Our Church Homecoming

Today is a special day for us at church. It is our annual Homecoming service at church. I've mentioned the idea of homecoming to some and they don't know what one is, so I don't know if it is a Southern thing or if it's just uncommon but it's always has been a part of our church.

The church we attend has been around for 139 years this year!! Of course over time we built knew building and expanded a bit, but the actual location and even peices of the foundation have remained. The story goes that during the Civil War there was a Confederate soldier that had been injured battle and prayed that if the Lord allowed him to leave he would devote his life to service. So the soldier did live and became the first pastor at our church. This church holds a lot of special memories for me, my grandparents were married there, my parents were married there, my husband and I were married there, both girls were dedicated there and it's just a wonderful place for us to go workship as a family and grow together spiritually.

It still has the same values that it did almost 140 years ago. We use hymnbooks and sing many of the same songs. On homecoming we arive at 9:45 and have an hour of singing, then have an hour of preaching then about 30 more minutes of singing while the ladies set out the "dinner on the grounds". We actually use tables outside, not on the ground but for some reason we still call it that. We have a delicious lunch then back for another 2-3 hours of singing and preaching. The homecoming part comes in because this is a time that people from all over that have ever attended this church come back "home" and fellowship with people they know. This means many family members that have moved away visit for the weekend and it's nice to see everyone.

I'm making
- my grandma's Wesson Oil Cake ( healthy I know, but hey.... it's tradition)
- deviled eggs
- No bake chocolate oatmeal cookies ( the girls always ask for these)
- white beans
-broccoli and rice casserole


There will be so much delicious food and some wonderful fellowship and I'm excited to get it started!