Funeral Service for Joyce Martin

Number 86.

Bless you, O Lord, in the beauty of holiness bowed down before you in glorious praise.

God of holiness and innocence of lowliness, bringeth adore him the Lord is still safe.

Lord, as his teeth lay thy burden of carefulness, thy own his heart he will bear before thee.

Come, come, rise your rose and answer thy prayerfulness, guiding thy steps as they rest before thee.

Hear how to enter his courts in the slenderness of the cornflower bow full strength and sight. You will, his beauty and lovingness, tender as his sweet heart he offers to lay on his shrine.

He will be great and his gentle yet dearfulness, he will excel for loving as his dear.

Mornings of joy give, morningings of tearfulness, rest for our trembling and hope for our dear.

Number 58.

Number 58.

To your infinite purple holy. Strength and shape, whether earthquake and then the shadows sleep. Every little morning of your land, the daylight, blossoms sweet consciousness I am with thee.

Our glory be of you the piercing shadows, the solemn flush of nature newly born. Alone bathed in breathless adoration, in the calm dew the precious song of morn. When it strengths the souls of you by dawn to summer, its floating idols help to heal in prayer.

Sweet glory falls beneath thy wings or shading, a sweeter silk to great and kindly lair.

So shall it be at last in that bright morning, when thus awakened then thy shadows sleep. O, in that dark mirrorly daylight dawning, shall rise the glorious thought I am with thee.

471.

471.

Married to thee will be of our sorrow, thou art the fountain where our healing flows.

Dark for the night, joy come and with the morrow, safely they rest to on thy lovely home.

When fallen world silvered skies are darkly over us, when loving gentle faces are lightly green, comes with his dawn the love that thou art toward us, and we grow quiet forever in thy feet.

Thou shall upright us on thy earnest lean, though with the heart they sing a silver song. Chains and by vain we earn thy steeper knee, and in our weakness thou the strength of shone.

Patient you are, though heavy be our sorrows, we not cast down this quiet telling thing.

Yet shall the patient when these darkened pearls wear now thee flowered wayward golden ring.

We gather this morning with reverence for our Creator God and in respect for Joyce Martin. Joyce was a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister, an aunt, and a friend who many hear. To me personally, she was an aunt, a next-door neighbor, and most importantly to me, a mother to multiple of my close friends. Her presence will be missed by many.

The obituary reads as follows: "Trusting in God, baptized into the fellowship of Christ Jesus, and after many years of faithful and loving service, Joyce Martin, Joyce Marie Martin, wife of Christopher Martin of Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, left this life to meet the Lord on the 2nd of December, 2021, at the age of 50 years, 11 months, 3 weeks, and 2 days.

Born to Mylon and Darlene Hurst of Mogginsville, Maryland, on the 9th of December, 1970, Joyce was united by marriage to Christopher Lee Martin on the 27th of December, 1990. The Lord blessed Joyce and Christopher with five children: Curtis, Gwendolyn, Brendan, Jennifer, and Vanessa.

Both of her parents, her husband, and all her children survived."

In gathering on this occasion, I want to specifically turn our thoughts towards God and especially remembering God as our Creator. God made us. God made Joyce. He knows each of us. He not only understands our feelings, he understands why we're feeling what we're feeling. So thinking of God and thinking of him as our Creator, I want to read from Psalms 103.

"Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. Who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with love and kindness and tender mercies, who satisfies your mouth with good things so that your mouth is renewed like the eagles. The Lord executes righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed. He made known his way to Moses, his acts to the children of Israel.

The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in mercy. He will not always strive with us, nor will he keep his anger forever. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor punished us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his mercy towards those that fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far he has removed our transgressions from us. As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him. He knows our frame. He remembers that we are dust.

As for man, his days are like grass. As a flower of the field, so he flourishes. For the wind passes over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him.

And his righteousness to children's children, to such as keep his commandments and those who remember his commandments to do them. The Lord has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all. Bless the Lord, you his angels, who excels in strength to do his word, heeding the voice of his word. Bless the Lord, all you hosts, you ministers of his who do his pleasure. Bless the Lord, all his works in all places of his dominion. Bless the Lord, O my soul."

