I had driven by Epworth hundreds of times and it never occurred to me to that I would ever step foot in the door. In fact, I had never gone to church anywhere before until this one thing brought me here. Cancer.
I was attending group therapy one evening at The Victory Center when the facilitator mentioned the healing service that is held every third Tuesday at Epworth. At the mention of that, it’s like a bell went off in my head. I need healed, I thought….don’t we all need healed? So the next opportunity, I went.
I didn’t know what to expect but Pastor Beth was there and she anointed me and prayed over me. It was an experience I will never forget. I felt enriched. I felt so much better when I left that at the next group therapy session I wanted everyone to know how wonderful it was. If they didn’t have a church, I wanted them to know. I wanted them to know about “my church!”
I heard the words, “my church,” echo in my head. My church? Never before had I said those words. It felt good. Then I heard someone else say, that’s my church too! It was Tamara and it was the beginning of a friendship that has blessed me in ways I would have never expected. Tamara and her husband, Mike asked me to visit the Coffee and Conversation Sunday School class where I continued to meet new friends. Before long my Epworth friends were making sure I had plenty of protein drinks and offering me rides to my doctor appointments at U of M. My new friends at my church are a special group of people!
The next thing I did was attend the new members’ class where I started to have some reservations. I had heard about giving offerings and I was worried that you had to pay money to become a member. I have a lot of medical bills and I don’t have a lot to give. I understand the church doesn’t run itself and my lack of resources to contribute weighed on my mind but the pastors explained to me that it doesn’t matter what you give. They said, “If you can, you can.” “If you can’t you can’t.” “We want you here.” “We want you to be a member of our church.”
So, now I am a member. I can’t give as much as I would like financially but I have had opportunities to give my time. I’ve participated in service activities through S4:19, worked at the Food Bank and at St. Paul’s Community Center. I want to serve so I can enrich the lives of others like my life had been enriched.
I love MY CHURCH! Thank you for welcoming me here!
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