Good morning on this the last day of May. Many of you have inquired about my time with my new grandson, Kai, during the Memorial Day holiday. We were at the airport in Chicago when my daughter arrived with Kai about 6:00 P.M. on Thursday evening. Barb and I had the opportunity to spend the next several days with him and his new forever family during the next several days. It was wonderful to get acquainted with him and have the opportunity to provide our daughter with some much-needed assistance as she struggled with jet lag and the fatigue of her long journey. Lori and her family joined us later in the weekend and with Tim now living in Lake in the Hills, our whole family was together for the occasion. We all had a great time and I returned home on Monday afternoon with an overwhelming sense of gratitude for the privilege of being part of a loving caring family with three great children and five terrific grandchildren.
Cheryl tells me that she will posting pictures of Kai's arrival home on her adoption website http://www.myadoptionwebsite.com/kai/ later this weekend. Thank you for your prayers and concern as you have followed with us Kai's journey into our lives and family.
Tomorrow's message will be the first in a series of prophecy updates given throughout the month of June. The focus will be on current world events which could play a major role in the fulfillment of Biblical prophecies. During these critical times, it is a profitable to keep one eye on prophecy and the other on current events as we advance ever nearer to the coming of Christ.
I hope to see you all in the services tomorrow.
Pastor Mel Brown

I am taking some vacation time to get acquainted with my new grandson during this Memorial weekend. Please check out his journey into our lives at www.myadoptionwebsite.com/kai/
Pastor Brown

Good morning on this, the 17th of May. I returned from Springfield, Missouri, last Thursday evening where I had gone to get our missionary interns, the Joyces, approved as missionaries to Burkino Faso, Africa. There were three rounds in the approval process over a two-day period. First the Joyces met with a small group of pastors and missionaries in an evaluation session where any question could be asked or issue raised by any participant of the group. I have been in some of those sessions where the candidates were severely questioned about their beliefs, doctrines, practices and philosophy of ministry, and I have been in other sessions where the process has been much less grueling. Since you can't know what you will face, you have to be fully prepared for the worst-case scenario. Next, the candidates go before the entire body of Baptist Bible Fellowship International leaders and Missions Committee members to give their testimony and statement of their call as missionaries. Finally, they go before the assembly of all of the pastors and missionaries in the plenary session to be approved. Josh and Lani acquitted themselves well through the entire process and I guarantee you would have been very proud of them and their performance through every phase of their approval. They are now fully-approved missionaries and are ready to begin their deputation in early June. I have every confidence that they will be outstanding missionaries. The highest compliment I could give them is to say that if they were not called as missionaries, I would love to have them as permanent members of the Edgewood pastoral staff. Tomorrow's A.M. sermon is entitled, What Makes A Baptist A Baptist and following the evening service, the church will host a farewell reception for the Joyces. I hope I will see you in all of the services tomorrow.
Pastor Mel Brown

Good morning, it is Saturday, May 10th. Tomorrow is Mother's Day. Tomorrow's services will feature a variety of events to honor our Edgewood mothers: recognition of all moms, a gift for some of our oldest mothers, a video tribute to all moms and a Mother's Day message entitled, "The Exemplary Mother." In preparing for the sermon I uncovered the following fact: the typical mother spends 18,000 hours of her life caring for her children in her many roles of motherhood. Needless to say, that is a huge investment of her life, but the dividends of that investment are so important. Someone has said, "An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy." As we honor so many worthy ladies this Mother's Day, please don't forget to pray for these special-needs people:
(1) Those who are grieving because of the recent loss of their mother
(2) Those whose mothers are seriously ill and are enduring suffering and pain
(3) Those who long to become mothers but have no children
(4) Those mothers who have experienced the heart-breaking death of a child
(5) Those who have grown up or are growing up without a mother
(6) Those mothers who are valiantly struggling to keep their families together and make ends meet in spite of very difficult circumstances
Tomorrow's celebrations should be filled with praise and appreciation for our mothers but should include our personal prayerful consideration of those who are hurting.
Pastor Mel Brown

Good morning, it is Saturday the 3rd of May. In last week's blog, I wrote about my daughter and son-in-law's plans to bring our new grandson, Kai, home from China. They are now traveling to Beijing to make this a reality. They have developed a web site to share pictures and progress reports of their journey; the address is: http://www.myadoptionwebsite.com/kai/. If you are interested, please visit this web site for information and updates - I think you'll enjoy it.
This morning our special guest, Dan Brown, will be arriving in the Quad Cities and will be with us throughout the weekend. He will be speaking in both A.M. services tomorrow morning as well as in the youth group meetings during Sunday school and Sunday evening. Dan is a youth pastor and youth pastor's pastor who has had an extraordinary ministry with young people. His LIFT camp program has impacted the lives of so many teens through the years. His ministry this weekend at Edgewood should be a great encouragement to our people and particularly our youth and their sponsors.
Tomorrow evening at 6:00 PM, Edgewood will have an ordination service for our missionary intern, Josh Joyce. It will be great event for Josh's ministry and for the people of our church. It is one of the most important and sacred services in any church because it represents the official setting apart of the candidate for the ministry of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Attending this ordination service will be a very worth-while experience, not only for Josh and his family, but for all of the rest of us as well.
I hope to see you in all of tomorrow's services.
Pastor Mel Brown