A light coating of snow greeted us this morning at Penn-Yorks Camp and Retreat Center as we awoke. We wanted to head out promptly after breakfast, so we loaded the bus ahead of that, thinking that would be a good motivation to get to breakfast. It was and it worked! However, before we could savor the eggs, sausage, "donuts-as-big-as-your-head" (as they were described to us), our breakfast chefs decided to motivate us and asked if we would sing #606 -- "Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow." This is has historically been called "The Mennonite Anthem" and it is not uncommon to be expected to be able to sing this song by memory if you call yourself a Mennonite. The students pulled it off quite nicely and did a great job with it -- evidenced by the fact that we put a dent in the head-sized donuts that were served.
We headed off for Rochester, NY and arrived a bit before 11:00 at Golden Harvest Bakery & Cafe where they were hosting a special chicken bbq meal in honor of their 5th anniversary celebration. We were at the bakery to be a blessing to them and serve in whatever ways they needed us to. This meant that we did a variety of tasks throughout the day...
- serving chicken bbq meals
- cleaning restrooms
- washing dishes, bakery pans...dishes, bakery pans...dishes...bakery pans...oh, and some more dishes
- playing/singing live music
- visiting with guests to the cafe -- in one case, a 17-year old joined our choir and helped us play some piano.
- sweeping/mopping floors
- making soft pretzels, donuts and pretzel pockets
After an afternoon of all this activity, we headed out to the
Ontario Beach Park for some sightseeing and a walk out a 1/2 mile pier into Lake Ontario. We came back home to participate in an employee & family pizza party where we were able to encourage the Golden Harvest Bakery owners and employees with more music, worship, sharing and praying a blessing on them as we left. We heard Joel & Emily Reed's vision for Rochester and the deaf community -- there are several deaf colleges and approximately 100,000 deaf college students in Rochester. The deaf community is the 3rd largest unreached people group in the world. Most of them are turned off by church, too, because churches typically haven't been creative or sensitive enough to the experience a deaf person is having sitting in church. Golden Harvest Bakery has hosted a few events though and college president and vice-president are so appreciate of it. If your family has an interest in deaf ministry and supporting this work, check it out and consider moving here to join Joel & Emily. They serve, work and live without a ton of support or connection in their area.
Miles joined us to do some singing. He sings in his school choir, plays cello and piano. He was out practicing his driving with his dad and they decided to stop in at Golden Harvest -- they were so glad they did.
17 year old Matthias, a bakery employee, who decided he wanted to make all of the pizza for our party.
Phenomenal Chef, Ronnie, who loved try to communicate with us via sign language.
Matthias also played a great guitar and joined our band for the evening worship time.
Joel & Emily Reed and their daughters. They also have a son, Josh, not pictured.
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