We just wanted to give you an update on how Celebrate Recovery is going so far. We began on March 13, 2008 with an enthusiastic group joining together for a barbecue and fellowship.  We start our meetings at 6 PM with a delicious dinner prepared by volunteers from our church, and all the participants really enjoy this part of the meeting! We thank each of you who have so graciously provided these wonderful meals. They are an important way to begin each meeting by making everyone feel comfortable.

Around 7 PM we sing a few songs. Evie Potts played piano for us a few times this summer, Shirley Van Osdol has also helped. We sincerely appreciated their talents! Many times though, we struggle through one-finger piano playing . We would really love to have more of piano players come in regularly to help us out this way. It would only be for 10-15 minutes per night.

We also spend time sharing prayer requests and praying for each other, going over the 12 principles that Celebrate Recovery is based on, and reading the 8 principles to help us recover from our hurts, hang-ups, or habits. We then break up into gender-specific groups to discuss the topic of the evening, which has come out of the leaders’ books. These discussions are very honest, and we have enjoyed the measure of trust that is felt at these meetings.

We have an average of 3 women and 5 men who come to these meetings per week. This may not sound like many, but there have probably been a total of 40 people who have attended at one time or another. This is a very revolving group of people, who come once, may not come for weeks, then join us again, then are gone again … you get the idea. We really appreciate those who come every week and are the stability of the group. The people we are serving are dealing with alcoholism, drug addictions, sexual addictions, painful marriages, and life struggles too numerous to mention. We feel very blessed to be used of God to assist in peoples’ recoveries through this program.

The leaders wish to thank all of you for your generous support through prayer, hands-on assistance, and monetary donations. We encourage you to get involved, and help keep this vital program going.

PLEASE TAKE NOTE: Starting November 3 at 5:30 to 6:30 PM we will begin the Step Studies, which are a more in-depth study of the 12 steps which are based on the Beatitudes. We will meet at our church here at the corner of North 5th and Villard. There will not be a meal served, and it will be gender-specific study groups only. You do not have to attend Celebrate Recovery on Thursday nights to be a part of the Step Studies.  Please contact Pam Allsop at 763-5872, or talk to Ed or Shirley Visser if you have any questions.  We would love to see YOU there!