It's Another Great Bloomsday! What a Day!

47,505 entrants—an increase of over 3,000 over last year—were treated to a calm, sunny morning for the 32^nd running of the Lilac Bloomsday Run. The temperature at the start was close to 50 degrees as the racers barreled down Riverside Avenue in downtown Spokane, with a pack of at least 15 top runners in close contention.

Participants were greeted on the corner of W. Mission Ave & N. West Point Rd. by disciples from the Spokane Christian Church who were there to cheer them on, pray for them, and even lead them in worship with the church's worship band, "The Void Reclaimed".  God was gracious, giving us a beautiful day and a wonderful time, even though the direct sunlight and heat gave us a few technical issues throughout the day.  It is always cool to see runners take a moment to give glory to God and a lot even sang along as they ran/walked by!  And a lot of people took a moment to check out the banner to find out what church we were from.  We had so much fun...now were exhausted though...

It was a wonderful time to serve the great city of Spokane, the runners from all over the world, and the local neighborhood we were in.

Most of us were there from 7AM - 1PM helping the band set up, reaching out to the neighbors, cheering on the runners...and many others came later.  During that time, we had the opportunity to talk with the neighbors across the street and it was a great time to share about the church and get to know them.  They're looking forward to us coming back next year!  It was great to get so much support.  It was also incredibly inspiring to see a 78 year old woman still walking it at 3:30PM, determined just to finish!  It reminds me so much about what Paul is talking about when he says he has "finished the race".

Please encourage all of your friends who ran in Bloomsday to vote for us at: http://www.bloomsdayrun.org/CastVote.asp 

Please vote for us!  Our goal is to use this opportunity to serve the community, reach out to as many as possible, and promote our church for Jesus Christ!  It'd be awesome to have our band place to get more opportunities to share about God's church (and also help offset some of our costs)!  We really are praying that this will lead to many coming to check out our church, studying the Bible, and becoming disciples of Jesus.

Thank you all who supported us and helped us serve the community!  I am so very grateful for everyone's enthusiasm and heart for the people, you were so important to making this event successful.  We give God all of the credit and glory for whatever happens.