by Mt. Zion Baptist Church at Ephrata Business Center Saturday, February 23

Continued from yesterday

Door prizes for the evening

The hats were a popular door prize.

Coffee was available when we got there.

Registering for a door prize. The adult cards were orange.

Youth cards were beige.

Hors d’oeuvres, chili, and stew were available about 4:15.

Bear chili

Venison sticks and jerkey

Terry Redcay, MC for the evening, announced that supper was ready and dismissed us by table.

I don’t remember the exact count of people, but it was something over 400.

Dinner line

The meal consisted of sausage, baked potato, dinner roll and coleslaw. There were also a variety of cakes.

At the last table we could pick up sour cream, catsup, chips, and a tangerine. Salt, pepper, and butter were on the tables.

Door prizes were given out during the meal, then Terry introduced the guest speaker, Gary Forney.

Gary is a pioneering Arctic missionary pilot in the Circumpolar Region. He founded Points North Baptist Mission in 1996 in the unforgiving Arctic Circle. He continues to serve as executive director of what is now All Points Baptist Mission.

Gary is an avid hunter and said that his experience in Alaska afforded him hunts (moose and caribou) that many hunters dream of.

The theme of his message was “Beware of a Polluted Version of the Gospel.”

He told a story about “beaver fever” to preface his message, telling us what happened when he accidently drank water from a source that was polluted with animal fecal. You can only imagine how sick he became – and what it did to his digestive system. Then it happened a second time when he was in Siberia.

He opened a bottle of water and invited a man to come drink of this water.

The man came forward and drank it.

He then sprayed coyote urine into the water. It didn’t change the color of the water, but it was now polluted. He invited the same man to come and get a drink. He declined. 🙂

When Satan is successful in devouring and destroying someone, he is pleased because he has destroyed someone who God loves.

Satan does whatever he can, in any means possible, to destroy the lives of people – many times quite subtly (like polluting water).

Satan tries to deceive people by telling them that God is not holy – that man is not really sinful and in need of a savior – that Jesus is not God’s son who died on the cross for our sins.

The Bible is the source of truth and God will not change because we don’t like what He says.