WOW!  It was a great weekend at Bethel as we honored the teachers of our community, in our schools and in our churches.  It was a blessing to see many teachers who were invited by their students who attend Bethel, as well as some special guests like the Superintendent of Jessamine County Schools, Lu Young.  My favorite guest of the day was Catherine Barnes.  She was a tutor of a Bethel member (Katie Baldwin) over 20 years ago and she was also the person that led her to faith in Jesus Christ.  Now THAT is a great story, and just one illustration of why we should also be grateful to the teachers who have been such a positive voice in our lives.

I know I’m grateful.  The morning got me thinking and I had to go home and Facebook my music teacher & choir director.  Mr. Mohler started teaching me in elementary school and ended up being an influence in my life all the way through my senior year as my choir director.  I don’t know about you, but it’s a good guage of a relationship that he and his wife drove 8 hours to be at my wedding in another state.  He was a voice in my life that constantly expected more and drew the best out of me.  My days at Millersport High School were extremely important years of my life and I couldn’t list all the positive voices of my teachers from that small town in Ohio in the middle of corn fields.  But let me name a few, just for fun – Mr. Keener, Miss Bennie (Senorita Bennie, that is), Mrs. Canniff, Coach Stought, CoachWeldon, Mrs. Boyer, Mrs. McGreevey, Mrs. Thompson, and Mr. Spears (even though he constantly told us we were all “a little squirrely”!).   Thanks to all of you for being a positive voice!  Maybe I’ll run into you at the Sweet Corn Festival (www.sweetcornfest.com) and get to say thank you in person!

We also want to give a shout out to the Wal-Mart at Hamburg here in Lexington, as well as the Portrait Shoppe(www.portraitshoppe.com)  for their generous donations to help us bless the teachers with special gifts this weekend.

This blog brought to you by Mark Keene.