April 2024
I am often impressed with the way this congregation rallies to help those in need when they are made aware of the need. This last time was the need to provide food, hosting and overnight hosting for those who are currently unhoused and when we were asked to step up, many of you helped out even though you’d never done that before. You were an inspiration.
And when someone is in need and could use some financial help because of a medical need or accident that has laid them up for a time, you step in with help—financial, physical, and emotional.
“We are a group project,” Kate Bowler is fond of saying. Those of us who have been following the Lenten devotional in March, “Good Enough” by Kate Bowler, know that it was a struggle for her to realize that she needed help. When she was diagnosed with colon cancer at age 35, she learned that she wasn’t able to navigate her sickness alone. She felt a tremendous amount of embarrassment about not being able to perfect her own life. But she came to the realization that she was fragile and that enabled her to see the fragility of those around her. We are a going through struggles that make life hard.
But we are not alone. We belong to each other.
In this newsletter you’ll see an appeal for our April Mission Focus, Feed My Starving Children, which enables the most vulnerable among us, the children of the world, to get adequate nutrition to enable them to survive another day in unbelievably difficult circumstances.
You’ll also see a “thank you” for your rising to the occasion when we needed your help for our New Pathways hosting week at the beginning of March, where many of you stepped up to help in whatever way you were able. We were able to give 5 families, going through a season of being unhoused, a safe place to eat and sleep.
Also in this newsletter you’ll see an appeal for memorabilia from our church’s history, as we give thanks for the foresighted people who saw the need for a Methodist Church in our community 150 years ago and for all those who in the years since then have faithfully stewarded their resources of time and finance to enable multiple generations to build bridges to Christ’s love in our community.
In this celebratory year, may we continue to build bridges to Christ’s love and prepare for the next generations of United Methodists who will do the same after we are gone.
-Pastor Holly