Friday, November 2, 2007

SATURDAY WEATHER WARNING!

"And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still.  And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm."  (Mark 4:39)

The following is the text of an e-mail I sent out to a number of folks from our church early this morning.  I'll certainly be "rebuking" the tropical storm scheduled for Saturday!


Hi!

Well, being New England the weather can certainly change and that appears to be the case for Sat. Nov. 3.

As of Thursday morning the forecast for Saturday was that it would be a nice day in the 50s with a very slight chance of a little breezyness and maybe a tiny bit of drizzle or light showers in the afternoon and evening.

That has all changed in 24 hrs.

The NEW forecast is calling for the remants of Hurricane Noel to hit southern New England on Saturday!  It is NOT likely that it will be a "hurricane" when it hits.  Rather, it is expected to be a "tropical storm".  However, that doesn't mean we aren't in for some problems.

Noel is expected to begin around 11 am and to continue for about 12 hrs.

The Boston area is expected to get 30-40 MPH winds with possible gusts of 50 (or more) MPH.  That will bring many limbs down.  It can also bring some trees down.  It could mean power outages.

We are expected to get drenching rains as well.  Most of the rain is expected for late Saturday afternoon and early evening.

As you know, in wind and rain events, the church's sanctuary can end up taking in a substantial amount of water.  In worse case scenarios, up to 50% of the rug has been soaked.  The last time that happened was around 16 months ago, and David Crowell and I spent the better part of a Saturday cleaning it up.  In a worst case scenario, this COULD impact the sanctuary for Sunday morning.  Once or twice before, we had to block off a whole area of the sanctuary and have everybody sit in a limited area.

As you know, we are scheduled to have a special day of prayer from 6:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. tomorrow.  I am also scheduled to go to the Larry Pickett Memorial Service in Sharon which is at 12 Noon on Saturday.  I'm scheduled to go to my sister' s in Canton first, then Dianne and I are scheduled to go to the service in Sharon and the restaurant in Foxboro.  It looks like we'll need our rain gear!

Today, I plan to put some towels down in the sanctuary and set up the dehumidifier.  I will turn the dehumidifier on tomorrow morning.  We will just "have to work around that" for the Sat. day of prayer.

Ironically, I've had a whole week of "curve balls" and changing schedules and situations, and now this is just one more thing.  I'm hoping we can get through Sat. and Sun. OK.  If this gets really bad, (power outages, etc.) it COULD affect church on Sunday morning, but at this point we'll need to plan like everything is happening and PRAY.

I know that Dick Germaine has an important fundraising dinner on Saturday night.  I am not scheduled to go, but I am certainly concerned for the impact bad weather would have on Dick's important event.

I do know God can change things and God can change the weather.  The Ch. 25 weather man said this morning that as it stands right now, we'll take a pretty good hit from this tropical storm, BUT that if it even moves slightly out to sea, it will make things much better for us.

Let's make the weather and all this stuff a big matter for prayer today!

Any questions, comments, etc., please don't hesitate to contact me.

PASTOR BOB BARIL
P.S. If you can think of anyone who does not have access to e-mail and needs this message please be sure to  convey this information to them.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well, now as I write at 7:05 p.m. E.D.T. on Saturday evening, I'm glad the storm in the MetroWest area was not half as bad as predicted!  (I did see one tree down on Beaver Street, Framingham, though.)  My sister Dianne and I attended the Larry Pickett Memorial Service in Sharon today.   Dianne said it was the most moving and meaningful funeral service she's ever attended.  I agree.  We saw many people today that we haven't seen for 20 or even 30 years.  It was indeed an emotional afternoon.  I trust God will bless me as I teach Sunday School and minister in 2 services tomorrow!