From Wit’s End

Well, Rachel is confirming with Miriam at Missionary Resources today that we will be glad to have a certain missionary family over for a few days in early June. This is something I’ve been open and eager to do for almost three years now, and this will be our first guests since we were married. We will keep you posted.

Sorry for the low resolution, but that’s all the church picture company would part with in digital format. The prices were kind of steep, so we only ordered prints of the one with the blue background and the one with just me, since I’m usually the one behind the camera.

	Heh… oops!

Pictures, moving and stationary, professional and amateur, from our wedding reception

	Movie of Dancing!
Movie of Singing!

Here’s the wedding program, the photos are below, and here’s some music, if your connection is fast enough.

Pictures from the night before our big day.

While the roof damage in our Sanctuary is being repaired, my church is meeting in our Gym, which for some reason we call a “Family Life Center”. Whatever. Anyway, it has been fun, because it was a reminder of all the churches my family has been a part of that had to meet in gyms because they didn’t have buildings. Also, it felt like meeting in a gym mellowed us all out and helped us not take ourselves so seriously like we often collectively seem to do.

On the left is a picture of where my church choir practices. Until a few weeks ago, we practiced on the third floor, now with the opening of our new Sunday School building, the sunday school classes have all moved out of the Lady Street Building and we have moved into our more permanent accomodations on the second floor. Also, the church library has thankfully been moved to the first floor from the fourth, so I don’t have to go quite as far to get my regular dosage of Mars Hill Audio tapes. This building is
across the street from the sanctuary of First Presbyterian Church, presented on
the right from the point of view of the Lady Street Building

I go to First Presbyterian Church in downtown Columbia, SC. It’s in the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, a denomination which our Heavenly Father has been slowly rescuing from the clutches of liberalism over the last few decades. First Presbyterian is the largest church body i have ever been a member of– over 2000 members, i think. We have six pastors (all Reformed!), and a few dozen elders and deacons. It’s been around for better or worse for over 200 years, and its truly an astounding institution of which i am privileged to be a part. It has its flaws and idiosyncrasies like any church, but every Lord’s Day is a little piece of heaven, by God’s grace and mercy. I give a lot of my time to it during the week: i’m in the choirs that sing in the morning and evening services, am part of a small group Bible study, and the tutoring that i do on Monday nights is part of their urban ministry and outreach.

But i’m mentioning it now because today we opened the doors to a new Sunday School building, and newly-renovated chapel and fellowship hall. I love what they’ve done with the place. Here are a few of the many dozen pictures from the tour.

The Lundy family, hanging out in the chapel while Eric L. plays the organ.	A hallway in Thornwell, containing my mom and some friends.	The Youth Room
In case of emergency…	Between the buildings.	Jackson Fellowship Hall, baby!
Oh yeah, looking good!	Dr. Wyatt, our choir director is the 2nd from the left, sitting in on one piece with the brass.	A view of the small dining room. Dr. DeWitt, our Senior Pastor, is third from the left.
This isn’t new; it’s actually been around for a while.	Another entry into the “Blinding Flash of the Obvious” category…	Perhaps this little one is, after all…

On Palm Sunday, Leanne and her parents came to visit us and to attend the evening service at our church, at which the choir sang the Easter portion of Handel’s Messiah. As is typical, there was a fellowship dinner afterwards in the Family Life center. Conversation proceeded on a polite tack, until everyone was done eating. My father said to Leanne’s parents that they were welcome to come to our church anytime they liked. Her father reacted strangely, saying that they liked their church, too, and that coming to First Presbyterian might not happen that often since they would have to get permission from their pastor first.

Well, we Wisdoms were mildly nonplussed at such a reply, and we moved the conversation on to other things. Of course, later we understood why he said what he did.