Labour Day Weekend
Dear St. Stephen’s church family,
Greetings in Christ!
A few notes as we draw near to the end of August:
1. We had a great Vestry meeting on Tuesday night. Thank you to all who attended. We are blessed to have such a dedicated group of parish members to discuss and prayerfully consider items concerning the overall health of our parish and the living out of our Vision. Thank you to Jeff Takagi for leading us through a demonstration of the AED machine kept in the Mitchell Hall. Stay tuned for future opportunities for parish members to participate in this training.
2. Church School resumes on Sunday, September 8th. Children are invited to bring their backpacks for a blessing as they begin a new year.
3. Commissioning of the Rev. John Chuol. September 8th during 10:30 am service. As you know, the Rev. John will be in our parish in the capacity as student intern for the school year beginning in September 2019. This is a 10 hours per week commitment, with supervision by lay support team, myself and his supervisor at Emmanuel and St. Chad—the Rev. Dr. Trish McCarthy. John will be working on his own learning goals, while serving in the parish in various ways. We are blessed to have John with us, and the learning will be mutual! Please plan to be at the service on September 8th to support John in this new endeavor.
4. Youth Group! A new schedule is almost ready! The first activity will be Friday, September 13th starting at 6 pm. Pizza and garage sale organizing! Swimming at Jen’s.
We will be hosting a garage sale fundraiser for Camp Okema on Saturday, September 14th and so will need youth to help us out on Saturday also. You can come anywhere from 9-2 on Saturday. If you have items to donate, please keep them and bring them to church ideally on Friday the 13th. You can price items or leave them for us to price. The more stuff, the merrier (it’s not often you say that!). Youth should consider using the hours spent at the garage sale as their community service hours for high school!
5. The deadline for the Scroll is September 7th. Please submit items and articles to Linda.
6. Do you have backpacks, suitcases or purses in good condition that you no longer use? Consider bringing to church for donating to various shelters and programs.
Blessings on this Labour Day Weekend. A prayer from the Book of Common Prayer, for Industry:
O Lord Jesus Christ, who in thy earthly life didst share man’s toil, and hallow the labour of his hands: prosper our brothers and sisters who maintain the industries of this land, and give to all who labour pride in their work, a just reward for their labours, and joy both in supplying need and in serving Thee; who with the Father and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, ever one God, world without end. Amen.