St. John’s United Methodist Church

The church building was buzzing with activity on Wednesday.  Lucille and Harold Carpenter, along with Karen Schutt, were busily cleaning out the closet in Hartford Hall.  What a mess there was - and they found enough plastic silverware to equip all of Strafford County!!  At the same time, Ann Kippley, Phyllis England and MaryAnne MacKenzie were scrubbing the kitchen clean!!  Wow, it looks great.  And then Lenny Colongione was running around the whole church doing a number of those little, nagging repairs that no one ever seems to have time to get to!   Then in the evening John & Ann Ewalt, Bob Willome and Jinny Scott traveled to the Hampton UMC to host the Seacoast Interfaith Hospitality Network (a sort of traveling homeless shelter).  Ann & John prepared and served dinner, while Jinny and Bob stayed through the night to make sure the guest’s needs were filled.  To all of you, thanks!!

Karen Schutt and MaryAnne MacKenzie are also bringing the details of our new Church Directory to completion.  If they’re waiting for something for you, please get it to them pronto, so they can get things in the mail to Olin Mills.

Our Office Manager, Sandy, gave me a list of our kids who have signed up for camp at Wanakee for this summer.  We have only eight children and youth signed up.  That’s not very many!  If you have one or more children who might be interested, let me encourage you to get them registered right away.  And don’t forget, the Scholarship Committee has made the decision to grant scholarships for all our kids who go to camp - 50% of their camp fee, up to $150 (for the first week that they attend this summer)!!  And there’s even money to help when a family can’t make the other half of the fee (speak to Judith Custer or me). 

Parents, don’t forget that there’s a practice this Saturday morning, from 8:30 till 10:30 AM, for the Children’s Sunday worship service.  If your child is taking part, please make sure he/she/they are here!!  It’ll give them more confidence for Sunday morning.

Speaking of Sunday morning, remember that we change to one service this week - at 9:30 AM.  And this week’s worship will be lead by our Sunday School.  I hope the whole church will be in attendance to support and encourage the youth - not to mention, to worship God!! 

Miranda Freeman’s concert will take place in our sanctuary this Saturday evening, at 7 PM.  She has entitled this concert as “The Miss Adventures of Miranda Freeman.”   For those who don’t know Miranda, she is a “St. John’s kid” her whole life - and has just completed her first year at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.  I think her major is Opera . . . or vocal performance . . . or something like that.

On Father’s Day, we’ll have a special arrangement on the altar - of hand tools - to connect with the special “Tools of Hope” collection that we’re receiving for Church World Service - and to honor and remember our Dads.  So you can bring one or more hand tools that would have been special to your Dad - plus his picture - anytime between now and Saturday, June 20th at 9:30 AM.  We hope there’ll be lots of things brought in.  Don’t forget to put your name on the tool(s) so we’ll know who to return them to.

Next Wednesday, from 5 till 8 PM, you’re all invited/encouraged to make a stop at the Friendly’s Ice Cream shop in Dover.  It’s a fund raiser for St. John’s.  They’ll give us a percentage of all the sales of the restaurant during those hours.  You don’t need to have a coupon (as we did at UNO’s).  So, as I’ve said before, if you have it in your budget to go out for dinner and/or a treat next week, why not make it on Wednesday, at Friendly’s!!

The new “small group” in our church, the Un (Under) Employed Small Group, had their first meeting this past Wednesday.  Among other things on their agenda, I understand that they decided to meet weekly - on Wednesday mornings, from 9:30 till 11 AM.  There’s always room for more, so if it would benefit you, or if you can think of someone else who would, please pass the word, and join in.

Finally, let me share this bit of children’s logic: “Give me a sentence about a public servant,” said a teacher. The small boy wrote:  “The fireman came down the ladder pregnant.” The teacher took the lad aside to correct him. “Don’t you know what pregnant means?” she asked.  “Sure,” said the young boy confidently. ‘It means carrying a child.”

That’s all the news for this week.  See you in church on Sunday, as we celebrate our great God, and all the ways God has blessed the lives of our children through the Sunday School and Youth Group ministries as well as through the leaders of those ministries.    Peace, Mark