Second Saturday!

Taize Service tonight at 7pm, come and be refreshed.

Strawberry Festival 09

Dates To Remember – July

DATES TO REMEMBER

 

July 21             7:00 PM           PPRC meeting

July 24             6:00 PM           Food Pantry

July 28             7:00 PM           Ann Street School Board meeting

Week of Prayer for Health Care

From the GNJAC:

Today begins the largest faith-inspired mobilization around health care ever as the interfaith community will kick-off a Week of Prayer for Health Care for All, running June 19-26.  Events for the week include:
·    A worship service at Freedom Plaza in Washington DC on June 24th – next Wednesday – with prophetic preaching, music and testimony.  The service features Rev. James Forbes, Rabbi David Saperstein, Dr. Sayyid Syeed, Sister Simone Campbell choirs, and sharing of stories from people who have not been included in the current health care system or have been denied care.
·    Echo Events around the country in every state including a Health Care Justice Sabbaths, Bible Studies, Ringing of Church bells on June 24, and a National Call-in Day to Members of Congress.

If you are interested in joining people of faith who are committed to raising “A Faith-Inspired Vision of Health Care.”  go to We Believe Together

Graduations

 

Congratulations to our 2009 graduates, may God bless you greatly on your journey.

Graduating from High School

Dustin Balton

 Peter Carozza

Jennifer Fornoff

 Danielle Repenning

David Thatcher

College Graduates

Kimberly Krejmas (Alvernia University, Reading, PA);

Nicholas Repenning (University of Southern Maine, Portland, ME);

Beth Teets (Muhlenberg College, Allentown, PA)

 

On June 8th, The Ann Street School will graduate its class of 2009:

     Isabella Anderson            Emily Axelband

     Stefanie Bacho                Bryan Barker

     Alex Bennett                     Anneliese Bisl

     Connor Crane                   Quinn Currabba

     Jessalyn DeLeeuw          Wayliam DeLeeuw

     Brianna Dunn                    Yaseen Elsayed

     Julia Hawthorne                Hugo Huerta

     ElainaMarie Lembo         Ty Lovland     

     Irelyn Lyon                        Madeline Mallon

     Ethan Monks                     Vincent Padalino

     Sarah Pepin                         Juliette Vigilante

     Lily Williams                      Christian (CJ) Woel

     J. Cooper Zeh

 

 Our Parents group has done an amazing job this year,  raising funds to enrich our academic program with Field Trips, “Week of the Young Child” activities and concert, “Zink the Zebra” program, Field Day,  as well as supporting Professional Development courses for our teachers.

  Also, we wish to recognize the time that Mrs. Dianna Thatcher has spent this year as the director of the Ann Street School.  Mrs. Thatcher has guided the school through the regulations and paperwork to receive a rating as a Star 3 site for Keystone Stars; a quality rating system for early learning centers in Pennsylvania.  Dianna has also aggressively pursued grant funding .

 A special thank you goes to Eileen Carmody who has taught at The Ann Street School for almost 20 years.  Eileen has been with the school through much of its growth & development serving as director of the school until last year.  Under her guidance The Ann Street School became one of the top private preschools in Pike County. 

Eileen will be moving on in the fall to serve her home church, Saint Mary’s in Port Jervis, as the new director of its preschool.  Eileen brings a wealth of experience and love of children to Saint Mary’s & we wish her many blessings in her new position.

Flowers in the Garden

Life begin in a garden, and we fell from grace in a garden and our path to salvation began again when Jesus went to the garden of Gesthsemane to pray.  These girls started their Sunday in the garden, having a chat before the service.

In the Garden

What do you think they’re talking about?  Where they be in ten years?  What will this garden look like then?

Will they still be attending church here?  Pray for our children to be faithful  of disciples of Christ.

The Girls in the Garden

p.s. They were talking about a new puppy!

Grace

One year ago Grace had her first visit to church.  She was one week old.

One year later sweet baby Grace was baptized.

Here she is grabbing Pastor Dave’s hand as he placed the water on her head.

