Years ago (1996) when the Foothills was in her infancy, we were having our church services at various places. In spite of not having a building of our own, our church was growing. Like what we are doing now, our church started meeting at a school - Gavilan College. The difference between now and then was back then, we set up church on Saturday afternoon. One family graciously volunteered to haul our trailer to Gavilan at 4:00 P.M. every week - what a commitment from this couple. Also arriving on Saturday were a number of Sunday School teachers, worship team members and their families. The teachers pitched in to clean and set up the classrooms and the worship team worked on the 'sancutary'. Both groups worked hard and it took a while to get everything ready. After everything was all set up, the worship team would have a run through of the songs for the next day. In total, it took our volunteers over two hours on Saturday, and then on Sunday, when the service was over, everything had to be torn down and carefully stacked back into the trailer. After that, the same faithful couple took the trailer back to their property. We did this every week for about 2 years.
Somehow, admits all the difficulties of having church at a school, we grew in numbers and we increased financially. Without benefactors like these wonderful people we would never have survived as a congregation.
A great problem with our growth was the need to have two services on Sunday. The meeting room we were using just wasn't big enough to house us. So we settled on a date and let everyone know there would be an early service at 8:30 A.M. and a later one at 10:00 A.M.
One of the interesting things about that time was a physical problem I was having. Because I was leading worship and preaching every Sunday, I was continually losing my voice. But, in spite of my weak and raspy voice, we needed to go to two services - where I would be leading and preaching twice every Sunday morning (I think I need a tissue).
The Sunday we had chosen arrived, and I was excited and yet nervous. The first service started and we began to fill up with people. It was a smaller group than on a normal Sunday, but that was to be expected. The second service was a little bigger than the first, as most of our people with small kids came to the later service. When it was all over, I sat down on the front row, exhausted and hoarse. Then it hit me - all the worship team left after second service worship. In fairness, they had already heard me preach in the first service. As I sat there looking at all the mics, amps, cords, and instruments, a panic set in - I was going to have to tear everything down and pack it in the trailer. My heart sank as saw all I had to do before I could go home and rest.
Suddenly the side door opened and the worship team streamed in, unplugging everything and packing it all up. I sat there for a moment, stunned by their faithfulness. I hadn't even thought about the tear down, but they did.
If not for these benefactors (servants and givers), we would not be in this current school, setting up and tearing down every Sunday. Praise God we are still meeting today! And a shout out to all of you who currently serve and support our church today - our great and wonderful benefactors of the Foothills.
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