Sliding into South

Our new congregation is the south congregation in Milford, PA.   The drive is very pretty from Bethel to Milford and that makes the hour it takes a little less lengthy.  Once on the highway, we climb a small moutain and enjoy the beautiful scenery of the valley that carries the Deleware River.  Our territory includes part of Pennsylvania and New Jersey which seems odd since we live in New York.  Here in service with Julie and Danny we stopped at a section of the Appalachian Trail (also in our territory). 

But the important thing to know about it all is that gas is approx 30 cents cheaper in NJ.  Plus  the state law is the gas attendant has to pump it - so getting gas to or from the congregation has some highlights.

 

 Sorry this map doesn't have the clarity to show the roads, but this is our congregation territory map and everything in the highlighted areas are neighborhoods that are closed communities. This means phone territory is a staple for the friends. Just like in Williamsburg, it can be 45 minutes or more from the hall to the boundary areas.  They also do public witnessing every Saturday at the post office.  Here our jazzy Bill and Jill Lane (long-time Bethelites) are manning the post.









Here is the Kingdom Hall. There is the North and South and American Sign Language Milford, PA congregations meeting here and  both English are good size groups of well over a hundred publishers. (Not sure on the ASL size)  There is a second school too! Jeremy has already given an impromptu #3 talk back there!

For quite a while the  congregations have been looking to build a new hall in a better location.  This one needs a lot of attention and they know it would be better to build new.

 

 

It is taking some serious effort to remember everybody's name!  Here is a picture of just SOME of our young people under the age of 18 in the hall.  Just about all of them participate in the meetings too.  We love that!

There are 15 or 17 Bethelites assigned to our hall so we have schedules made up for who carpools with who on our Thurs mid-week meeting at 7:30. So all the Bethelites who have a car either take a turn driving or contribute for gas and we all pile in at 6:15ish and get home around 11ish. It seems like an adventure each time!


Our Sunday meeting is at 1pm.  That allows us to meet for field service in the am and already we have a couple of return visits!


Lovingly some of the friends in the hall have taken us in and included us in a BBQ last Sunday.

(and of course we had to have a "toppings" picture when the ice cream came out)







  Today we enjoyed REAL New York style 26" cheese pizza!  It was soooo good we decided to try the sausage/mushroom pizza too.

{of course we had left-overs}

 

 

Another huge highlight of this week was seeing Becky, Jen and Phyllis and other friends on their bus tour of Bethel.  We only wish we had more time with them!  We love you guys!