“Do you know her?”

This mystery person has a smile
that is recognizable from a mile.
She has dancing eyes
that light up the skies.
She’s a teller at the Seadrift bank..
someone we all can thank!

We just enjoyed a week with Jessica Gonzales, who once lived here but now is the director of a rehabilitation center in Florida. We are grateful for the transforming power of our gracious Lord, who has taken us from the pathways of destruction to the opportunities of abundant living! We have been asking the Lord to help us create a rehab center in Port O’Connor. We are not certain what one would look like, but since receiving training from David Wilkerson, the author of The Cross and the Switchblade and founder of Teen Challenge, I have had the desire. The weeklong training in the early 1980s of “how to deal with people with life controlling problems” has impacted my life and I have wanted to get further involved. I thankfully personally missed the horrors of drug addiction, but we have witnessed the tragedy it has left in our family as well as in many families! The mental health issues of long-term addiction have had a great negative impact on our society, even in this community! Now we have to deal with the life-ending fentanyal epidemic in our nation, and I feel it is more imperative than ever that we reach out to do more to stem the tide of drug abuse. Please help us pray about this burden.

Pastor Joane and I are still preaching our series we call “Route 66”. We are currently in the Books of Chronicles. We invite all to come and join us and to read the Bible together for a better understanding of what we are preaching. One can become entrenched in reading God’s Word, especially when we remember that Jesus said, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My Word shall never.” It will take us several months to complete all of the 66 books of Scripture, but we plan to continue until we do so!

Our Wednesday evening fellowship meals are going great thanks to Richard and Alyssa Kite. Each week they put out great food that we all enjoy before the spiritual meal from God’s Word. Others contribute additional sides and desserts to make the meal more complete. All are welcome to attend and enjoy our Midweek Service, which begins at 7:00 p.m.

We continue appreciating the support we are receiving from the community for the Pantry. We are still feeding an average of three families each week from the groceries that are provided. Everyone who is in need of food assistance is welcome to contact Pastor Joane. We not only have canned food, but also some frozen things, like the fish we glean from the generosity of those in area fishing tournaments. No one needs to be hungry in Port O’Connor!

Fisherman’s Chapel is an interdenominational congregation whose mission is to advance the cause of Jesus Christ through a local body of Believers. We attempt to accomplish our mission through Retreats, Camps, and weekly services. Each Sunday we gather at 10:00 a.m. for Bible Study; at 11:00 a.m. for Morning Service; and at 6:00 p.m. for Evening Service. We also meet together each Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. for a special time of fellowship and another opportunity to study God’s Word together. Everyone is warmly welcomed to attend, and all are urged to “Come, grow with us!”

Summer is over and school has started. Things have become a lot quieter in POC, but not at First Baptist Church! The church is gearing up for a very busy fall and winter. Our Interim Pastor Rich Schaller becomes our full time pastor this month. You will be seeing him and his wife, Tina, around town more now. Visit FBC on Sunday at 11:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. or Thursday evening at 6:00 p.m. to hear the messages God places on his heart. We are very fortunate to have them both. Team Kids will be starting on Wednesday, August 23 at 5:30 p.m. If you have a first through fifth grader who would like to be part of this exciting program, call 361-983-2727 or go on the FBC Facebook page to register your child. Transportation is available if requested. FBC provides dinner, Bible study, recreation and crafts each week. Make sure your child gets to be part of all the excitement based on God’s word.

Each year, one of the three POC churches hosts the Community Thanksgiving Service. This year it will be hosted by FBC and the messages will be brought by Fisherman’s Chapel and St. Joseph’s Catholic Church. The tentative date is Sunday, November 12 at 6:00 p.m. Mark your calendars and plan to attend this special event. No reservations are necessary. Everyone is welcome.

FBC is waiting to welcome you with open arms to any of our services or events. Come Sunday morning at 10:00 for Sunday School, at 11:00 and 6:00 for church. We have Women’s Bible study on Tuesdays at 4:00 and prayer meeting on Thursday at 6:00. Team Kids is mentioned above. Find a place with us.

First United Methodist Church

Worship with us Sundays at 11:00 and the 4th Saturday of each month at the Bayfront Pavilion at 6:00 p.m.

