This has been such a busy month at First Baptist Church in Port O’Connor. First and foremost, our search committee has announced they have invited a pastor to preach in view of a call. Our congregation is so excited by this news. As Baptists, we choose and hire our own pastors. After a very involved and extensive search, a prospect comes, preaches and afterwards the members vote to accept or not. If accepted, we have a new preacher! There will be a “Meet and Greet” on Saturday, November 16, from 2:00-4:00 p.m. in our church Fellowship Hall. Come and welcome Brother Phillip Miller and his wife, Katrina, from Paragould, Arkansas. Let them know what a wonderful town POC is. Be sure to be there Sunday morning to hear him preach.

On Sunday evening, November 17, at 6:00 p.m., the Community Thanksgiving service will be held at our church. Father Tommy Chen will be preaching the message, Brother Ernie McDonough will be contributing, and the FBC Choir will sing. Immediately afterwards, dinner will be served in the Fellowship Hall. This is one of two times each year that the entire community worships together. Easter Sunrise Service is the other. Each is so special and unique to Port O’Connor. Come and join with your friends and neighbors to celebrate all the blessings you have received this year.

Our church van will be making its annual trip to Cuero to see the Christmas light display on Thursday, December 12, at 4:00 p.m. We will stop for an early dinner before. If you would like to go with us, please call me at 903-467-6335 to reserve a seat. Thursday nights are the nights that free hot chocolate is served to everyone that views the display! Everyone is invited to go with us. You don’t want to miss this adventure.

The Samaritan’s Purse Shoe Box project was an amazing success this year. Our church was able to fill nearly 50 gift boxes. Thank you so much to each person who donated and participated. The Sunday School children loved filling the boxes for their “friends” all around the world. Next year we have set our goal at 100 boxes! Start collecting now for next fall!

Please remember that we are always ready to welcome you to any of our services or Bible studies. FBC has adult and Kindergarten-12th grade Sunday school classes at 9:45 a.m. and a nursery is available. Church Services are at 11:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. Prayer meeting and youth church is at 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday evening. Women’s Bible study is on Tuesday at 4:00 p.m. and the men meet at 7:00 p.m. Plan to be with us for any of these activities. Don’t forget that we have a church van available to pick up children on Sunday mornings before Sunday School. Call Mary Covarrubius at 361-218-8641 to schedule a pick up. We’ll be waiting to greet you.

This past month brought both blessings and great sorrow. Sorrow when we had to do a Celebration of Life for Sherri Peters, beloved wife of our very close friend Steve. Her home going was so unexpected and so sudden that no one had time to absorb the shock. At only 50 years old, Sherri suffered a massive heart attack, but she was spared the long months of suffering that many of our loved ones have had to endure. Steve will miss her, as will her children, but we will miss her also. Her humor, wit, and exemplary hard work will forever stand as a standard for those she chose to invest her life in. At the celebration of her life, there were people there from the Nursing Home that she worked at as Activities Director. There were people from her churches she attended. There were friends from her business associates. And, there were friends that barely knew her, but whom had been impacted by her life. Thanks, Steve, for allowing us to get to know the love of your life. We stand with you in missing her, but with the assurance that there will be a “grand reunion Day”!

Can you believe Patrick Overton got married? Yes, the celebration of commitment was made at Brazoria on Saturday morning, October 26. He and Trish sealed their commitment to each other that morning before flying off to a honeymoon. They were gone about 10 days and have told me that they saw more of God’s beautiful country in that short time than in all their other years put together! It was a simple , but elegant ceremony which attended by family, friends, and some folks from Port O’Connor. Please be sure to congratulate them next time you get the opportunity.

We honored the Men’s Ministry group from Spring First at the end of October. They had a great time of “catching” even though the weather did not fully cooperate. They have come the last several years and always have a great time. Now, they have promised to invite me to go on a “Crappie” fishing retreat in the spring. If space is available, I will let some of the rest of you know those dates, but it space is limited, I will show you my stringer!

