Cider and s'mores

About a month ago I decided which church to become a part of.  There are numerous good churches in the Twin Cities and several are within walking distance of where I live.  In the end I settled on Twin Cities Church which has a service in West St Paul in the morning and another in Uptown in the afternoon which isn't far from where I live.  TCC is a church plant so it is quite a bit smaller than most churches.  People will definitely notice if I'm not there.  What drew me was the friendliness of the people as well as the emphasis on what they call "house church" during the week.  I joined a group that meets on Wednesday evening at someone's home.  We eat together, have communion, study the Bible and pray.  I have appreciated the discussions and how the group doesn't move on until everyone has completed their homework.  And it's not enough to just get through the material; it needs to be internalized.

Yesterday afternoon my house church got together with a house church from St Paul on a small horse farm east of St. Paul.  The weather couldn't have been more perfect.  The horses and ponies got a good workout giving everyone rides.  We made apple cider which I had never done before.  It's a pretty easy process as long as you have some ready muscles in the group.  Throw some clean apples into the contraption and have someone turn the crank to grind them up.  When the bucket underneath is full a top is screwed down forcing the juice out where it drains into a pitcher.  That's about it.  The big question of the day was, "What's the difference between apple cider and apple juice?"  As the sun went down the HOT unpasturized and unstrained apple cider was a big hit.  Supper was bratwursts, sauerkraut, baked beans and numerous other side dishes.  Two of the people there spoke French so we had our own conversation going on for awhile.  We ended the evening sitting around the fire eating s'mores.  I enjoyed being out in the country where it was quiet and I could see the stars.