This past Monday and Tuesday afternoon, approximately 45 of us met online for our annual Festival Coordinator conference. It took the several hours we allotted for our meetings to discuss various aspects of planning for the Feast of Tabernacles for 2022. We had a number of coordinators from Canada and the Caribbean, as well as many past and present Festival coordinators from the United States at our meeting.

Vic Kubik, Chris Rowland and I were present for the meetings, but Charles Melear, our overall Festival Coordinator, is instrumental in putting the online conference together and he works closely with each of the Festival Coordinators in the U.S.

With consideration, after prayer and fasting throughout the year, we do our best to provide Feast sites around the world that have much to offer our members in regard to scenic beauty, interesting attractions and meeting halls that are conducive to worshiping God and fellowshipping with our brethren.

We carefully select Festival coordinators and assistant coordinators and help prepare them for running a Festival site that will be pleasing to God and where all things are done “decently and in order” according to God’s will.

In general, we spent hours discussing many topics, such as: input from last year’s Festival member survey and how we might improve next year’s Feast experience, speaking at the Feast, song-leaders, the welcome video, COVID-19 complications, celebrating the Feast online, Families Helping Families, budgets, a new online Feast registration system, special music, youth education, the Festival Planning Brochure, United News articles about the Feast, and cards for shut-ins.

If I went into the detail of what we discussed in these meetings, this would become a very lengthy article, so suffice it to say that we are dedicated to learning from the experiences of last year’s Feast and are doing our best to prepare for the Feast in 2022. Certainly, we seek God’s blessing on all our Feast sites and we ask you to join all of us in prayer throughout the year, asking God to pour out His blessings upon us as we strive to honor Father and Son by keeping the Feast as directed in Leviticus 23!

On Monday afternoon at the home office we also honored Vic and Bev Kubik for their 40th wedding anniversary! For me, personally, and for my wife, Barbara, it has been very rewarding to get to know both Vic and Bev on a more personal level and also to also see their unrelenting dedication to serving God, the employees and members of the United Church of God, the community here in the Cincinnati area, and their outreach of service to the Church and the world through LifeNets.

Those who know Vic and Bev have benefitted from their leadership, their love, and their devotion to God and His way of life. This was quite evident at the celebration as many expressed their appreciation, and the Kubiks graciously made everyone feel very comfortable and at ease.

Barbara and I have always appreciated their leadership, their service, and the true humility exemplified in their conduct. And for the past three years we have had an opportunity to get to know them much, much better, and our appreciation has grown immensely. From my perspective they have both set a very fine example of true Christians and have inspired Barbara and me to want to serve more faithfully than ever. I do wish all of you could have joined our home office employees to honor Vic and Bev and to show both our individual and collective appreciation for them!

Wishing you all a very inspiring and restful Sabbath day!