EGG HUNT FOR KIDS

April 9, 2006 ** 12:30 – 2:30 p.m.

Lunch provided – pizza

Make your own ice cream sundae

Ages: 2 years through 5th grade

Everyone come bring your friends, neighbors and family

Prizes, laughter, fun

Gifts for all who come

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The 55th Annual National Day of Prayer

Honor God and Honor America
May 4, 2006

2006 National Day of Prayer
Dr. Henry Blackaby

Oh Heavenly Father, You have made yourself known to us as a nation by Your mighty works throughout our history. From the beginning You have been with us through many wars and conflicts; Your right arm has saved us. We have been amazingly and graciously blessed.

Today we confess our sin of not responding to Your right to rule in our lives and our nation. Too often we have despised and rejected Your will while imposing our own and we are now facing the consequences of our disobedience. Draw us back to Yourself, that we may return to Your ways once again. Without You, we can do nothing. You have promised that if we honor You, You will once gain honor this great nation.

That is our fervent prayer. For Your honor and glory we pray, Amen.

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SEWING COMMITTEE FORMING

Get ready to celebrate our church’s 200th anniversary! On Saturday, June 4th, we will be hosting amusement games, worship music, antique cars and much much more. We want to honor our church’s history by dressing in 19th century clothing on that Saturday. I am trying to form a sewing committee. If you want to wear period clothing that day, let’s get together and learn how to sew a costume. If you sew or even if you don’t sew, like me, please come! Our church is full of gifted ladies of all ages. Let’s have some fun, possibly learn a new skill or pass down your knowledge. Let me know if you are interested. We will try to meet early April.

Your Sister in Christ,
Conchita “Cha Cha” Whitaker

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Annie Armstrong Easter Offering

Few Southern Baptists alive today would have personally known Annie Armstrong, who lived from 1850 until 1933.

She dedicated her life to missions awareness and service. Helping to found Woman’s Missionary Union, she served as first corresponding secretary of the organization and is well known for her corresponding. In 1893 alone, she wrote 17,719 letters. Each was carefully written and conveyed then what still must be conveyed today – share the gospel at all costs; support those who do so, and do so yourself.

Her strong advocacy for missionaries and her example of making Christ known to all makes her worthy of having the annual North American missions offering named in her honor.

Through support of the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions, Southern Baptists join together with thousands of missionaries who are sharing the gospel and starting new churches throughout the United States, Canada and US territories.

Church Goal: $2,500

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Newsletter Deadline:

The deadline for the May Belfry is Sunday, April 23rd. Please have your article turned in by that date.

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Gunpowder Baptist Church Blood Drive

Everyone, let’s not forget about our 7th annual American Red Cross Blood Drive coming up on Saturday, April 22, 2006 from 8:00 a.m. until 1:30 p.m. in the fellowship room. We would like to have 55 people on the schedule I the hope of collecting 40 units of blood as our goal. We have chosen this day, so more working individuals can use their day off to meet this vital commitment. Let’s hope for a gentle rain on Saturday the 22nd and make good use of the day by donating blood before everyone gets busy with planting, mulching and sporting activities for the kids. Spring is in the air and that means new life for everything the Lord has created. Give someone in need of lifesaving blood the chance to live their life to the fullest. That one person might be a coworker, a soldier, a fire worker, police officer, an innocent accident victim, or someone very near and dear to your own family. So please come on out and donate just a little bit of your time for the blood donation process, or if you are squeamish about needles, you can work at the registration desk or in the refreshment area. The sign-up sheet is on the counter in the main lobby of the church building. A week before your donation remember to increase your water intake and have a good diet of green leafy vegetables for a good iron count.

Thanks in advance for your support for a successful blood drive.
Lorraine Herzberg
Blood Drive Coordinator

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Women’s Fall Retreat

Theme: Duty, Destination, Determination
When: November 10 & 11, 2006
Where: Spinners of Hershey, PA
Speaker: Pam Ubanks
Singers: Chord of Three, Elizabeth Rivera

Mark your calendars now. Reserve Friday evening, November 10 and Saturday November 11 for fun and fellowship. Take a closer look at your duty, destination and determination of God’s relationship in your life. Are you allowing God to mold you into what He created you for? Plans are prepared for another wonderful retreat. We need you, your friends, neighbors and family to join us. Sign-up sheet coming out in September.

Cost: $80 for your own bed, $60 to share a bed
Any questions, contact Iris at the church office

Prayerfully yours,
Joan Krebs
Retreat Coordinator

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Invitation Stuffing Bonanza

We need you to cut, fold and stuff invitations. Sign up for an hour or two when you can on Tuesday, April 11th from 9 a.m. until 8 p.m. Refreshments provided! Please call Jennifer Devos and let her know when you are available. We’re counting down the days to the huge Bicentennial Celebration event – thank you for being a part of it!

