YES THEY'LL KNOW WE ARE CHRISTIANS BY OUR LOVE!

Hello Out There! It is 1:43 a.m. and I am wide awake! The closing celebration for
the fall 40 Days for Life campaign was yesterday and I was so tired when we came
home from Mass last night. I was in bed and sound asleep by 9:30 p.m. About 12:45 a.m.
I woke up and knew that I wouldn't be going back to sleep anytime soon. I prayed and then
thought about all the loose ends I need to tie up today. Since I wasn't at all sleepy,
I decided to sit down and write a post!
How are y'all doing out there? I pray that you are all well, and that your week will be
blessed! I can't believe that the fall 40 days campaign has ended. We started off with a
great Kick-Off Rally followed by 40 days of prayerful vigil, fellowship, laughter and
tears. We closed out the fall campaign yesterday afternoon right before the evening Mass.
The closing celebration was very nice, kind of low key, but a wonderful blessing and
great way to end a very busy 40+ days! There ended up being about 28 people at the
closing celebration and we served cookies, coffee, and bottled water. Frank, our wonderful,
Music Ministry leader, led us in three beautiful and perfect songs:
"Blest Are They" was the first song he sang and we joined in for the refrain:
Rejoice and be glad! Blessed are you, holy are you! Rejoice and be glad!
Yours is the kingdom of God!
"We Are Called" was the second song and this is the refrain:
We are called to act with justice, we are called to love tenderly, we are called
to serve one another; to walk humbly with God.
"They'll Know We Are Christians" was the third song and the refrain is:
And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love, Yes they'll know
we are Christians by our love.
Frank picked out the most perfect songs for our closing celebration. Singing together
outside in the courtyard and sharing some of our experiences during the 40 days
was a beautiful and peaceful way to close out the fall campaign.
My friend, Candi, who has also been my right hand during this campaign, helped me
write out "Save the Date" cards for the 2016 Spring Campaign and we handed them out
along with stapled copies of the prayers we pray during the vigil hours.
The left over cookies and bottled waters are being donated to The Sack Lunch Ministry that
our parish provides to those in need, Monday through Friday from 11:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
I think I am finally getting sleepy, so I am going to go ahead and close for now. I'll
write another post about all the wonderful people and families who came out to pray
in a couple more days. God bless you all! Pray for families everywhere, please especially
pray for those in a crisis pregnancy, please pray for their unborn babies.
                                                             Bye for now, Sharla