The verses I want to highlight in particular are 13 and 14. "As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him. For he knows our frame and he remembers that we are dust." As I mentioned, God is our Creator. He understands each of us. He knows exactly what we're feeling and why we're feeling it. No one understands a thing or an object or a machine like the person who made it, and God made us. It says in Isaiah 43, "But now thus says the Lord who created you, O Jacob and he who formed you, O Israel, fear not, for I have redeemed you. I've called you by your name. You are mine.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flames scorch you, for I am the Lord your God, the holy one of Israel, your Savior. Since you were precious in my sight, you have been honored, and I have loved you. Fear not, for I am with you."

So I just want to encourage each person here to cling to God. That's the only sure thing in life. And he created us. He understands us. We live the life he gives us to live. When we die, it says in Ecclesiastes that the spirit returns to God he gave it. So we rest in the hands of God, our Creator, and want to leave our burdens there. So my prayer is that the peace of God would fill the heart of each individual that is here.

I ask the congregation to kneel for prayer at this time.

O Lord, we bow before you this morning, remembering that you are a Creator. We thank you for your mercies and your compassions. Thank you that you know us and understand our frame. Thank you that you pity us. I just pray especially for the Christopher Martin family that is here this morning and all the other friends and relatives that are present. Pray that your peace would fill each of their hearts. Pray that you would bless this service and that you would draw our minds towards you. So we ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

We will now have another song after which Brother Stanley Sensnig from Lehman Street Mennonite Church will bring the sermon.

635.

635.

Holy Savior, grant us peace. Sits on thy arm thou hastily.

Help me throughout thy changing sea.

My faith to cling to thee.

Blessed great thou beauty, so divine.

Take what thou will shall thy revive.

Grant us the breadsheds to the vine.

My soul may cling to thee.

Work though thou worldly sea full through. And earthly friends and hopes renew.

Will patience thy goe? Waiting thou still would thy cling to thee.

No faith and hope for adventure.

I ask none in love of his sight.

Soul seeks a cause of satisfied.

No soul that clings to thee.

I bring everyone greetings this morning. Greetings in Jesus' name. And my desire is that those greetings would be greetings of comfort. As Paul wrote to the Corinthians, "Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort." Comfort. How can we find comfort this morning? How can we find comfort when our hearts are so broken and our minds are so numb with grief? How can we find comfort when children are so suddenly left without a mother?

How can we find comfort when a husband must say goodbye to his loving, caring, faithful companion?

Our family has enjoyed interacting over the years with Chris Martin and his wife, Joyce, and their children. We would look forward to the occasions when we would meet them. Sometimes it was at the Lyrica Sacra programs that were held in Africa.

It was always a highlight to get to share with them there. A strong impression I have of those meetings is a faithful wife, Joyce, by the side of her husband. So to Chris and to the children this morning, I would say, "Grace be to you and peace from the God of all comfort." And that word comfort actually means the one who comes alongside. You know, the world today can come and they can put their hand on your shoulder and say, "It's going to be all right. Everything will be all right." But the God of comfort this morning does so much more than that.

I get the picture of one who comes and puts his arms around you, each one of you, each one of you. He puts his arms around you and he breathes into you his divine grace and his divine peace.

And that is my prayer for you this morning, Chris and the children here, and to each one who is grieving the loss of a friend, aunt, relative, whatever it may be. What a kind and loving God we have who will come alongside us. Grace and peace be to you from the God who comes alongside. At times like this, our tendency as humans is to ask questions, questions that have no certain answers. And when faced with unanswered questions, man's propensity is toward doubt.

I am convinced Satan this morning would love to have us stop right there and stay focused on the questions, the uncertainties, and the doubts.

Yea, hath God said, originated with Satan back in the garden, and he has been using that ever since. But this morning, I don't want to dwell on the questions. I don't want to dwell on the uncertainties, and neither do I want to dwell on the doubts. But rather, by God's grace and by the help of the Holy Spirit, I want to take our minds this morning I want to take our minds this morning to things that we know are certain, things that we know will never fail, things that we know we can count on this morning. That's what I'm hoping by God's grace and the Holy Spirit to do this morning. Is that what we need this morning?

Do we need some certain things this morning? Are there enough of uncertainties that we can't just focus on them? The world is full of uncertainties. But this morning, there are some things that if we stop and if we look for them, we will find that they are certain. And this morning, my goal is to impress each person that is present here that those certainties are based and they find their origin in the fact that our God is good.

And that's what I've titled our short meditation this morning, "Our God is Good." And I want you to turn to Psalm 36 if you have a Bible. Now, back when we were in school in English class, our teachers would tell us that the word good really was not a good word.

What was wrong with it? They said the word good is not concise enough. Instead of saying that this is a good car, we were told that we were supposed to be a bit more concise and describe what attribute of that car made it good.

