from the wind blowing it up on her.
We went in and talked to Anna and Barry for a little while. We saw Mike “Lars” Boscaljon walk by outside, so I went and said hi to him and he came inside for a minute. He had already gone out but also saw that there was nothing to do so he was heading home, where Kaitlyn was. He had a little sinus problem and sounded a little stuffy.
Anna and Amanda went for a walk. They went down the sidewalk instead of the beach and were both really hot and tired when they came back. Amanda ended up having a blister on one of her feet. Barry and I stayed inside and semi-watched some F1 racing and chatted. I mostly tried to take a nap, but I just wasn’t quite tired enough to nod off.
Amanda and I went home to shower and take care of the animals then went over to Paul and Kim Ayers’ house for dinner. They had pork wrapped around blue and freschetta cheeses, potato wedges and broccoli. Erin would freak out to hear this, but I ate the broccoli and didn’t die. Like I said, I’ve been experimenting with healthier food. Actually, when dipped in the red wine sauce they had, it was kinda tasty. Yes, I said it, the broccoli was tasty.
The dinner took a bit to make, but we spent our time playing with their six month-old baby, Peyton, and talking about all kinds of things. It was really good to hang out with them.
Zach Dotsey