Dear Friends,

Please remember upcoming activities at WPPC which include:

Upcoming Events:

Sunday, June 22nd – Youth and Kids from 4pm to 6pm, ask Emile for more details

Sunday, June 29th – Rev. Dr. Bob Thompson will be our guest preacher.

Wednesday, July 9th – Midday Prayer at 11am in the Sanctuary. (Lunch at Katies afterwards)

Thursday, July 10th – July Bus Trip! Meet at the church at 11am. We will go out to lunch at Rucker John’s. After lunch, we will take a bit of a “Sunday Drive” before going to the Cape Fear Museum. Sign up with the church office. (This little bus trip will also serve to help Emile feel fully confident that everything is working on the bus before we hit the road for Massanetta!)

July 15-18th – Cindy, Emile, and seven kids go to the Massanetta Middle School Conference
Ukulele Camp: July 20th, 22nd, 24th: Sign up soon on the church website!

Wednesday, July 23rd – Midday Prayer at 11am in the Sanctuary. (Lunch at Katies afterwards)

Grace and Peace,

Emile

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Also, invite a friend to:

Ukulele Camp @ WPPC:   July 20th, 22nd, and 24th from 5:30 to 7:30pm!

We will have classes for children, youth, and adults as well a a Bible Study for adults.

Find out more and register here: https://winterparkpresbyterian.org/ukecamp/

Friends,

Last week I passed through Beaufort, South Carolina on my (attempted) day trip to St. Augustine from Charleston. (I ended up calling it a day with I-95 and spending the night before returning to Charleston.) In Beaufort, I wanted to see, among other things, this monument to Robert Smalls and his grave at Tabernacle Baptist Church.

Robert Smalls was enslaved man who was born in Beaufort. In the 1850s he was moved to Charleston where he eventually became a crewman on a small steamer. Eventually he became the “wheelman” who steered the vessel. In 1861 his steamboat, the S.S. Planter, was taken into Confederate service in the American Civil War. On the evening of May 12th, 1862 after the ship’s officers had gone ashore for the night, Smalls led the other enslaved members of his crew – as well as their family members who they had smuggled aboard – in an incredibly hazardous bid for freedom out to the ships of the US Navy stationed off of Charleston. Smalls had to steam around Charleston harbor to pick up their loved ones without arousing suspicion, wait for first light the next morning to leave the harbor, give the correct signals to the forts at the harbor’s entrance, avoid hitting mines, and impersonate his ship’s captain to the guard who hailed the ship. Any of these things going wrong would have resulted in a hail of cannon fire. Smalls and his crew did all of this, taking a huge amount of skill and, honestly, no little luck. Smalls would go on to serve as a civilian pilot for the US Navy and later as the Captain of S.S. Planter when it was in US Army service. Postwar he would serve as a United States Congressman through much of the 1870s and 1880s.

Yesterday was Juneteenth – the relatively new Federal holiday celebrating the end of slavery in this country. I was discouraged to see some national leaders downplay or dismiss it – or just ignore it. I really think we all ought to be learning and sharing the stories of people like Robert Smalls.

I truly believe that we have a God who yearns for freedom from oppression for all people. One of the primary stories of our faith is that of Moses and the delivery by God of the Israelite people in the Exodus. In Jesus, we have a Messiah and Lord who proclaims release to the captives – and who calls us to love our neighbor. Perhaps we should work in this world to try to do the same things?

It was moving to stand outside Tabernacle Baptist Church and see the monument to Smalls – as well as one to Harriet Tubman, someone called an “American Moses”, and reflect on the courage and faith it took to bring such freedom.

Grace and Peace,

Emile