It was a powerful car, or it was a comfortable car, or it was a fuel-efficient car, or it was a car that lasted longer than all the other cars out there. We were trying to be concise back in English class. But when it comes to God, I think the word good is actually a very fitting word.

Why?

Because our God is so big and so broad and so encompassing that he cannot be narrowed down to just one concise attribute. And so this morning, we used the word good. Our God is good. And because our God is good, there are some things that are very certain that I would like to draw our attention to.

I recently have been reading through a book that has stretched my mind. I should have read it many years ago, "The Knowledge of the Holy" by A.W. Tozer. And in that book, he makes an astounding proposition. He says this, "If you could extract from a man what goes through his mind and heart when he thinks about God, you would know everything you'd need to know about that person and his eternal destiny."

Is that really true? I would like to tell you this morning, the things that you think of when you think of God are probably the most important things that you can think, the most important thoughts that you can have.

Are they accurate thoughts?

Do I know God for who he truly is? How do you feel about God?

What goes through your mind when you think about God will tell us all we need to know about that person and his eternal destiny. Those are very important thoughts.

And so this morning, because our God is good, we can be certain of some things that can bring us comfort and hope even in the most difficult of times. And I would like to just look at some of these verses here in Psalm 36. We'll start at verse five. Look what it says here about God. It's going to list some attributes of God. And when we'll put them all together, we see that our God is good.

"Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens." And when I think of that, I think of the sky. Where does it actually start and where does it stop? It says, "Thy mercies are so big that they reach all the way to the sky."

That's our God that is so good this morning. His mercy toward us is that amazing in its capacity. "Thy faithfulness reaches onto the clouds." He is absolutely dependable. Faithful means that you can depend on him. If I say I'm going to do something this morning, I might forget or something might come up that I can't actually carry it out. When God says he'll do something this morning, he's faithful. He's going to do it. "Thy righteousness is like the great mountains." Is there anything more unmovable than a mountain, something that big? "Thy righteousness," or we could say his actions, his right actions are like a great mountain, about as immovable as you can get it.

"Thy judgments are a great deep." And that word could be translated, "Thy justice." The justice of God goes way beyond the surface. And when it comes to each person's final disposition, every single detail will be taken into account.

And God will not overlook a thing. That's because God has justice that goes as deep as what we see given here.

How excellent or the end of verse six, "Thy judgments," sorry, "a great deep, O Lord. Thou preservest man and beast. How excellent is thy loving kindness, O God." And then this next phrase is the first of three things that I want to point out that we can know for certain this morning. Look what it says, "Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings."

This morning, because God is merciful and faithful, because he is right in all his actions, and because his justice accounts for every detail, and because his loving kindness is excellent, therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of his wings. I want to say it this way, certainty number one this morning, because our God is good, we can fully trust him.

Because our God is good, we can fully trust him. Do you trust God this morning?

What does it mean to trust something? When you trust something, you don't question it at all. Our family lived in South America and Colombia for a time. And any of you who have lived in some of the Latin American third world countries know that they are famous for their plastic stackable chairs that they use.

Here we often have these really nice metal folding chairs, but there they have these plastic chairs that have very flimsy legs. And many times those chairs are sitting on tile floors. And so the legs want to slide out. And when a heavy American sits down in them, they start to go this way. And it's just the tendency for us Americans, as we sit in them, we either stack two of them on top of each other to give a little more support, or as we sit down, we kind of go down very, very gingerly.

Why? Because we don't trust those chairs. But that's how so many people live their lives. They don't trust God. And they say, "You know what, God? I want to give you my life. I'm going to put myself in your arms." And they start to sit down into God's arm. They start to give themselves over, but they're poised and ready just in case he lets them down and drops them and fails them, they can spring up and take control of the situation again. Is that trusting God this morning? That's how I do so often in the situations of life. I come up against a wall or something that is really difficult, and I say, "God, I want you to take control."

But I sit there poised, ready to catch myself. Don't trust God that way this morning. Because God is good, we can 100% fully trust him in everything, every detail of our lives. Isn't that beautiful this morning?

Back in May of 1995, a 34-year-old welder named Randy Reed was working in Chicago on a water tower when a gust of wind came and knocked out the scaffolding holding him up, and he fell 110 feet to the ground.

Amazingly, he survived.

He said something very interesting as the paramedics were carrying him on the stretcher. He was gripping onto the sides of that stretcher, and he begged, "Please, don't drop me." He had just fallen 110 feet.

