Northwest Georgia Walk to Emmaus February 2016 Northwest Georgia Walk to Emmaus - For the Development of Christian Leaders: ww.nwgwte.com I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice-the kind he will find acceptable. Don t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. Romans 12:1-2 The Walk to Emmaus was and continues to be an instrument of change for me in my journey with Christ. During my Walk the Holy Spirit took out the trash, renewed my mind, and began a transformation that continues to change me into a man who loves Christ, first and foremost. I try to seek His will in everything I do and have found that service is most important. With the next Walks approaching in a couple of weeks there are many things we as a community can do to serve Him. First, we can pray that our pilgrims and the team members will grow in their faith. Also, we can demonstrate His love by writing letters, attending Send Off, Candlelight and Closing. Next, we can provide agape from your church and/or your reunion group to give out during the weekends. Also, I don t believe anyone would complain about eating oven agape. Consider sponsoring someone that you want to give the blessing of Emmaus. Lastly, it is not to late for you to serve on a Team. Both the men and women are in the process of having team meetings. If you are interested in serving, on a team, please come to the scheduled training: women s team meeting; Feb 6 at Wesley Chapel UMC, and the combined team meeting for both men & women; Feb 13 at Powder Springs UMC. We can always use more servants for both Walks. Thank you in advance for your service and sacrifices. I am very excited about our upcoming Walks. As a reminder, our Gathering this month will be at the King s Retreat during the men s Candlelight, Saturday Feb. 20 at 8:00 P.M. There will be no food there for Grazing. Please come to Praise Him and share your love with these pilgrims whose names we don t even know. To God Be the Glory! Gary Henkel, Community Lay Director February Newsletter 1
A Word from our Community Spiritual Leader When I was courting my wife, Emily, I took her to a fondue restaurant on Valentine's Day. I had never been to a fondue restaurant and certainly had never been to a fondue restaurant on this day of the year! It took FOREVER...it took FOREVER for us to get seated...it took FOREVER for us to get the food for us to cook it ourselves which also took FOREVER. We had planned on going to a movie afterwards, but that soon changed as this dinner turned into a 3-4 hour event! And the truth is while I tried to put on a good face and I tried to enjoy myself since I was with Emily, the reality is that I was having no fun at all. Instead of embracing this time as a new adventure or simply time with Emily, I grumbled and got frustrated and general was pouty. What a great Valentine's Day! Sometimes we miss important moments to build our relationships with other because our circumstances are not going as we had hoped. And thankfully Emily hung around and gave me another chance the next Valentine's Day to try and be attentive and engaging, not pouty and moody! For the love that God has given to us through Jesus Christ and the presence of His Spirit is not dependent on our circumstances or our moods...it is not dependent upon whether our life is going exactly according to our plans (we need to talk if this is your life) or if our lives are a giant mess. Find a way to love and be engaged even when things are not going as you had hoped and planned; for this is the sort of love that God has given to us!! Let all that you do be done in love. 1 Corinthians 16:14 Blessings, Leonard Our Lay Directors for the February Walks would like Community members to know that they have room on their team for you. If you are interested in working on the Walks, please contact the Lay Director and let them know. Team meetings for the Men s team are: February 13 @ Powder Springs FUMC from 8:30-4:00 You can reach Scott at 770-873-1644 (Call or Text) or cupp_scott@yahoo.com Team meetings for the Women s team are: February 6 at 9:00am at Wesley Chapel UMC. February13 at 9:00am at Powder Springs UMC in Powder Springs, Ga. You can reach Sharon at 770-459-6782 or slanders66@yahoo.com Please consider working one of these teams. If you can t work the whole weekend but can work part of the weekend, please contact the LD to see how you can still serve. If you can t work on a team, but still would like to support the Walks, you can provide agape for the weekend. Everything from the small gifts given out over the weekend to oven agape (cookies, cakes, brownies, etc.), and most especially, your prayers. Your support for these Walks is essential. February Newsletter 2
Dear Community Member, We need agape for the Men s and Women s Walks. Please consider providing agape for these Walks. You can join up with your Reunion Group, Sunday School class or from individuals. Table agape - Those small gifts given out during the weekend. These items can be very simple reminders to that God s love is limitless and unconditional. These expression of God s love need to be anonymous (No individual names on them please, i.e. from a brother or sister who loves you.). For a full conference room that is about 65 pieces. If you want to include the outside team, that count can be a little trickier because our team sizes can vary. You should be able to cover everyone with about 100 pieces. Wall agape or agape letters These can be from individual, reunion groups, Sunday School class, or a church. You and/or your reunion group could compose a letter to our pilgrims letting them know you and your reunion group s thoughts and prayers are with them. What a blessing these are to the Pilgrims and team!!! New or gently used books for the book table. Kitchen or oven agape Everyone looks forward to those sweet treats shared at the end of the meals, cakes, cookies, brownies. All are welcome and appreciated. Prayer agape What a blessing it is to see all those names on the prayer chart and to realize people were praying for you in the middle of the night!!! We still have room on our prayer charts. Please consider providing one or more kinds of agape for both the men s and women s Walks. God bless you for your support and faithfulness to our community, our Walks, our pilgrims, and our team members. Thank you and God bless you, Donna Parrish Agape Chair You are an important member of your Emmaus Community February Newsletter 3
