Conference this year was a great time of fellowship, worship, and even business. It was good to see the large turnout in the morning and evening services. The times of worship, praise, and prayer were precious, especially the anointing of Pastor Jim Nelson, prayer for Les Leet and the Young Adult ministry in the Association, and the burden Tim Smitley has for revival in the Association churches. The times of fellowship and conversation renewed friendships, and the business meetings and board meetings moved right along on schedule.

Some of the highlights were the discussions during the Open Forum time during the business meetings on Friday and Saturday, and the memorial service for Rev. Leland Boring on Friday night, and the presentation of the Association’s new newsletter, The Messenger. On the Executive Board Rev. Young was re-elected as Chairman, and Darlene Stevens as Treasurer.

Many thanks to the Rixford Evangelical Church for hosting the Conference this year. Their beautiful church was a great setting for the meetings and the hospitality was great.

Beginning with the Association Annual Meeting, the six weeks following are going to be very busy. The Annual Meeting is September 17-18, Men’s Retreat is September 24-25, and Ministry Retreat is October 25-27.

Annual Meeting is at the Rixford, PA church this year. Our thanks to the congregation and Pastor Norm Cox for hosting it.

Men’s Retreat is at Doorkeepers in Springcreek, PA, but the men will spend most of Saturday in Erie at the Family First Sportspark.

Ministry Retreat will be in Strasburg, PA where the Association ministers and spouses will enjoy the Broadway-like production of Joseph. They will also be visiting the Hanover Church and touring Gettysburg.

Our webmaster Bill Tipton has added photo and video galleries to the website.

You can now access photo albums from recent AEC events and a video of Pastor Young and Rev. Weagraff dedicating the new Association church United in Christ Community Church. The congregation and Pastor Charlie Little did a wonderful job of making their church beautiful for the occasion. It was obvious much work went into painting, cleaning, and decorating, both inside and out.

Also in the service were Executive Board Secretary Rev. Joan Young and Board of Ministry representative and Associate Pastor at East Smethport, Les Leet. The service also included special music by Kathy Henry of the East Smethport church. Pastor Young led the ceremony which included presenting the church key from the Trustees to Pastor Charlie. The event ended with a wonderful Tureen dinner where food was in great abundance. After viewing and partaking of the feast one wondered how Pastor Charlie managed to collect in one church all the best cooks and bakers in the area. Their hospitality is a reflection of how great the United in Christ Community Church loves the Lord and how happy they are to have their church building back. We are so glad to have them in the Association family of churches.

You may have noticed a different appearance to the website. This is due to a change in webmasters.

Our former webmaster Charles Wells has been overwhelmed with a number of major events, his back surgery and recovery, his mother’s passing, two residential moves, and most recently their home being burglarized. In lieu of this I felt Charles needed relief from the daily maintenance of the website.

Bill Tipton, Columbus OH, has agreed to take over as primary webmaster. He and Charles have worked together on the technical development of our website from the beginning. Bill currently has about a dozen websites on the internet he has developed and maintains daily, including the East Smethport church’s site. I’ve asked Charles if he could continue in a secondary role of maintaining the Association’s Facebook account, to which he readily agreed. The AEC Facebook account is basically a copy of the forefront activity of the website distributed over a large social network. The exposure of our Association and what we offer churches is vast on this site.

Many thanks to Charles for all the hard work and time he has put into the development of the website. The Lord bless him for it.

Just a note to say much thanks to Pal & Darlene Stevens for donating a digital camera to the Association. It was broken in at Youth Retreat and the photos have stunning clarity. You can see them on the AEC site in the photo gallery. It will be very useful for photos for both the website and newsletter.

We were saddened to hear recently from Pastor Jim Nelson of Margaret Johnson’s passing. She and her husband Carl were both pillars and supporters of the Association and the Pleasantville Community Church.

Not long before Carl’s recent passing my wife Joan and I heard Carl was in the hospital. It was our day off and we’ve learned that for us to truly take a day off we have to get out of “Dodge”. So we decided to head down to the hospital in Titusville and visit Carl and Margaret. It was a precious time for us.

Joan and I were just finishing High School when the Lord led us to our denomination’s college, Circleville Bible College. Joan enrolled in 1975 and I one year later. She was 18 and came from Vestal New York, a long way from family and home. I was 17 and from Columbus Ohio, thirty minutes north of Circleville. We were on our own and so young. When God led us to Pennsylvania after college we were 4 hours from Joan’s family and 7 from mine. So we became very attached to our friends, like Carl and Margaret Johnson.

Now Margaret is with Carl and both with their Lord whom they loved and served; Two more saints in heaven. They’ve joined that great, increasing cloud of witnesses whose faith has turned into sight, and who now cheer on we who are still here below, perhaps shouting the words of that old hymn of faith, “It’s real, it’s real, oh (now) I know it’s real. Praise God, the doubts are settled, and I know, I know, it’s real.” Would they not challenge us to persevere and press on with those words of another old hymn,”It will be worth it all”.

The Ache of Love

• The glow of heaven gets brighter with the light of ones I’ve loved.
• The number there is near the number here.
• My longing ache to be with them in heaven up above,
• Is turned by them to see my friends still near.
• “These look to you and love the times of closeness that you spend,
• Your love they always find and feel so true.
• Be there for them as we for you were ever faithful friend,
• And bid them love the way you love them too.”
• By Allen Young