November started off with an extremely quick start! Tom and Jacki had come down from the LaVernia area to help us begin the deck for the Executive Retreat Center. It is the 16 by 80 feet trailer that sits on the east side of our Chapel. It was designed for military officers and features six fully self contained rooms. We are making it wheelchair assessable so a new deck has begun taking shape. To help us, seven young men from Corpus A&M come to help. They are a part of Chi Alpha, a Campus Christian group that offers assistance to churches to help those students learn practical skills in many areas of life. We ran out of material before we ran out of time, but we sincerely appreciate their dedicated work and extreme help. They are ready to come back and help us again as schedules permit.

On November 9, our local men got together for a great breakfast. It was a full meal deal, for sure, complete with homemade gravy and biscuits! Our men welcome all the men from our area to come and enjoy a time of food and fellowship at any of our functions.

Pastor Joane is continuing to teach our Fisherman’s Bible Institute classes. They meet each Tuesday from 7 t0 9 pm. They are designed for serious students of the Bible and will take each student on a Bible Survey journey through each of the 66 books of God’s Word. Everyone who has an interest in such an intense study are welcome to come and enjoy the fellowship as we together learn more of God’s Word and thereby His plan for our lives. When you hear FBI has come to town, please know it is Fisherman’s Bible Institute, where we are investigating God’s Word.

Not to be outdone by the men, the Chapel ladies will meet on November 21 at 7:00 pm. They will be not only enjoying fellowship and a time in worship, but will also be looking at next year’s planned events. All ladies are urged to come and enjoy this time designed especially with you in mind.

The Port O’Connor Community Thanksgiving Service will be held at First Baptist Church at 6:00 pm on Sunday, November 17.
Our local Catholic Priest will be ministering the Word and there will be congregational singing and special music from our local churches. We also will be receiving our yearly offering to help support the Port O’Connor Community Benevolence Fund, which provides the funds necessary to support the Thanksgiving and Christmas Baskets.

The Thanksgiving Baskets will be distributed on November 19 and the Christmas Baskets will be distributed on December 17. To be eligible for a Basket, one must contact Pastor Erny at 361/218/6693 or either of the other two local pastors and express their need. These Baskets are not meant for greedy, but for the truly needy of our community. The Women’s Service Club has already generously provided $1,000 toward this project and we will need just over $4,000 to meet all the requests. Your help is greatly appreciated! Together, we can make life easier for needy families in our Port O’Connor community.

Fisherman’s Chapel is an interdenominational congregation who meets on Sundays at 10 and 11 am and 6 pm and on Wednesday at 7 pm. Everyone is welcome to come and be a part of what the Lord is doing to confirm His Word. You will find a warm welcome and are urged to “Come, grow with us!”

My heart is heavy as I write this column for you today because of many recent deaths that make me question where we are headed as a society. I could easily go down the road of the political, but I will abstain! I want to go down the runway of the historical.

Recently, our nation celebrated Columbus Day, a day set aside to honor the man who defied all the scientific facts of his day and is credited for discovering America. Everyone “in the know” was certain the earth was flat and anyone who would dare sail east would simply fall off the face of the earth. After many years of great effort and much persuasion, Christopher Columbus received the funding to make what most thought would be a suicide mission. Much to the surprise of all the scholars of his day, he found what he called America. Now many people are dishonoring his statues and marching to protest our celebrations because he was less than a perfect individual!

If we must begin looking into the closets of every American hero, we can simply erase them all! There are none of us perfect and the only Perfect One was hung on the Old Rugged Cross! Historical monuments have been desecrated or destroyed simply because of the political changes that are reaching across our nation. Who among us have been so naive as to believe that every person who has accomplished great things has not done some bad in their lives as well? Why throw out all their good because we have discovered some bad? We surely want all people to show us some mercy and probably each of us has needed a little forgiveness, but simply because our lives have not been stellar, our accomplishments should not be torn down! We must stop rewriting history!

I have the opportunity to attend the special program at the Port O’Connor Library and heard the writer Rose Sherman Williams, who elegantly spoke of her experiences with the invasion of the Nazis in her hometown in Poland. In uncomfortably graphic details, she told of murder and attempted genocide. The book she wrote was enlightening and once I started reading it, I had a hard time putting it down. I truly wish the room had been larger and everyone is this community could have been a part of this informative and inspirational evening. I sadly realize that at her age of 92 there is not much chance that she will be returning so the rest of us can hear her story.

