Last week I wasn’t blogging, I drove to South Dakota to attend the family reunion of my Dad’s side of the family.
A traditional part of the reunion is to attend the service at Sioux Valley Baptist Church near Del Rapids. The church is a humble very honest and impeccably maintained building on a dirt road. The first service was held Thanksgiving Day 1888 and it has been going strong ever since.
(Photo from ancestry.com)
The church was built by a group of Scandanavian Immigrants. The man pictured above, my Great Great Grandfather Nels Norgaard donated the acre of land that the church is built on. And that is why the Norgaard clain attends church service at the church before the picnic in Del Rapids.
The service was well attended and the hospitality was warm. The pastor, Rita Weber introduced herself and welcomed everybody individually before the service. I got the impression that she does that every service. Turns out that there was a man in the church and a member of the familiy who grew in Bartlesville, Oklahoma and he and his daughter, and her boyfriend also from Oklahoma attending the University of Central Oklahoma. Pastor Brown said during the service that the church had never had so many Oklahomans in the building ever. I felt like saying “Rita, we are Okies, not Oklahomans” but I was doing my best to behave myself.
The service was very warm with great singing and Pastor Webb delivered a great sermon. The whole experience was very warm, welcoming, and encouraging. I love the Bible verse on the plaque above. I think that a small country church that has been hanging in there doing the good work for 125 years deserves that verse.
Here is my sister and fellow blogger Ellen. She posted about the church and our family here. She has a great photograph of She, our brother, father, and me on the post.
Pastor Rita Weber’s web site. Check it out, she is quite the woman and a great pastor.
If you are geocaching minded, there is no geocache on the grounds but the church has been listed as a waypoint on the geocaching offshoot site waypoint dot com here.
What a great, fun post for the day!! I know you must have had a great time and what a wonderful family you have!! Thanks for sharing!!
What a wonderful little church-thanks for sharing the history of it. Mickie 😉
I enjoyed reading your post about your family and history.
betsy
What a family history you reveal – and so nice to know about who and what in the past. Don’t get so shirty with the Pastor, I would have called you Oklahomians as well, Okies sounds sort of rude to me.
thx 4 linking up with us. luv all the history. so fun 2 hear. ( :
I posted a Baptist church this week, also quite old. And the minister that married the couple I featured was also a woman!
It always comes back to geocaching for you. Doesn’t it? Can’t God have a day?
hahahahahahaha
Nice post and pictures. I liked the family ties. Have a great day and thanks for sharing this in InSPIREd Sunday!
What a nice tradition for everyone to attend the church services before the family picnic. It was fun to see that lovely little church.
Nice to know churches like that are still around.
What a beautiful church. Those Scandinavians were and still are strong people. 🙂
Sunday greetings from Port Canaveral,
Lois 🙂
A great post Yogi, lovely gathering of the family. And thanks for your comment on my blog, you gave us both a chuckle. We are in Williams, Arizona tonight.
Lovely little church and I loved your post! Twyla
How nice to be greeted by the pastor BEFORE the service. In my experience it has always been AFTER, although I have been to churches where members of the congregation have greeted before the service.
That’s cool as all get out. I thought that church had a somewhat north-of-where-you-are look to it. Those Swedes take their style everywhere. Great that it’s still busy!
Sounds like a great time.