Highlights of the January Gathering. This was our first Gathering at Dallas First Assembly of God and hopefully it won t be the lase. The lively spirit filled music was provided by We Are Family. This group is composed of Gary Greiner, Donna Greiner, Roxanne, Smay, Roger Smay, and Gay Lynn Toth. Our Board Chair, Gary Henkel, announced that our February Gathering will be combined with the Men s Candlelight at King s Retreat. There will not be a potluck dinner. We will gather at 8:00 for singing and communion in preparation for Candlelight. Other topics Gary discussed were: There is a lot of good Community information available on our website at www.nwgwte.com. You can get information on upcoming Gatherings, Walks, Pilgrim applications, recent newsletters, and much, much more. You are encouraged to check out the Community website. The King s Retreat Board of Trustees is now requiring full payment for renting the facility two weeks prior to the Walk. This means we must collect team fees as quickly as we can in order to have the funds available to meet this obligation. It costs us $8200.00 for a Walk. We must have 82 paying people, team and Pilgrims, in order to put on a Walk. Gary shared how he has been fasting and praying for our Community and encouraged other Community members to join him. At this time, Gary invited those present to share their prayer requests. Many shared prayer requests and praised at this time. We heard from our Spring Lay Directors. Both Sharon Landers and Scott Cupp shared that they still have room on their teams and requested those interested in serving contact them. We also need more Pilgrims for the Walks. If you are considering sponsoring someone, you can find an application on the Community website. We heard some words from one of our Community members, Rich Arcaro, about sponsorship. Rich invited us to remember our own Walk and how we were changed by the experience. Rich shared his thoughts and perspective of his own Walk and profound change it had on him. Rich encouraged us to consider sponsoring a Pilgrim for the upcoming February Walks. The Forth Day Speaker was Roger Smay. Roger attended NWG Men s Walk # 53 and sat at the Table of Luke. Roger shared where God has taken him since his Walk. Some of Roger s thoughts were about how God can take the bad in our lives and turn it to good. Roger said, God can take our messes and turn them into our message. Roger asked us to pray for the prodigals in our lives. We can t fix ourselves, but God can fix us. Darryl Hessel delivered the clergy response. Darryl said God works in us and we are continually made new. Baptism gets us into the Christian life and communion keeps us in it. This was a wonderful spiritual Gathering. As a reminder, the February Gathering will be combined with the Men s Candlelight. We will not have a potluck dinner, since we will meet at King s Retreat but we will gather at 8:00 on February 20 th at King s Retreat. If you would like to host a Gathering at your church, please contact Gay Lynn Toth, 470-334-6786, 678-567-1175, or mwesician35@gmail.com. February Newsletter 4
Dear NW Georgia Community, Your Community was instrumental in starting the Community here in Jamaica, for which we are very grateful. The Emmaus movement has been such a blessing and has led to the advancement of many persons within the Church, in joining in the ministry of Christ. For some time, the Jamaica Emmaus Community has been in a state of stagnation as persons were not meeting in their Reunion groups and the participation of the Community is now down to a faithful 10% of the current 200+ membership. Many of the original Emmaus members are now either deceased, ill, or aging. Over the last three years many strategies have been employed to try to get persons more involved and to bring back the love and enthusiasm within the Community. We have not had a Walk since 2011 as the last two Walks had to be cancelled due to a lack of the requisite number of Pilgrims and/or workers. In an attempt in inject new blood and new life into the Community, we must have a Walk. But the difficulty is that we do not have enough workers to staff the required areas, especially for the Men's Walk. We plan to have a Men's Walk on April 7-10, 2016 and a Women's Walk on April 14-17, 2016. We would appreciate any support that the NW Georgia Community can give. We are desperate. We pray that your Walks will be successful and that the Lord will continue to strengthen and guide you on your Fourth days. LaToya Wilmot-Brown Secretary/Information Officer If you are interested in serving on this Jamaica Walk, contact LaToya at ja.emmaus.community@gmail.com. Our community played a major role in getting the Jamaican Community established. I know we want to continue to support them. You will be blessed big time!!! Gatherings 2016 February 20th King s Retreat (Combined with Candlelight) March 19th Powder Springs 1 st UMC April 16 May 21 June 18 - February Newsletter 5
2016 Board Members Gary Henkel- Chair, gthenkel3@gmail.com, 404-702-2799 (cell) Vicki Bates- Vice Chair, Registrar, vicbates66@comcast.net Toni Cox- Treasurer, ton7c@bellsouth.net, 770-598-5589 (cell), 770-499-1860 (home) Katie Fowler- Secretary/Communications, katie.fowler@carrollcountyschools.com, 770-265-3763 (cell) Leonard Akers- Co Spiritual - leonard.akers@ngumc.net, 678-895-0040 (cell) Sonny Moon- Co Spiritual ssmoon2010@yahoo.com, 678-378-4300 Gayle Watkins- Music/King s Retreat Board Rep, gaylewtkns@gmail.com, 404-310-4156 (cell) Mike Amsbaugh Music, mamsbaugh@water.com, 404-386-4088 (cell) Ed Beacham- Men s Selection, www.nwgwte.com, edward.beacham@gmail.com, 404-520-0614 (cell), 770-428- 2006 Donna Parrish- Newsletter, parrish1732@bellsouth.net, 404-376-2353 (cell) Gary Hulsey Sendoff/Candlelight, prayerwalker4u@gmail.com, 770-380-1893 (cell), 770-783-9140 (home) Lori Haney Kitchen, lorijhaney@comcast.net, 678-576-9760 Roger Hitchcock Setup and Take down, augustusmayday@gmail.com, 404-408-2499 (cell) Gay Lynn Toth mewsician35@gmail.com, 678-567-1175 (home), 470-334-6786 (cell) Billy Halbrooks Literature and supplies, billyd53@bellsouth.net, 404-392-9927 Bill Rhodes Followup, King s Retreat Boark, billthetreeman@gmail.com, 678-651-4667 Judi Rainey Women s Team Selection, judi.rainey@yahoo.com Scott Cupp Reunions, cupp_scott@yahoo.com, 770-873-1644 February Newsletter 6