Pray for Pastor Bob

Pastor Bob is GBB National's Chaplain. Please keep him and his family in your prayers during this very difficult time. This is a copied posting from the BMH Editor's Blog:

Smokers' Daughter-in-Law Dies in Motorcycle Accident
Pastor Galen Wiley from Lancaster, PA, has forwarded this information and prayer request from the family of Bob and Jeanne Smoker of Wrightsville, PA. Bob is the pastor of Susquehanna Grace Brethren Church, and his son and daughter-in-law were in the motorcycle accident on Saturday.
Bob Smoker just called me with the information on the memorial service for his daughter-in-law Michelle Smoker, who was killed in a tragic motorcycle accident on Saturday evening. Her husband Dan was able to come home from the hospital on Saturday evening, but he is obviously devastated because he was driving the motorcycle. Michelle and her family are believers, so there is a peace that she is home with the Lord. But the emotions are still very painful at this time of loss and separation.
The memorial service will be this Friday at 2:00, following a time to visitation with the family from 12-2. The location is at the:Olewiler & Heffner Funeral Home35 Gotham DriveRed Lion, PA 17356 Phone Number: (717) 244-6991
Bob and Jean Smoker’s address is 8 Christine DrWrightsville, PA 17368
Their email is smok1@verizon.net.
I know the entire family would appreciate our prayers so much at this time.

Passports

Hopefully all of you planning to attend H.A. '09 have received your passports / passcards by now. I got mine a couple of weeks ago and realized they missprinted my date of birth. Please double-check your info and if there's a problem fill out the forms and get it back to them for correction. As long as you're less than 45 days from the date of issue you don't have to send new pictures. You just have to mail everything back to them, including their correction form and your proof of citizenship. The lady on their help line (1-877-487-2778) told me to write "Urgent Attention: Rewrites" on the envelope so it gets fixed ASAP.
Call me or shoot me an e-mail if anyone else is running into trouble with their passports / passcards.
I'm glad we insisted on the March 1st deadline to get the cards ordered or I'd have put it off!!! hahaha

My latest trip to Urban Hope

I'm still recovering from my latest trip to the Urban Hope Training Center in Philadelphia. Our group returned Wednesday night from our four-day trip but I'm still wiped out! I don't know if it was the 5-6 hours of sleep per night for so many nights in a row, the cold, wet weather we had while cleaning up the streets and watching the Phillies game Tuesday night or maybe one of those sweet students passed some of their yucky germs around... Anyway, I've been down and out since I got back!

Anyway, the trip was great! There were two other groups there for the week; a youth group from Indiana and a school group from Maryland. As you can see from the pic there were plenty of people to hang with for a few days and the students seemed to mesh really well. The bummer of the whole thing was that our group (Rittman) headed back on Wednesday instead of staying through the end of the week. Based on how I felt the last couple of days I'd say that really was kind of a blessing though...

As far as the trip went I know some of our students stepped way outside their comfort zones during many aspects of our visit. Knocking on doors in their hometown would be outside their comfort zone - knocking on row-house doors in the inner-city was WAY outside their comfort zone. Walking up and talking to a complete stranger would have been outside their comfort zone - walking up to and talking to homeless people in a subway was WAY outside their comfort zone.

The coolest part of the whole experience was that our students were able to gel with other students and they were all in the same boat. Everybody was out of their norm but they were in it together. They all did great and the Lord was definately at work this week!