Bits from Beth

April 22, 2026

Dear Friends,

On Sunday, we had our formal good-bye for our beloved member, Kay Martin, who is moving to a retirement center in Boerne, Texas. Kay has been one of our most faithful Food pantry volunteers and is directly responsible for this mailing. When the COVID shutdown began in 2020, Kay started mailing a Sunday school lesson to the Al Rose Class. As her husband’s health deteriorated, she asked if we would send it out for her. I started added a letter from the pastor and our prayer list. Eventually Kay had to drop doing the lesson so we kept it up. To help us out, she would come every week and prepare the envelopes for mailing. We have five weeks of envelopes prepared because she came yesterday to help out.

Kay like many of us, is preparing for a major life change – leaving her home and moving closer to family. She has many friends who have already made the difficult journey and their encouragement has helped to make it easier. Fortunately, modern communication such as cell phones, email, and text messaging have allowed us to stay in touch even when distances are across states and even across countries. There is a special liturgy for saying good bye and blessing each other when someone moves away. If you are moving, please allow us to do this for you.

On May 10th we will celebrate graduations and Mother’s Day. We have two seniors graduating from high school, Dalton Dobbins and Jenkins Dobbins and one student graduating from University of Arkansas, Adam Mosley. We would also like to recognize any children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren you may have that do not live in Camden or attend our church. Please call the church office and give us their information. We want to celebrate with you.

This Sunday we finish up our series on the Sermon on the Mount. For May and June, we will explore some of the Scripture passages that have shaped my ministry. For the first week of May, we will look at the story of Jonah. Our weekday Bible study groups have studied Jonah with both Sandra Richter and Amy-Jill Levine. Both of these scholars agree that Jonah is a very important book in our canon because it puts the full love of God on display in a unique way. Jonah is first mentioned as a prophet in Second Kings. In 2 Kings 14:25, Jonah son of Amittai is identified as a prophet from Gath-hepher who ministered during the reign of King Jeroboam II of Israel (c. 786–746 B.C.). He accurately prophesied the restoration of Israel's northern borders, a period of territorial expansion. This shows Jonah as a trusted messenger to his own people, contrasting with his reluctance in the Book of Jonah. But as we all know, sometimes we follow God’s lead and sometimes we go our own way.

Many people have expressed concern that we do not yet know who are new pastor will be. I know the Cabinet has been in prayer and working towards an appointment. I believe we will know soon. If possible, we will invite him/her to Camden with their family in May so they can tour the church and the parsonage. We hope to host a casual reception so they can start being introduced to you. We will provide you with their current address and email so you can write them a note expressing how excited you are for their ministry here with you.

We are already working towards a Round Robin schedule this summer. As soon as we know all the appointments, we will publish a schedule.

Enjoy this beautiful weather!

Grace and peace,

Beth