Friends,

I write to you on Easter Monday after a wonderful Resurrection Day celebration at CCOV!  A special thanks to Patty Hersh for making the sanctuary and Hayden Hall look so beautiful!  Wasn’t Kat Honsberger and Larry Loeber’s music gorgeous? 

As I reflect on the past winter, I feel such gratitude for all of the good things that have happened at our beloved church.  Plumbing issues were fixed, vigas, lights, and ceiling tiles got replaced, some of our men patched the sidewalk, the women bonded over our Thursday morning discussion group, and we recently received eight new members and celebrated a baptism!  Our February wine-tasting event attracted community people, who joined in and got know us while we all raised money for Healthy Packs, a chosen ministry of our congregation.  Rinse and repeat this for 4 PM on Sunday, April 14—you don’t want to miss Pastor Dick’s next vintages!  I pray for the ongoing resurrection already underway at CCOV to move us powerfully into the future!

And one last thing…Don’t forget to get your (clean) jokes ready for Sunday, April 7 so that we continue our Holy Humor Sunday tradition.  Historically, Christians would reserve the Sunday following Easter to lighten things up—and celebrate the great joke Jesus played on the powers of death and darkness—by telling their own jokes to one another.  Here’s one to stimulate your funny bone:  A kindergarten teacher was walking around observing her classroom of children while they were drawing pictures.  As she got to one little girl, who was working diligently, the teacher asked her what the drawing was.  The little girl answered, “I’m drawing God.”  The teacher paused and said, “But no one knows what God looks like.”  Without looking up from her drawing, the little girl replied, “They will in a minute.”

God, to me, looks a bit like the members of Christ’s body who worship at CCOV, folks serving with remarkable generosity and love.  He is risen indeed!

Grace and Peace,

Co-Pastor Sandi