MAC 2011 Christmas Banquet

Welcome to the 2011 Millard Alliance Church Christmas Banquet...brought to you in honor of our Lord Jesus Christ and for the edification and encouragement of His body.

We usually have a Thanksgiving Banquet in November, but we had two weddings on the weekend the banquet is normally held so they opted to put it off a bit and call it a Christmas banquet instead.

The normal format for the banquet is for those who feel led to share special music or poetry or dramatic presentations.  The flock has been very creative in years past.

One of the women's prayer groups shared a special vocal number.  They called up sons for reinforcement.

Mrs. Larsen and Mrs. Beasley

John played 'O Come Little Children' on his violin to call the little people from Mrs. Larsen's class up to the stage.  Good job, John.  You were very brave!

Mrs. Larsen's class starts at age 2 on up.  This was Elise's first time up on stage.

 She didn't quite know what to do, but the rest of the kiddos knew the ropes.  They have been learning a song about the 12 disciples so they sang it loud and long...Freely you've received, freely give...

Let the little children come to Me and do not hinder them for to such belong the kingdom of God...

The Williams organized the Christmas Banquet, then had to be excused when the flu epidemic hit their household.  Several families couldn't make it due to illness.  Thank you for all the work you put in ahead of time.

Josiah and Emma took turns playing the piano.  This was their last year with us since their family moved. We miss them.  May God provide the perfect body of believers for your next assignment and come back and see us sometime!

I was looking forward to this number the most since they had been practicing together for the last several weeks, and I had heard bits and snippets in the hallway.  The threesome played Canon in D taking turns with the various parts.  It was beautiful.  God has really enabled a lot of our youth with amazing talent and they use it to glorify their Maker.  Praise the Lord!

Mrs. Beasley Tribute

The Beasley children did an amazing tribute to their dear mother...we only captured about half.  Please forgive!

The Wissmanns did a number they performed last year as part of their Branson program.  We had seen it on stage at their Seward performance, but it was even better up close and personal.

Matthias introduced his amazing brother Stephen who composed a massive Christmas piece of many, many pages.  Due to a slip of the fingers, the piece ended up scattered on the floor. 

Each member of the quartet scrambled to gather up the pages of music and after composing themselves, they began to sing!

But since the music was all scrambled, the singers were a bit scrambled mixing famous lines of many familiar Christmas carols in perfect harmony! 

As they finished the music and discovered it didn't make much sense, they tossed it again onto the floor a few pieces at a time...

...Getting a bit more concerned with each toss.  Their expressions were priceless!  But all's well that ends well, and when the podium was empty of music, they looked at each other quizzically and finished in perfect four part harmony.  Wow!

In between each number, several of the fathers shared meaningful scriptures along with what God had been doing in the lives of their families through the past year.  There was much 'gold, silver and and precious stones' to be mined from all that was shared.

The Wissmann girls sang a hymn with their neighbor Diane...

The Ulmers chimed away as a family...they had a lot of fun. We've always wanted to try hand bells as a family, but chimes are much more practical. 

Pastor Larry choked us all up as he shared about losing Caleb this year.  We're glad Caleb faithfully finished his race, but we miss our brother in the Lord.

After sharing, Pastor Larry introduced the annual slideshow summing up the church's year in pictures.  After recreating a new slideshow from scratch the day before...I will not go into detail about all the trials and tribulations I had...I recreated the slideshow again the day of the banquet.  When the slideshow was put together with the music, it had several snafus that either were beneficial or hilarious.    On the fifth or sixth try, we got a finished product running. Mr. Adams was famous for walking in five minutes before the show was to go on...now I know why.  Slideshow software is cantankerous stuff.

Phew!  Lord, this year was a lesson in perseverence...let us run with perseverence the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus!  ...and thank You, Lord, for Your body at Millard Alliance Church.