The Participants

Thursday, August 17, 2017

The SUGAR Group was started by people who attended Northwest Church in Fresno, California. When it started, there were 4 – 6 people who participated. At the current time, attendance at our weekly Bible study meetings is typically about a dozen people.

Over recent years, some people in the group have continued attending Northwest Church, but others now attend numerous other churches in the Fresno area.

Over the years, people have come and people have gone. Some have only attended one meeting. Others have attended for a few weeks or months or years and then dropped out. Others have been part of the group for many (10, 20, 30, 35) years.

Over the years, some members have moved away from the Fresno area. For example, one couple moved to Colorado and two other families moved to New Hampshire. They wanted to continue their connection with the SUGAR Group, so we have been glad to keep them on our SUGAR Group list and include them in SUGAR Group e-mailings. They attend church in their new locations, but they make an effort to participate with the SUGAR Group when they are visiting in the Fresno area.

The 35 years of the group’s existence has been long enough to experience births, high school graduations, college graduations, weddings, divorces, deaths, and many other good and bad things in between. We’re thankful to God that an increasingly long string of the best things in life have occurred during these years.

The first SUGAR Group wedding was in 1990. There have been several more SUGAR Group weddings over the years since then. About a dozen children have been born into those families. The oldest of those children is now a sophomore in college. The youngest is pre-school age.

Over these last 35+ years, we have had participants range in age from 0 (the newly born babies) over every decade of life up to and including age 90.