The “Birthday Boys” judged the Chili Cook-Off.

Guess who celebrated his 90th Birthday? It was Papaw – also known as Larry Gonzales. Who celebrated his 92nd birthday? It was Dell Girard. How did they celebrate? With our annual Chili Cook-Off! We had eight winning entries, and many people told me that, unlike most years, my chili should have been number 1! But, it is the same story as before – I was robbed – and that was at church! Since our slate of judges did not arrive in a timely manner, Papaw and Dell served as judges. It was their opinion that Michael’s chili was #1, and Joyce’s was #2, and could you possibly believe that without respect to my calling, they placed my chili at 8th place! BUT, it was so gratifying that even those who had entries of their own admitted to me, of course privately, that my chili was the best this year! Now, if this sounds like I am bitter, you misunderstand! I will take the humble seat this year, but next year I will try to find better judges!

Truly, this all Church Fellowship was a lot of fun- for most! And, I can say I tried every pot of chili and did not find a “Last Placer” in the bunch! It is my opinion that all of them should have received a first place trophy.

We were in a fantastic service this past Sunday morning with Evangelist Rod Vincent. The Reverend Vincent has been at the Chapel before, but the anointing that he ministered under was special. We were humbled when three people said they wanted to follow Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior in this service. The angels were not the only ones rejoicing!

This coming Sunday, March 13, we are honored to host the ministry of the Reverend Jessie Alderete for the morning service and the Reverend Don Wiehe from Seguin in the evening. The morning service will be a bilingual service and the evening service will be an all musical service. No one will want to miss either event.

Our Fisherman’s Bible Institute is about to come to a close for this semester We will be hosting a graduation sometime in April or early May. But, look forward to the next semester’s study, which will begin in September.

Friday Night Youth will be meeting as usual and all youth are invited to attend. It is a “fun, safe place” for the youth of this community. We have food, fellowship, and a lot of fun!

We were honored to have Patrick minister for us while we were out of town on March 2. We had to take Papaw to San Antonio for a medical appointment. We were hoping to be back, but were delayed. Thank you, Patrick, and if you missed his ministry, you missed hearing from Heaven!

Michael Binkerman won 1st place in Fisherman’s Chapel Chili Cook-Off, and Joyce Rhyne took 2nd.

Mark your calendars for March 27, 6:00 p.m., for the next All Church Fellowship. Also, remember our next Sea Academy classes are scheduled for April 1 – 10. All who are interested should contact the Sea Academy at 361/758-6184 or Captain Robert at 361/816-3010.

Fisherman’s Chapel remains committed to Port O’Connor and the surrounding communities to be a place where people can find and develop a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. You are invited to attend any all of the services at the Chapel and are urged to, “Come, grow with us!”

Launched in Sept. 1977, The Voyager space craft has traveled to date, March 7 2011, a distance of 10,816,616,569 miles.

Traveling at 10.5 miles/second. 17km/s. 38.185 mph. This heavy 1,592 lb. little robotic space probe is not only very far away but traveling at a mind boggling clip toward the constellation Ophiuchus reaching one of its stars in approximately 40,000 years. Voyager was launched by NASA/JPL for the purpose of studying Jupiter Saturn and the outer solar system. As Voyager leaves the solar system and enters interstellar space it is encountering an area known as the heliosphere. Scientists at the ‘Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory’ believe that Voyager had entered the termination shock area beyond the solar system in Feb. 2003. There are many unknowns about this area of space, but NASA is monitoring the probe on a daily basis.

On March 2006 the first known tracking of Voyager was done by amateur radio operators from AMSAT who used a 66ft dish to track and listen to signals from voyager, The data they collected was checked and verified by the Deep Space Network Station in Madrid, Spain. Patience is a must with Voyager as a signal traveling at the speed of light takes 16.13 hours to travel from the probe to earth.

Voyager may be most known for Dr. Carl Sagan’s ’Gold Record’ a visual /audio recording plated in gold and containing sounds and sights of earth. With a recording of President Jimmy Carter, greetings in 55 languages, pictures of everyday life, DNA, images of plants, insects, and music. As many believe it to be a recording for extraterrestrials, Dr. Carl Sagan stated, “The launching of this bottle into the cosmic ‘ocean’ says something very hopeful about life on this planet, Thus, the record is best seen as a time capsule or a symbolic statement rather than a serious attempt to communicate with extraterrestrial life”

Godspeed Voyager, Wesley J Hunt

Visit the blog of Wesley J Hunt: http://wesleyjhunt.blogspot.com/

Crossroads Astronomy Club meets every third Monday at the University of Houston at Victoria, room 223 at 7:00 p.m. Call 361-648-0089 for more information.

POC Service Club
Annual Spring Garage Sale

When: Saturday,
April 9, 2011

Time: 8:00 A.M.

Where:
Community Center of Port O’Connor In The Covered Pavilion

Acceptable And Desirable Items: Furniture, Books, Pictures, Clothes, Kitchen Items, Dishes, Fishing And Outdoor Gear, And Christmas Decorations

Call Biddie Hileman For Storage Of Items: 983-2241

The Confession, John Grisham’s latest and most fascinating book, is the story of a boy and a girl; he is a black football star and she a white cheerleader; in a small town in East Texas. She becomes missing following a night out with girl friends, and he is immediately arrested and charged with her murder following a 15 hour interrogation. Aided by a witness, her on-again, off-again boyfriend, a quick conviction is affirmed, and the young man is sent to death row. All of this is accomplished without a body and with only a coerced confession. Justice prevails, or has it?

Interesting characters: the mother of the young girl is a woman desperately seeking attention from the media and everyone else, one who can cry literally “at the drop of a hat”. The mother of the young man is a steadfast woman who has raised her children to be law abiding and devoted citizens of their school and town. The detective who arrests and interrogates the young man is more than a little zealous; the prosecutor is negligent in legal matters and the judge is corrupt. The defense attorney has been likened to “the mad hatter” for his constant battles with the system and then the Lutheran minister from Kansas finds himself on an unrequested quest.

Grisham’s books are always easy to read as they flow from sentence to sentence throughout the chapters. Yet the other portion of the book is concerned with mind-shattering statistics. And, one interesting fact, he is on the Board of Directors of the Innocence Project in New York and the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Mississippi Innocence Project at the Mississippi School of Law. How much does this influence the book?

Bad News for the Library: The County has cut our budget by 50%, which means a definite decrease in the amount of books and magazines we can order each month. There is no money for the Children’s section, nor are there funds for DVDs. And so, we must depend upon donations from our patrons. And we thank you in advance, as we want to keep our Library as current as possible.

“When an old person dies, a Library burns down” – Karin Gillespie

Alexis Vinson, granddaughter of Clara Paulk, helped team Perpetual Motion with their recent bake sale at POC Hardware. Another bake sale is being held on March 12 to raise funds for Relay for Life.

On Friday, April 1, 2011, Port O’Connor Team Perpetual Motion will participate in the Annual Relay for Life held at the Port Lavaca Fairgrounds. This is the American Cancer Society’s Nationwide Signature event. As part of our fund raising efforts, we will be selling T-shirts for $10.00 each. If you would like to have a name printed on the T-shirt and receive your free one, a $100.00 donation is required. This donation will make a difference in the fight against this disease, assist in raising money for cancer research, and support the American Cancer Society Programs in our area. Let us know what name you would like to have printed and what size T-shirt you would like to receive. Deadline for ordering T-shirts is March 19. Please call POC Hardware at 361-983-2708 for further information.

Relay for Life Team Perpetual Motion is having a BAKE SALE at POC Hardware Saturday, March 12, starting at 8:00 a.m.