For the congregation at Elim Christian Center in Warren, Psalm 30 seems especially fitting.
Consider verse five: "weeping may endure for a night...but joy cometh in the morning..."

Elim's worshippers have been patiently waiting for this morning for more than two years.

"Walking with her as long as I did, I learned as I went," says Elder Aruthenia Simmons, who spent some 20 years as Apostle Loretta Pernice's chief adjutant.
On Valentine's Day of last year, Pernice died of complications from COVID.

With Divine Order clearly unfolding, Simmons took the reins.

"I didn't want her dream to fall," she said. "We're hurting but yet we had to keep going...I had to be joyous when some days I wanted to cry."

And while many have come through the center's doors to feed their spiritual needs, others like Jamie Fellows have entered its partner ministry, Pathways Sober House, with needs that are far more pressing.

"I was so lost," says Fellows, who's now studying to earn a college degree. "I didn't realize that's what God was giving me when I came here, was a family that was going to be there for me."

But her congregation - led by Elder Simmons - did just that.
And on Friday, Elder Simmons was installed as Pastor Simmons - putting her in position to lead her ministry beyond the church's walls.

"God has really been ordering my steps through this journey," she said. 

As the congregation rejoiced, it called to mind Verse 11: "You turned my wailing into dancing...and clothed me with joy..."

Proving that for the Elim Christian Center, Psalm 30 seems especially fitting.