Mary Had A Birthday

We met in Hatboro, PA at the Trinity Orthodox Presbyterian Church with family, friends, Ethiopians, and church folk to celebrate Mary Elizabeth Bird and her 90th Birthday.














Our token Asian & our token Hispanic. Jack (or Xsiaosong Xu) boarded with Mary and Ruth for several years while in school until he married and had a son. Jack is also our token Communist. He served in the red army and is fond of Mao. Which everyone, including his Chinese American born wife thinks is absolutely ridiculous. He loves us anyway. Jack came to know Christ through Mary & Ruth. He actually told us that the first time he was in church it was all so unfamiliar, so that when the offering plate came around he didn't know what to do so he tossed in his bus tokens.
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Another funny story. I was watching TBN while Matthew Hagee was preaching a sermon on the Unshakable Christ. During which he made the point that people put there trust in many things and if you say something with enough confidence, people are likely to believe you. To get this point across he told a story of his childhood. When he was three and his sister Christina was almost 5 they had a little friend named Meredith who was 4.
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One Saturday a call came to the Haggee home that Meredith and her family had been involved in a fatal car accident. The following day was Sunday. After church the Haggee family got in there car and Christina asked her father, "Daddy, where's Meredith?" ... her father answered, "Meredith is gone, honey." .... "But where did she go?" .... " Meredith went to be with Jesus." ..... "Well when is she coming back?" .... "Honey she's not coming back." .... "But I want to play with her!" ... "I'm sorry honey, you can't. But someday we will all be in heaven with Jesus and Meredith." .... at this point Christina began to cry. She didn't want to go anywhere where she couldn't come back. "But I don't want to go live with Jesus. I want to stay here with you and mommy." At this point Pastor Haggee was at a loss for words so young Matthew threw his arm around his sister and said, " That's okay Tina. We don't have to go to heaven. We're not Christians like daddy. We're Mexicans like mommy and Mexicans live forever." Christina felt much better.










Ruth was MC. Caelen sang Amazing Grace. Samantha put together a slide show to the tune of You Are So Beautiful. Brittnay made the cake. Monica insisted on 90 candles. Church folk set up. I took pictures and David cleaned up. I think Mary had a good time.