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Social Committee

The social committee is gearing up for the Bicentennial Celebration of our church. We will be in charge of the food on Saturday, and the catered lunch on Sunday. Anyone who would be willing to help please let me know. We will need people to man the food booths on Saturday and set-up and clean-up on Sunday. I am really getting excited about the celebration at this point. Mark your calendars now and invite all your friends and family to come and help celebrate this momentous occasion.

Working for Him,

Ruth Taylor

Social Chairman

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Keenagers

At last - Spring has arrived! This has been a long winter for me but, praise God, Spring is here.

We had our birthday bask luncheon last week with 12 in attendance. We were blessed to have our friend, Dolores Hammond, join us. I think we all had a great time trying to see how many words we could make out of “birthday”. Joann Abbey and Pastor Jack were the winners. Try it sometime and see if you can get more than 30 words out of “birthday”.

On Thursday, March 23rd we are going on a shopping spree at Rockvale Mall in Lancaster and then out for lunch.

On Tuesday, April 11th we are having our covered dish luncheon at the church and we are inviting young and old to come out to help us fold and stuff 300 invitations for the church’s 200th anniversary. We hope you will come out and enjoy some good fun, food and fellowship as we work together.

On May 23rd, we are going to sight & Sound to see “Psalms of David”. There is a sign-up sheet in the lobby. Anyone wishing to join us will certainly be welcome. Sign up now so I will know how many tickets to reserve. You will receive a blessing by going to see this show.

Your Keenager in Christ,

Myrtle Gettle

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Children's Sunday School Department

Our attendance has been good. The children learned in February about “In the Beginning”. Did you know that God breathed His life into our body? Did you know that the Bible does not say that Adam and Eve ate an apple? It may have been a banana. Did you know that it had never rained until after Noah built the ark? Please have children join us for some wonderful Bible lessons. Bring along your neighbors, family and classmates to Sunday school. Share with them the most important life changing information you can give anyone at any age.

The month of March we are learning to know Jesus as a child, as an example, as a teacher and as a healer. You can say no to temptation. You can follow Jesus and you can know that Jesus can heal. Remember to take your offering and your Bible along to Sunday School each week.

We had 47 snow tubers on Saturday, February 25th at Ski-Roundtop. It was so much fun. Miss Dana even made it down the track without any trouble!

On March 17th, we held a family movie night. Wow! We had a great turnout. The room was packed with old and young. Everyone enjoyed the movie, “The Last Flight Out”. It shared a very important message to all of us. Please make plans to join us next year.

Our department is now excited about our Easter Egg Hunt. Please join us for fun, food and fellowship. The resurrection story will be told by Kathryn McLaughlin. You won’t want to miss this. If you have any questions please call me anytime. One last thing … Jesus is like coke – He’s the real thing!

His servant,

Joan Krebs

Children’s Director

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Children's Church Schedule

Nursery Worker Schedule

We need more volunteers to help in the baby nursery and 2 & 3 year olds during the 11:00 a.m. worship service. If you can help out, please call Audrey Quick.

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Adult_Sunday_School_Department

The Adult Sunday School Department held its business meeting on Sunday, February 5 th with its next meeting scheduled for March 5 th. The director opened in prayer and then gave a devotional on “What is Love? What does it look like?” Augustine, 5 th century church father, provided this answer – “It has the hands to help others. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like.” Love is something we do, but it is something God is.

A comparison was made of our 2002 attendance with our 2006 attendance sheets to date. Overall the current attendance is slightly lower and can be attributed to several factors including our space problem necessitating use of the Masonic building and a special class being taught by Pastor Jack. This is a class which every member should consider attending to learn “who we are.”

Several of the classes already have projects and ministries outside the class, but it was decided that the department would select a project together. This project is based on the old Chinese proverb, “Give someone a fish and he will eat today. Teach someone to fish and he will eat forever.”

The project works like this. You can select a cow, camel, goat, etc., depending on what the department would prefer to buy. We purchase a pregnant goat for example. The goat is sent to a family in Africa. When the baby goat is born, it is given to another needy family. The family then sells milk and cheese to other people in their village and with the money they buy clothes for their children, pay for them to attend school, usually three or more miles from their home, and buy food for their family. This process repeats itself again and again.

Bill Abbey offered to be in charge of this project. Each class is encouraged to put their spare change in the collection box he will provide. Bill will send each class a sheet explaining this procedure. When enough money is collected, an animal will be purchased and the process will be initiated.

Take a moment during the week and meditate upon this. “It is more religious and more reverent to believe in the worlds of the Diety than to comprehend them.” (Tacitus)

In His Service,

Carolyn C. Foster, Director

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FAITH Ministry

Jesus gave His people a command, “Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”

We love people. We don’t want to see anyone go to hell. Yet, how can the lost know of Christ if we don’t tell them?

We need you in FAITH. Won’t you join us?

