Oysterville Church

     Late Friday afternoon a pleasant sounding man called me from Portland asking if the Oysterville Church would be available for use on October 24^th.  My church calendar revealed that it would be, but when he said that he was from the Post Office and they would like to schedule a community meeting there from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., I felt obliged to tell him that there are no electric lights in the church.
     There was a long pause.
     “What do you do about evening weddings in the winter?” he asked.  (Like we have a lot of those, I thought…)
     “Candles,” said I.  “And there are a couple of electrical outlets near the dais so a lamp can be set up in front.  But for meetings, we usually use the schoolhouse.  It’s our community center.”
     He said he knew that but he had not been able to make contact with them.  I gave him two more names with phone numbers but he said that frankly he was out of time and the church sounded fine…
      “Is there a table available?  I’d really rather not use the podium.  I’m not a preacher.”
     We discussed a few more details – like what the address is.  (I think I knew once, but he was happy with “It’s the only church in town; it’s on Territory Road.”)
     I was barely off the phone when our first Friday Nighters arrived.  During the course of the evening, I shared my phone conversation with the gathered assembly.  Our neighbor Sue, who is on the Community Club Board of Directors, felt strongly that the meeting should be at the schoolhouse and I assured her that I had given him her contact information.
     The first thing the following morning she followed through with an email requesting the Portland Postman’s name and number.  Duly sent.  But when we picked up our mail a few hours later, our postmaster said that she’d already been directed to post the time, place, and date of the meeting – at the church
     Stay tuned.  If the venue remains the Oysterville Church, ours may be the only informational meeting in the entire country that the postal service conducts by candlelight!  Somehow, that idea appeals greatly to me.