And I think to myself so often, God has so often spared me in so many big ways. And here I am fretting over this little thing.

Because our God is good, Chris and the children, because our God is good, you can fully trust him. And that is certain this morning. There's no questions about that. Let's read a few more verses. I'd like to point out a second thing here.

Because our God is good, we can experience satisfaction and fullness of life. Look at verse eight, "They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house, and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures.

For with thee is the fountain of life, and in thy light shall we see light. Oh, continue thy loving kindness unto them that know thee, and thy righteousness to the upright in heart." And that phrase, "The rivers of thy pleasures," this morning, God wants to give each person here satisfaction and a full life.

God wants to do that for you this morning. And he can do that if you let him. And you know, at a time like this, when you feel so crushed, you may be tempted to think that life will never be meaningful again.

But I want to assure you that yes, you can, and you will have pleasure again. You can, and you will have pleasure again. And that is a certainty because our God is good. Life is going to be different. But because our God is good, you will have pleasure, and you will have fullness of life again, rivers of pleasure. You can have an abundant life. You can have satisfaction.

Satan is evil. Our God is good. Satan, on the other hand, is evil. And he is out to crush each person's spirit here this morning. He's going to do whatever he can to crush your spirit. And he will try to drag you down in despair. Is there anyone here this morning that is feeling in despair?

That is not God's will for your life. And I know there are seasons of life where we have ups and downs. But God's desire for each person here, no matter where you're from, no matter what you're going through, is that you would have a fullness of life, and that you would have abundance of joy, and that you would enjoy life. Some people seem to go through life just always dragging their tail, always feeling like things are really bad, and I'm always the loser, and everyone takes advantage of me. I don't think that's what God envisions when he says, "I want to give you rivers of pleasure." Jesus said it this way in John 10, verse 10, "The thief cometh not but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.

But I am come that ye might have what? That ye might have life." And how? That ye might have it more abundantly. Praise the Lord. That's our God. And because our God is good, we can experience a fullness of life and a satisfaction. How does he do this? How does he give us the fullness of life and the satisfaction that is described here? Well, he does it this way.

He does it this way. Listen to Second Corinthians 9, verse 8, "And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that ye always, having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work." That's how God gives you a fullness of life and satisfaction. That verse might sound like it's a little bit superfluous, like there's a lot of alls and everys and some of those words that we have to be careful how we use them, but not in this setting.

He will fill you with all sufficiency in all things to every good work. And you know, he does that by coming alongside us and pouring the grace into our lives. And you know, I'm convinced this morning, you all are going through something that's very tough.

But I have seen it so often in my life that when I'm going through a tough situation, the grace of God just comes in in exact correspondence to my need for it. And in that way, you can have a fullness, and you can have a satisfaction. And I just have that confidence that you all are going to experience it and have been experiencing that grace correspondent to the need that you have for it.

So that's the second thing. Because our God is good, we can experience satisfaction and fullness of life. And the third thing I would like to take from the last two verses of this chapter, Psalm 36, "Let not the foot of pride come against me, and let not the hand of the wicked remove me. There are the workers of iniquity fallen.

They are cast down and shall not be able to rise." What I want to take from these two verses is this thing that we can be certain of. We live in an evil world. I already mentioned that. We live in a world where Satan is intent on destroying each one of us, and crushing us, and tripping us up, and causing us to fail.

And at times we do fail. But because our God is good, here's something certain, because our God is good, we can come to the end of life victorious. We don't have to come to the end of life having lived in defeat.

And the way that works is if you have fallen. When you have fallen, what do you do? You go to Jesus Christ and you say, "Lord, I've fallen. Would you take your blood and just wash me and cleanse me?" And the Bible tells us that Jesus is just, and he's faithful in cleansing us from all unrighteousness.

So beautiful to see somebody, a young person, saying, "Lord, I want you to come into my life." Last night in our home, we had a most joyous experience. It was actually early this morning when our young daughter came to us and said, "Dad and Mom, I need to think about my salvation."

And she made a commitment after we walked through that with her in the middle of the night. But God can do that to a young child. He can do that to a middle-aged person this morning. And he can take you all the way through life, cleansing you, washing you, cleaning you, so that when you get to the end of the life, like our sister this morning, you can have been victorious. Yes, you had failures.

