When You Are Going Through Difficulties, Keep Moving Forward
Aglow Kerrville is finding ways to move forward with each challenge that comes their way.
Linda Harper, Aglow Kerrville President writes,
Linda Harper, President - Kerrville, TX Aglow“To begin with, we live in an area of Texas that has not been in total lockdown at any time during this pandemic. There was a period during which our meetings were limited to 10 people. We did have to cancel one month’s meeting (April) and our Area Team had to cancel our spring conference (May) due to those government mandated limitations. Our Lighthouse had scheduled a luncheon in June, but the hotel shut down all events; so we had to come up with something new and different if we were to maintain the integrity of our Lighthouse membership.
Before all this happened, the Kerrville Lighthouse had a regular practice of dividing up our database of attendees among the leadership team, and we call those in our section of the list each month to say hello and to pray with them. In this way, we are able to stay in touch with our attendees every month even though many of our members live miles away from Kerrville. We decided to take that normal contact a step further and to use our Free Conference Calling account to hold “prayer calls” with our database members during the months of May and June. We had about 15 people on the calls and the Holy Spirit was so present in our prayers and in our worship during those calls that it was almost like being in the same room together.
We reopened our gatherings in July after the limitation of 10 people was lifted in our area meeting in a church fellowship hall, and the church had no concerns about our meeting. Our first gathering was strictly praise and worship. We moved the tables out of the room and made a large semi-circle of chairs so that people had room to dance and praise with flags and tambourines. We invited our attendees to sit two chairs apart to maintain social distancing. No one was required to wear a mask, but they were encouraged to do so if that made them feel more comfortable. We also made use of a new feature that was available to us through our worship team – that of videoing the event; and then we posted it on Facebook live for those of our number who were unable to join us.
We just had our August gathering on August 1 with no difficulties; and our fall lineup is now completely filled with speakers or events through the end of the year. Additionally, we are seeking the Lord for His strategies for how we can take what we have out into the community. If we can’t gather together in one place, we can move outside into smaller group events. In Kerrville, we are moving forward and we will keep on moving forward. I saw that phrase – “when you are going through difficulties, keep moving forward” somewhere and that expresses exactly what we are doing.
We trust the Lord to be our Guide, our Keeper, our Protector, our Deliverer and our Healer! Amen!”