The little church in the valley

I grew up going to a tiny church on a dirt road in a valley. The church was surrounded by hay fields at the time and had a small cemetery across the road. I have very fond memories of this church. On Sunday, the cars would be parked on the grass off the driveway that went around the building. They ran a Sunday school in the basement and I remember also having Vacation Bible School activities down there as well. My mother also put on a Halloween party once down there. I guess that was back in the day when Christians were not bothered by Halloween.

I once did a puppet show there using a Lambchop puppet for the VBS. My mother was one of the people who ran the VBS. I don’t remember what my set was but I remember knocking it over once while doing a puppet show so people saw me – not that this was a surprise but I was embarrassed that I knocked it over. I had to have been only around 8-11 at that time.

I also remember a competition of sorts that they held where people who memorized the books of both the Old and New Testament received a free Bible. I think they changed it to just the New Testament for us kids. I remember that Bible. It was a green leather-ish cover with “Holy Bible” written in gold and there was some sort of inscription written in it – probably a congratulatory note for memorizing. I lost that Bible when it was taken from me as a part of being pulled into a cult. They would remove all your connections to form their own and part of that was taking my Bible and replacing it with one of their leader’s bibles. That was the Boston Church of Christ. Not a church – a cult. Not affiliated with real Church of Christ organizations.

There was a bell in that belfry back in the day. It had a rope to pull and make the bell ring. Us kids got to do that sometimes. The church had the most beautiful stained glass windows that cast a beautiful light through the space.

I have a picture of the cemetery entrance as well – I’ll need to find that and post that. I don’t think I have any relatives buried there. I did but that was only because we had to before we moved them to our private cemetery on a hill by my grandparents house (both my grandparents are buried in that private cemetery).