Yes, you had times when you walked away from God. But his blood can wash us and can bring us back. And if there's anyone here this morning who has not done that, who has not accepted Christ, who has not invited them into their life, or who has gone away from Christ and needs that blood to wash over you, come to him humbly and ask him, and he's going to do it for you. He's faithful, and he's just in doing it.

There's a verse that describes us in Jude 24 that I just love, 25, "Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and present you faultless before the presence of his glory, with exceeding joy to the only wise God, our Savior, be glory, majesty, dominion, and power both now and ever. Amen." And I think we sometimes read over that verse kind of quickly, and we might not quite get the gist of what's actually being promoted here. Sometimes we think of it as, "Oh, won't that be wonderful when we can be brought into the presence of God spotless?" But there's also something else going on in this verse that we sometimes miss. And I'm going to tell a little story to try to help you understand it.

When I was a fifth-grade boy, went to a school, Christian Day School, and we, every quarter, every couple of months, would get what was called a report card. And so when you would open up the report card, it had two sides on it. On this side was the the side that had all the academic things, math and English and all that. But does anybody remember what was over on this side?

It was your conduct grade. It was your conduct grade. And if you had been a good student that marking period, you would open it up, and there was an S. But if you had not been very good, you would open it up. And that S stood for satisfactory, by the way. But if you had not been so good, you would open it up, and there was a U. That stood for unsatisfactory.

And I remember I was a fifth-grade boy. And I brought my report card home, showed it to my parents. And my father opened that up and looked, and inside there was a U. And I had deserved it.

And my father didn't say too much. But he told me this. He said, "Stanley, if you come home next marking period with another U, I'm going to give you a spanking."

And that was not something that I was going to mess around with. And so I remember the next end of that next marking period. Teacher gave us our report cards. They were in these little yellow envelopes. She came and laid them on each of our desks, and there was my report card, and I was almost too scared to open that up. But I opened it up. I pulled that out, and I didn't look at the math. I didn't look at the English. I didn't look at the literature grade or anything like that. I right away peeked in there.

And there was an S. There was an S for satisfactory. And I was so excited. I took that card, and I literally, as I jumped out of our school van, went running in the lane because I was going to present to my father a report card that said that I had been a satisfactory student. I had done well. I had not left him down. I was so joyful. That was a feeling that a fifth-grade boy will never forget. And somehow, when I read this where it says that Christ will present us faultless before the presence of his glory, how?

With exceeding joy. I think Jesus is going to have that same feeling when he can bring us because of his goodness, and he can bring us and present us to the Father and say, "Look, Father, here's Stanley. And he's spotless. He's sinless. And I have exceeding great joy in doing this." Sometimes we think about what it's going to do for us. But did you ever stop and think what it's going to do for Jesus Christ, who died for us?

I can't wait for that. I can't wait for that. And each one of you can experience that because of the blood of Jesus, not because of something you're doing this morning or how perfectly you're living your life, but because of the blood of Jesus.

And so I would like to conclude. I have two verses, and then I'd like to read a hymn. These two verses I would like to give, especially to you as a family.

I know that today you were thinking you would celebrate the birthday of a mother and of a wife.

But instead, what a wonderful new beginning, what a wonderful new reality your mother and your wife is experiencing. That is beautiful. First Corinthians 15 says this, "Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." There is glorious hope in that. So that's one verse I want to leave with you. A glorious change has happened and will happen. We can look forward to that, each one of us who has made our calling and election sure.

The other verse I would like to leave with you is found in Deuteronomy. And I would say this: I'm sure there's going to be days when your grief feels unbearable. And that's okay. That's just going to be okay.

But there's going to be days when it feels like your world has been shattered, and when it feels like the bottom has dropped out from underneath you and your life. And on those days, I just want you all to remember this verse. It's in Deuteronomy 33:27, "The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms."

And I totally trust those arms. Those arms are good. Those arms will take good, good care of you.

When 110 years ago, a Mennonite lady named Elsie Byler wrote a hymn that is found in our church hymnal, I don't know anything about her other than that. But I think her words sum up very nicely what I would like us to leave with this morning.

She wrote this, "O thou, the great eternal one, whose goodness every age hath stood, thou art exalted over all, for thou art great, and thou art good. Teach me to know thy tender care, thy matchless grace, the atoning blood, thy sovereign power upholding all, but more and more that thou art good.

When doubts, unrest, and fears assail, when grief comes o'er me like a flood, my brightest day be turned to night, I rest secure, for God is good. When human friendship shall decay, and earth affirm its finitude, when time wanes to eternity, one thing remains: our God is good."