But, the main thing that I took away from that evening was the large segment of our citizenry who totally deny that the Holocaust even took place. I served in Germany in 1970 and saw firsthand many signs of travesties that the German people inflicted upon the Jews. Never had I blamed the Germans, but have always looked to their leadership in Hitler as the one who has had to stand before God and give an account of his misdeeds! But, why are so many trying to rewrite the entire story and say such events never happened?

It is my firm conviction that the outcome of our failure to remember the atrocities of yesteryears will come back to inflict hurts on those with whom we live! We can not deny our pasts and expect to avoid repeating them. Are we becoming so immature that we can not handle the knowledge of evil in the lives of people we love and respect? Are we too aware of our personal humanity that we seek to rationalize that “we were not as had as they”?

This brings to our calendars! Christmas is just around the corner and Thanksgiving is right here and we are acting like there is no spiritual significance to either! Now we want to call it “turkey day” and be ready to rush out to the local stores to devour the “black Friday” bargains! Christmas is a time when we spend too much on presents that others could really care less about, for most kids I know and have observed had rather play with the boxes and other wrappings that its contents! We gladly take time off from our work, but do we celebrate anything at all?

Thanksgiving began as the early settlers of this great nation finally had a harvest and knew there was a chance they might survive the cold winter. They took time to invite each other to a feast to give thanks to the God of Heaven who had so blessed them. How many of our families even stop to say “grace” before digging into the turkey and trimmings? What are our children learning and from where will this next generation get its inspiration?

Christmas in not possible without Christ! We have made it about gifts and Santa while God Incarnate is left outside on the lawn with the nativity scene, if at all! Our school programs will be about reindeer putting a sleigh around the earth so every good boy and girl will receive everything they imagined and for which they hoped!

There is no Thanksgiving without thankfulness! There is no Christmas without Christ! If we are going to rewrite history, we might get away with make these Holy Days something less than what they were designed and for which they were designated. It is time we stopped being Politically Correct and begin again being Historically Accurate! Come enjoy our Community Thanksgiving Service at First Baptist on Sunday, November 17 at 6:00 p.m. Come participate in the many special Christmas Services that will be offered around our area. Let’s return to sanity and historical correctness and allow those who want to change history to start someplace other than Port O’Connor!

All A’s Honor Roll

1st Grade: Amara Brown; Aliza Dean; Brynlen Eure; Dalton Garner;Helios Ochoa; Trooper Sanchez; Torunn Short;
Jameson Washburn

2nd Grade: Ana Brown; Kolt Leiker; Isaiah Ochoa; Bryce Sandy; Reid Thomas

3rd Grade: Marcos Blanco; Madden Guevara; Riley Pagel; Emma Sanchez; Clara Stryker

4th Grade: Abygail Gonzales; Audrey Rhoads

5th Grade: Landon Jones

A & B Honor Roll

1st Grade: Leray Austin; Grant Gregory; Charlie O’Shields

2nd Grade: Camren Hime; Timothy Reneau; Blaklei Ruddick

3rd Grade: Haiden Dean; Jakob Donaldson; Avery Gosnell; Brylee Irvin; Skyler Pessall; Addi Ruddick

4th Grade: Laela Aranda; Pryncess Few; Christian Gutierrez; Corbin Washburn

5th Grade: Grace Brown; Kyndra Carriles; Gracie O’Shields; Nicholas Ragusin

Pre-K: Josephine Clark: Charli Hatcher; Jacob Stryker

Kindergarten: Mia Blanco; Samantha Garcia; Luna Lopez; Saydi Ramirez; Brantley Ruddick

1st Grade: Amara Brown; Brynlen Eure; Grant Gregory; Abigail Gutierrez; Helios Ochoa; Mercedes Tovar

2nd Grade: Ana Brown; Camren Hime; Isaiah Ochoa; Blaklei Ruddick; Reid Thomas

3rd Grade: Elmer Diaz-Vasquez; Jakob Donaldson; Madden Guevara; Brylee Irvin; Riley Pagel; Addi Ruddick; Clara Stryker

4th Grade: Pryncess Few; Christian Gutierrez; Kailey Guzman; Kaleb Kendrick; Waylon Thomas

5th Grade: Kyndra Carriles; Landon Jones; Aubrey Ragusin; Nicholas Ragusin; Mato Sanchez