Join us for a community service with a message, a meal and some games for the kids.
Community Service at Bayfront Pavilion – Saturday, August 26, 6:00 p.m.

How often do we feel that situations are out of our control? Circumstances collide and leave us afraid that life is getting out of control! We often struggle with the feeling of lack and fight the feelings of helplessness and panic. The idea that we are “in control” is more an illusion than a fact! The truth is that at some point and at many times, we are not in control. If we ever were! One of our family members was driving toward the 1289 junction when they hit a patch of slick road and spun their truck around twice in the middle of the road and ended up backed in the ditch headed the opposite direction! Everything appeared to be fine, but the danger of hydroplaning was real! We can never control other people, their actions, or their reactions. Yet much of our frustration results from the vain attempt to do just that!

Uncomfortable as it is, we all struggle even to exercise some regiment of constant control over ourselves. We all know that we are often unable to control even the tongue, the smaller member of the body. With the tongue out of control, our behavior and entire life get out of balance quickly!
When things begin spinning out of control, what do we do? We often tighten our grip, which often takes us into a skid, which is “totally out of control”! We simply try harder to put it all back together again the way it was and often the personal cost is greater than we can afford.
A friend told me about one of his grandsons who was playing in the front yard with a large cardboard box. He was attempting to build a fort, as little boys with vivid imaginations seem to want to do. He gathered some other “building materials” that he would need. additional pieces of cardboard and a large towel for its roof. He began assembling each piece carefully as his mind envisioned it. There was one problem. It was a windy day, and his fort could not withstand the occasional and sudden gust of wind. Patiently, he would regather his supplies and reconstruct his building only to see it blown apart by another gust. This grandfather waited, hoping the lad would solicit advice or assistance. Would he become frustrated? Try harder to secure his fort against the winds? Become angry? Think of himself as a failure?

Without a word of complaint, the boy disappeared into the house, emerging a few minutes later with a frisbee in hand. “Grandpa, would you like to play frisbee with me?” What an excellent example! He stopped trying to control what he could not control, and the boy chose a way to work with his circumstances!

Happiness and success are not really about control, but it is always a choice! Remember the Biblical character of Hagar? Hagar was the servant girl of Sarah, Abraham’s wife. Hagar was a slave, owned by another and having no options except to do as she was told. Hagar enjoyed no control in the matters that directly affected her daily life. She knew few, if any, choices as a slave to Sarah.

At Sarah’s direction, Hagar bore a child, Ishmael, to Abraham. Sarah raised him in a vain attempt to accomplish the promise God had made many years earlier. After thirteen years, Isaac, the son God had promised, was born, and Ishmael and Hagar were no longer needed or wanted by Sarah. Possibly in jealousy or as a painful reminder of a foolish moment, at Sarah’s insistence, Hagar and Ishmael were sent away. Hagar had no control previously, nor did she now! Soon their provisions were exhausted, and the helpless mother laid her young teen son in the shade of a bush and went far enough away that she could not feel the greater pain of her son’s cries of hunger and thirst. Hagar did not control the circumstances that put them there, nor could she change them. But God!

God, Who is always in control, heard the lad’s cries that Hagar could not bear to hear, and sent an angel to bring a promise from God of a future and a hope, and showed them God’s provisions for their immediate needs! Now, Hagar faced a choice that she could make, in the middle of a desperate situation that she could not control. Would she trust God even when she did not understand? Would she accept God’s answer, when she did not have any answers of her own?

How often do we feel like Hagar! Circumstances have occurred that we would not have chosen. Others have made decisions without our counsel or consent that complicate our lives and confuse our limited options. Jesus told the story about two men who built their homes. Neither of them could control the elements that could threaten them, but they chose the foundations upon which they built. One chose a solid rock; the other chose unstable sand. When the storm came (not, if one came – they will surely come!) that they did not choose and could not control, one had chosen wisely and the other foolishly. Jesus said that the man who built on a rock for a solid foundation is like a man who hears the Words of the Lord and obeys them!

When we “lose control,” and we surely will, we need to make sure we choose to trust in Jesus and depend upon His Word. He is the only one who truly knows the future and can fully be trusted!