Baby Grace, Family & Sponsers

May we nuture Grace as she grows to be a faithful child of God.  We love you Grace, we love the way you reach for everyone in church, your reactions to the service, and your eyes that take in everything around you.

The Sunday of Grace’s baptism was also, the Sunday before Memorial Day.  We were honored to have many veterans with us for the service that day.  For the children’s message Marilyn Hunt read in Flander’s Field, about the poppies and explained to the children why poppies are associated with our Veterans.  Bob Fjeldal was the litergist that Sunday, Bob served with the Merchant Marines in WWII and is the Chaplain for his veterans group.

Tongues of Fire!

The Milford United Methodist church celebrated Pentecost with an International Pot-Luck dinner immediately following the late service.  We enjoyed foods from many nations including Mexican enchiladas, Chinese stir fry, Irish Peasant Stew, Italian Ziti & Meatballs, Swedish Goat Cheese, Swedish Pastry, Corn dish from Mitchell S.D. and Norweigan Lefsa.  

 A big thank you to all who helped, including Jackie Viserta and her girls on the clean-up crew, Jonathon, Olivia & Sophie who helped move tables, Lil and the Friday morning Ladies Bible study who did a bang up job on the decorations.  In the words of Jonathon and Olivia, “It looks like a rave for Jesus!”  If you missed it we had flames from the ceiling, a red glow to the room and the sound of the rushing wind.  In addition to enjoying a meal together we packaged up several meals for families in need in our community.

Holy Conferencing

Report from Sheila Cunningham, Lay member to Annual Conference:

 I found the Greater New Jersey Annual Conference to be an uplifting call to action to reach more people through every single United Methodist Church.  It began with the fiery opening message of Dr. Lloyd P. Terrell, whose cadenced words instructed us to make life count and asked if we are giving God our best? As he put it, “God wants our best.  Ninety nine and a half percent won’t do.” 

Dr. Terrell was followed by the flat Midwestern twang of Rev. Adam Hamilton of the Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas. The message was similar in its baseline, that “we need to move beyond the people in our church to reach out to others.” But Hamilton’s message was also urgent. He told us that we must act now, today — this minute — or our churches will be dead in 10 years. His church’s policy, in fact, is change, innovate or die.

Hamilton spoke during three of the sessions; he is speaking to all the annual church conferences through the United States. It’s part of an effort to spread techniques that have worked there, to take that inspiration and let Methodists around the country grab it, too. I should note that his is a mainline Methodist church, not one on the edge of our denomination.

We are purchasing the DVD of Hamilton’s address to the conference. Please make time to watch it and be inspired to act.  His story is a reminder of the awesome God we serve, and what can happen when we allow God to use us.  He started with 4 people and no building — and now serves a congregation of 16,000.

I also sat in on the Natural Church Development luncheon.  There continue to be many churches that have experienced growth through this program.

That was the inspiring stuff; we also had the business of the church.  We voted on national amendments to the Book of Discipline and concerns in our GNJAC; the results nationally won’t be known for awhile yet. Check the UMC.org website for results.

Annual Conference was streamed live this year on the GNJAC website, and there were Twitter updates from many of the attendees.  Pastor Glenn, formerly of the Matamoras United Methodist Church, was one of the Twitterees.

Finally, I ask you to pray now and daily, for our pastors; that they would be refreshed and feel a new call and commitment to the Lord, that they would be reminded of why they were called to the ministry, that God will lift them up on angels’ wings and give them supernatural energy and drive, because there is so much to be done as they lead our congregations.

To learn more about Rev. Hamilton and the Church of the Resurrection click here.  For a complete rundown on Annual Conference check out the website here.

Here are a couple of photos of our team at annual conference.

A sampling of the crowd.

The Bishop!

Our own Dick Weifert.  It was difficult to get a photo of Dick, he was a volunteer usher at the conference, and often on the move!

Our youngest attendee J.J. at lunch keeping us all amused.

Pastor Dave, the J-Man and Barbara taking a lunch break on Friday.

Congratulations!

To Jackie Viserta on the birth of her first grand baby,  a girl, Janae Marie-Ann Conklin.  She was born May 17 and weighs in at 6lbs 6oz and is 19 and a half inches long.