Don.....I am so happy that you were not in the monsoon area. I guess I have never thought about monsoons in Arizona! And the free food sounds wonderful - but more so that your church gives away free food on Fridays!! Praise God that you and your members have the heart and spirit to help other people. I am gathering from the many posts that I have read on the PADutch-Life Board that we are a group of very compassionate souls. I can just feel that good will just oozing through the billions of miles of internet connections. This is a special group! Would you like to share more about your church? I would like to know more about it. Sheila in WV --------------------------------- Building a website is a piece of cake. Yahoo! Small Business gives you all the tools to get online.

I am always happy to share about our church. It is First Baptist Church in St. David, Arizona. I accepted a call to the church as interim pastor, expecting to be there about 6 months or so. We started our fourth year on the 28th of March of this year. St. David is a small town, and is to a large degree a retirement town. There is an RV park there, and during the winter it does fill up with snowbirds. We have about 30 members, but during the winter months our attendance goes up. We also do services during the winter months at two camp grounds. Our food program is a good one. We have a church service at 1:30 on Friday afternoons, and then we give out food after the service. We average about 35 people in the service, many of them that are otherwise un-charted, so we are reaching people for our Lord. We often have as many as 80 people coming for food. We get the food from Caring Ministries in Tucson. It is all donated by various grocery stores, and of course, at times is close to the expiration date. We get anywhere from 3,000 pounds to 7,000 pounds of food. The people do not have to be low income to get the food, it is open to anybody that wants to come. We do also give out boxes once a month that contain canned goods, household items, cookies, crackers, and so on. People must live in the area and must be low income. They do have to submit an application for that. We usually have quite a bit of food left over after everybody has come through the line, so my wife and I load as much as we can in the car and take it to a home for wayward children. We also provide Bibles for the children, and when we can, provide Bibles to the county jail. About two years ago we decided that the people who wait outside need to hear the gospel, so we put a speaker on the outside of the church. We have seen people saved as a result of that. In addition to the church, I am also the chaplain for the Disabled American Veterans in our county. I am a disabled veteran myself, and that is a way I can assist other veterans. I spend at least two hours in the DAV office each week, and do work for veterans at home and in the hospital as well. Thanks for asking about our church. It is small, but it is filled with the Spirit of God and a heart to give. Don in AZ