Yearly Meeting: A Day by Day Recap


Saturday Morning:
Board Meetings For many attendees, Yearly Meeting opens with the Missions Banquets on Saturday night. However, for over 100 committed individuals, Saturday morning Board Meetings are the start of their time together.

Saturday Lunch:
An informal luncheon buffet is provided on Saturday for board members, youth, missionaries, and members from our hispanic churches who arrive early for seminars, times of encouragment and fellowship. Saturday afternoon brings the Senior High, Junior High leadership together. The structured youth programs began with the Missions Banquets.

Saturday Evening: Missionary Banquets
The Saturday evening Missionary Banquets are truly an international event with missionaries and workers recognized from around the world. Close to 700, including over 200 of our hispanic Friends members, were blessed with news from missionaries representing Friends work around the world. Dr. John P. Williams, Jr. interviewed John and Sangi Van Lal, our coordinators of missions work in Nepal. Special Missionary Guest Speakers, Dave and Cindy Aufrance of Hong Kong, shared the blessing of seeing the harvest from seeds of the gospel planted in lives of students from over 20 years of ministry.

Sunday Afternoon: China Friends Mission Memorial Service
An historic time of dedication and remembrance was held Sunday afternoon at Damascus Friends Church for EFC-ER's missionary work in mainland China. A memorial plaque, which lists the name of those Friends missionaries and family members who died and were buried in China or at sea, was unveiled.

Special guests included Dr. Shen K. Wang, retired orthopedics surgeon who was born in China and raised by parents who became Christians under the influence of Friends missionaries in Luho, China. Dr. Wang shared how Christ helped him in his harrowing escape from China during the cultural revolution as he and a brother literally fled across China. Retired missionaries, Dr. John Williams, Sr., Ella Ruth Hutson, and Howard Moore shared their thoughts as well. All enjoyed chinese appetizers following the dedication service.

Sunday Evening's Service:
Renewing our First Love:Our Life,Our Legacy
The Sunday evening service began with music featuring the Canton and Jackson Friends churches combined choirs and orchestra.

Dr. John P. Williams, Jr. challenged us, from the context of Revelation Chapters 1 and 2, to a renewed passion for Christ and his work of evangelism. He reminded us that "It is not enough to want what is right. It is not enough to persevere; it is not enough to work hard - we must have love. What does it mean if we get the mechanics right; what does it mean if we get the diagnostics right - if we don't have love for Jesus Christ? When other things compete and energy is drained, we need a return to our first passion."

Sunday evening's service also recognized three dedicated missionaries who are moving into other areas of service. Manuel and Brenda Chavarria along with Hillary Harrison were recognized during the evening service for their dedicated missionary service. A reception for them followed the evening service.

Monday Morning: Annual Sessions begin with Concert of Prayer
Yearly Meeting Sessions began officially with our Concert of Prayer directed by our general superintendent, Dr. John P. Williams, Jr. and the worship team from Canton First Friends led by Stan Hinshaw. This annual tradition of prayer time served to bathe our sessions in a covering of prayer.

In the General Superintendent's address on Monday morning, Dr. John challenged us to greater generosity to meet the challenge of evangelizing a world needy for the news of Jesus Christ.

He spoke of three concentric circles - growth, gratitude, and generosity - and presented the challenge of developing "Ministry Fund 2006"- a $1,000,000.00 fund for evangelism. The fund will designate $250,000.00 for missions work, $500,000.00 to assist our college, Malone College, in acquiring a long needed chapel, and $250,000.00 to assist and support our summer camps across Eastern Region.

Commitment to this goal highlights our greater commitment to the advancement of the cause of Christ in the world and to rise up from among our children and youth, the future spiritual leaders of our denomination and our faith.

Monday's WMF Luncheon was once again a blessed time for all women, featuring a panel of our missionary women: Cindy Aufrance, Vicki Hinshaw, Sangi Van Lal, Esther Zinn and others. The men and children enjoyed a picnic on the lawn at Malone College.

Monday Evening: Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil
We were excited by the dynamic ministry of Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil, as she spoke to us of the "Mission Impossible" presented to Isaiah in Chapter 6. She suggested that we need to "develop a greater tolerance for the circumstances which God allows into our lives" (instead of trying to escape from those circumstances) so that God can use us in those circumstances to convince people that the Kingdom of God is a reality. She stated that "it is our mission to get people to believe that God is telling the truth" - an ever growing challenge in our present-day culture.

Tuesday Morning: Memorial Service
Tuesday morning began with the precious tradition of the Memorial Service. We spent a blessed time remembering and celebrating the lives of the following saints who went home to heaven in this past year: Norma Freer, Evelyn Lorene Jones, Stephen Daniel Kiplinger, James F. Morris, Stan Scott, Ruby "Jewel" Tebbs, and James Stuckey (all former pastors, missionaries, or board chairmen).

Tuesday Evening: Recording Service
We once again were privileged to "record", in the Friends tradition, those whom God has called, as we recorded as Ministers of the Gospel, the following individuals: Eric Biddle, Marva Hoopes, Cora Mae Jewell, and Laurel Notturno.

Tuesday Evening: Strawberries
A Strawberry Social gave everyone the chance to enjoy conversations while celebrating with our newly recorded pastors and their families.