Christ Central Celebrates 13 Years

Tuesday, May 18, Christ Central held its 13th anniversary celebration downtown Columbia at Hope Plaza on the corners of Main, Elmwood, Sumter and Calhoun Streets.  More than 500 people were in attendance.  It was amazing to see this all come together in such a spectacular way.  There were board members, friends, families, and directors of the 21 mission stations around SC, many volunteers, founding members of Christ Central and many people Hope Plaza serves on a daily basis in attendance.  They were all there for the presentations and dedications, listening to the joyful music from the Bikers for Jesus Band and eating a barbecue dinner.

The Women's Well played an important part of this celebrated event.  First we were asked if we would make 20 vests for the men directors and 20 aprons for the women directors to wear at the anniversary event.  We were given approximately 2 1/2 weeks to do this.  Our planning had to be fast and furious.  After coming up with ideas, patterns and fabric, the real work began.  Clara, Dorothy, Eartha, Lennie, Delores, Christina, Lorene and I sewed while Alyssa, Janelle, Alberta, Jesse, and Patricia clipped, trimmed and ironed.  Ms. Barbara took the vests and aprons to be embroidered with "Christ Central Ministries - Enriching Communities" on each of them.

Our next deadline was helping with the catering for May 18th.  We were the caterers for all the side dishes.  This could only be pulled off with God's blessings and DeeDee Patton's experience in the catering business.  For the next two days we worked till we felt like we could not go on.  Lorene, DeeDee, Alyssa, Janelle, Tyra, Barbara, Delores and I pulled KP duty pealing 150 lbs. of potatoes.  After all 500 were served, we had two bowls of food left.  I must add that when Ben prayed over the food at the beginning, he prayed for God to multiply it and He did.

One last comment -- Pastor Jimmy and Barbara Franklin were in there with us working in the "food ministry kitchen" on North Main Street which feeds the homeless daily.  At Christ Central, there is no one who won't do the most menial tasks required to see a mission accomplished to further God's Kingdom.

Be Blessed,

Dianne Lemacks