Every time we sit down to discuss a big event at Skyway the meeting usually has a portion of time when I try to convince the rest of the staff that we should have a giant blow up gorilla on the roof of the church. You know, like the ones that are at all the car lots and furniture stores? For some reason I find the beast in various locations throughout the Valley to be fascinating. The first time I brought up the idea everyone looked at each other to see if I had lost my mind. But really, did all these businesses around the greater Phoenix area lose their mind? Well, never the less the staff has won out and we had our days without the gorilla. Until last Sunday… When we celebrated our 25th anniversary with all of you we were told to come to church and enjoy the day; beyond that we did not know what to expect. The video greeting to open the day was awesome. Then came the prayers by the kids; did any of you see our future preachers? The presents and presentations were all tremendous. All of you really went way out to make us feel special. We took our treasure chest of cards home to open them after church and were continually blessed by a couple hundred cards. Many were hand made by our kids starting with the two year old class. Dawn and I sat and discussed the wonderful stories you shared about Jesus touching your lives through our ministry. The work of God’s Spirit over the years is amazing when you sit and read about it all at once. We put all the cards up around our house to read them over again. We also were blessed to receive many gift cards and some cash gifts, we probably won’t have to pay for going out to eat for the rest of the year! What an amazing day. When it was all said and done all of you who were with us for that memorable day will be talking about it for years to come. You were at Skyway when the Gorilla and his zoo crew came riding into the sanctuary in a hummer throwing out t-shirts. See, I was right. Nothing beats a gorilla to make an event unforgettable.

Thanks for blessing our lives like never before.