It is truly an honor to serve God through FAITH.

In His Service,

Carolyn C. Foster - Director

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Prayer Ministry

Watchman Prayer Ministry - “Intercessors”

Dear Church Family,

We have had 18 “Emergency Prayers” so far this year. I say this often and it bears repeating. Please keep in mind when we pray in these situations it brings help and comfort that we may never see. We don’t need to. We know prayer changes things. I stress the importance of all slots being filled on our Prayer Wall. At the end of this article are existing slots that need to be filled. Please seriously pray and ask God where He would have you pray and consider filling these slots. In previous articles I have stressed how important the watchmen were to Jerusalem (please read Isaiah 62:6-7). The same applies today. Satan is an arrogant foe. He tells his demons, don’t worry, they never get enough “prayer warriors” to fill all cracks (slots).

“Facing Challenges in our Prayer Life”. Nowhere does the Bible say that prayer is easy. At times, while still on your knees, Satan will attack, harassing you, causing you to doubt and sending distracting thoughts into your mind. Satan would love for you to feel worthless before God. Scripture plays an important role in our prayer. Use it to encourage your prayer life. When we stand before the Lord, don’t be shy or embarrassed. Proclaim His glory and rejoice. Bow before the Lord, thank Him, tell Him you love Him, we are blessed because we can come to Him in confidence that He hears our petitions. We don’t always like the answers we get; if we get one at all. Jesus will give us what is beneficial. Do not be afraid to ask for something too big. There’s nothing too big for Him to accomplish.

Come boldly, but humbly before His throne – bring Him the impossible. He will answer for your good.

There are still a few opened slots on the prayer wall. They are: 1:30 a.m.-2:00 a.m., 4:00 p.m. Call Iris if you would like to fill one of these slots.

Please remember, God loves you and wants to bless you. He wants to bless our church endeavors. Who will pray?

Bob Scheuerman

Prayer Coordinator

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Women's Ministry

Crazy Hat Party

Our Ladies’ Crazy Hat Party on Friday night, March 10th was a lot of fun. We had hats of all shapes, colors and sizes – we even had a couple of invisible hats! The theme for the evening was “Beautiful in God’s Eyes”, and our lesson was how we are the bride of Christ. Isaiah 61:10 “I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God. For He has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with jewels.” Isaiah 62:2-5 “You will be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will bestow. You will be a crown of splendor in the Lord’s hand, a royal diadem in the hand of your God. The Lord will take delight in you … As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so your God rejoices over you.”

In reading the scriptures of how God sees us as His bride, we are reminded that the bride comes to her groom dressed in white with a veil on her head, and when he sees her, she is the most beautiful woman he has ever laid eyes on. The Bible teaches that God delights in us, and because He sees us as His bride, He sees us in the gown of righteousness that He covered us in when we accepted Him as our Savior. We are new and fresh to our Lord every morning. He doesn’t see our sins of the past because they have been forgiven and cast away as far as the east is from the west. He sees us in our bridal gown, pure and righteous. We need to get a visual of that so that we understand how God sees us – and then we need to see ourselves through God’s eyes – Forgiven. Beautiful. Righteous. And we need to live the life of His bride – submitting our lives to Him, loving Him, serving Him, loving His children – all of His children. And keeping the communication lines open through studying His word and praying to Him.

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Next Ladies Events:

Friday Night, April 21st

Let’s meet at the church parking lot around 7 p.m. and drive up to JC’s Restaurant in Jefferson, PA. This is the restaurant that the Wisenborn family has recently opened. We will enjoy dinner (or desserts, or both) together and fellowship. We don’t need a sign-up sheet, just show up!

Saturday May 6 th

Yard Sale

To benefit Youth Mission Trip

8 a.m. until 1:00 p.m.

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April Birthdays & Anniversaries

Anniversaries 2 Bill & Dottie Hughes 2 Rick & Diane Ivey 10 Paul & Marie Hallameyer 12 Joe & Pam Kernan 18 Mark & Karen Danmyer 27 Ron & Dori Morrell 30 Joe & Cindy Riley

Meet & Greet Our New Members

Jenna Lynn McLaughlin joined our church family by baptism on March 5, 2006. She is in the 6th grade at Christian School of York, PA and enjoys horseback riding, playing with her friends and shopping.

Adam Chrisopher McLaughlin joined our church family by baptism on March 5, 2006. He is in the 5th grade at Christian School of York, PA and enjoys reading, playing sports, playstation and playing with his friends.

Jenna and Adam are the children of Tim and Kathryn McLaughlin. If you have not met them, please introduce yourself and make them feel welcome to our family.

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Belfry Archive

February, 2005

March, 2005

April, 2005

May, 2005

June, 2005

July & August, 2005

September, 2005

October, 2005

November, 2005

December, 2005

January, 2006

February, 2006

March, 2006