Supports police, church freedom

Thank you in advance for allowing me to share a few thoughts with your readers. At approximately 5 p.m. this afternoon I was rear ended on West Olive.

No more details. What I want to share is how wonderful and courteous the officers were who responded to the accident. I have total respect for our Officers who are out there in our communities, doing a fabulous job of protecting the citizens of Porterville! Hats off to all of you! God bless and protect you!

May I share a special time in my life as a child growing up in the 50s in Poplar? As a young child, my mother took us kids to church regularly. Some of my fondest memories are those times attending a church who loved to sing, clap hands, hug necks and most importantly, pray together around the altar bench.

All of you older Pentecostal Christians know what I am talking about! Oh! The blessed freedom we enjoyed to be able to worship our Heavenly Father with our whole heart!

I recall, as a young child, probably around 10, all us neighbor kids we could round up would all come to my house for what we called “children’s church!” Why! We would sing, clap our hands and really had an awesome time worshiping the Lord! Doing what we had witnessed every Sunday morning at adult church! Now to my point with all this. My Bible admonishes us to “Train up a child in the way they should go, and when they are older, they will not depart from it!” How are we to explain to our children about what’s going on now? How can we explain that it’s ok to hug, kiss, sing and shout in the streets, but, we can’t do that in church now! I would like to paraphrase a statement by Pastor Jon Duncan of Lodi.

“Our churches have suffered greatly because our leaders chose to marginalize and criminalize faith-based gatherings! If we are to remain free, we must never allow what is happening to happen again!” Elaine Hayes/harris Porterville