For those who can, let's kneel for prayer.

Our gracious, eternal Father, which art in heaven, this morning we are bowing before you in humility as we think about how great you are. And because of your greatness, because of your mercy, because of your justice, because of your loving kindness, we can say nothing else but, "Thou art good," and we thank you for it. We thank you for your goodness. We thank you for how you show your goodness to us in so many ways.

We thank you, Lord, that you care about each and every person that's here this morning. And you care enough that you come alongside, and you pour your grace into each person's life here this morning. And Lord, because of what your Son, Jesus, has done for us, each one of us can have the wonderful promise of someday, someday, ending our lives victorious and meeting you spotless, undefiled, without fear, without any doubts or worries.

We just look forward to that day, dear Lord. Lord, my prayer this morning is, if there's anyone here who has not made their calling and election sure, who has not allowed the blood of Jesus to come into their lives and to cleanse them and to wash away their sins, or who has never made a commitment to your dear Son, I just pray that each of those people here this morning would be convicted to do that while there's still time. And Lord, for each and everyone who has made that commitment, I just say thank you, Lord, that we can have a rest and a peace and a certainty this morning.

Lord, our prayer is for Chris and their children. I just pray that you would, in a special way, walk by them for the rest of this day, the rest of this service, but also in the coming days. And I pray for each person that relates to them, their church fellowship, their friends, their neighbors, that they would also have the grace to be a support and be a comfort. So Lord, we again declare that you are good, and we thank you for your goodness. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

One thing remains: our God is good. That's a point that really stood out to me. I know Chris well enough to know that he wants to say amen to that statement, that God is good. I've seen him resting in that promise very securely over the last week, and I just want to say amen to the message.

The family would like to thank each of you for your presence and contributions over the past week. Throughout this whole experience, the network of family and friends surrounding this grieving family has meant a tremendous amount to them. Last night, after the viewing, I was talking to the children, and one of the sons told me that he has a whole new level of appreciation for people. That was in answer to the question I asked him if he's feeling kind of peopleed out or overwhelmed, and he said, "Actually, he has a whole new level of appreciation for people." So I want to pass that on from the family. The family in our congregation is also very thankful for all the different churches that so thoughtfully helped us during this time.

We will now transition to the graveside service. Ushers will dismiss you by rose while the congregation sings. If you would like to help with singing at the graveside service, please take a songbook with you. If you do that, make sure you return it afterwards, so it will be people inside the back door to take your songbook.

Lunch has graciously been provided by Calvary Mennonite Church, and everyone is invited and welcome to stay for that. If staying for lunch, please return to the auditorium after the graveside service and seat yourself, and you'll be dismissed for lunch from there.

Let's have singing.

907.

907.

This will worship the. Lord is on thy side. There they shall give the cross of grief, our faith. Lead to thy God, new order and profound. In every shape we may fall and remain.

Be still, my soul, thy desire we prayer.

The glory waits to our joy.

Be still, my soul, thy God doth undertake. To guide the future as it has abound. Thy hope, thy confidence and loving share.

How thou will sing, thou shall be bright and last. Be still, my soul, the winds and winds still know. It's good to rule and thy people be all.

Be still, my soul, the hour it takes me gone. When we shall be forever with the Lord. When this appointment grief and fear are gone. Sorrow forgot thy surest joy, sweet soul. Be still, my soul, when change and tears are cast.

All safe and blessed we shall be at last.

966.

966.

The sweet Jesus has succeeded, from which thy heaven waits a dream. Thou cometh, thy dear servant comes, and from him thy blessed son comes.

What sweetness Jesus o'er us brings. To thee horseland of silver meals. Wherefore we are the blessed seed that gathers all sweet men unseen.

The sweetness Jesus is all best, and when the earth's soul greatly blessed, no fear of what shall in them pass, which men who bless us sing your love.

The sweetness Jesus of our knees makes such a blessed refugee. Securely shall thy ashes die, and with those of whom's love online.

815.

815.

Praise the Lord and the Father, and healed me until my journey endeth. He shall glorify. From the thy will of wonder I say glory.

Healed thy words who are of heaven and with him I sing.

Fulfilled her will by mercy, thy glory comes. Let every heart rebel from beneath heart. Burn with thy child to linger here at thy feet. And blind age of sight would not sweep away from me.

O Lord, of thy great power, may move my soul. With thee through night and darkness I reach all goal. Faith and heart of the Father and healed me. Under my weary hands that return to me.