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St
Mark Presbyterian Church Good
News
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June 2009 |
Volume 2, Number 6 |
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Quick Links:
St Mark Calendar
Contact Us Pastor Barbara Campbell
Are you Signed Up? If you would like to help prepare for worship by reading, lighting candles, greeting, making coffee or bringing flowers or treats, please sign up on the clip board in the Jarrett Wing during fellowship following worship or contact Pastor Campbell at bjcam33@comcast.net or at the office phone 503-244-8177.
St. Mark Volunteer Cleaning Crews. If you are interested in helping keep St. Mark clean by joining a crew some Saturday afternoon for a couple of hours, please contact Pastor Barbara. Upcoming crews include: June 6th, Brenda Jamsgard
Birthdays
Worship Leaders
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Congregational Meeting and Meeting of the Corporation The congregation is called to meet on June 21, 2009 following worship for the election of two elders to serve on session, Church Treasurer, Nominating Committee, and Personnel Committee and to approve changes in the Bylaws of St. Mark. The corporation of St. Mark will also be called to order briefly to elect corporate officers, President, Vice-President, and Secretary. Copies of the proposed changes in the bylaws are available in church foyer.
More Light Sunday and Portland Pride Parade. We will celebrate More Light Sunday with churches across the nation on June 14th. Immediately following worship, St. Markers are invited to join the Community of Welcoming Congregation’s contingent of marchers in the Portland Pride Parade. St. Markers traditionally wear tie-dyed Rainbow t-shirts and take turns carrying the St. Mark banner. To sign up contact Johanna Norton at 503-239-6835.
St. Mark Tryon Creek Hike. Bring your hiking shoes and a sack lunch and join us after Pentecost worship on May 31st for a hike in Tryon Creek Park. We can access the trail just across the street from the church!
“Mom and Me” Camp at Coast. Pastor Barbara will be serving as Dean this year of the Presbytery Mom and Me Camp at Camp Magruder near Rockaway on the Oregon Coast, June 12-14. Camp Brochures are on the foyer bulletin board. Registration fee for Mom and one child is $250. If your child can attend, but you can’t, Capi Reed will be our surrogate “Mom,” and registration is then $100 per child. Partial Camp Scholarships are available.
Adult Education on Death and Dying in Eastern Religions. Bill Coddington will be leading a class on Sunday June 7th and 14th. The class will look at death and dying as understood in Buddhism and Hinduism and how those religious viewpoints interconnect with Christian theologies. This is a topic that Bill has studied extensively this year and is writing his master’s thesis on at Marylhurst University.
2009 “St. Flea Market,” Saturdays, August 8, 15, and 22nd. Our annual “Rummage Sale” is being morphed this year into an annual “St. Flea Market.” Neighbors and Non-profit Groups in the Neighborhood or affiliated with St. Mark will be invited to rent space and join the fun! Donations for St. Mark’s flea market space can be dropped off at the church’s basement storage room, Sunday thru Thursday in afternoons. It is helpful if donations can be packed securely in sturdy boxes with lids for storage
"This I Believe" Good News Series. Similar in format to the PBS series of the same name, we are inviting anyone who is interested to submit short articles for Good News that deals with any subject on which you have strong beliefs which you would like to share. This can be about your faith, or about other beliefs that are perhaps shaped, in part, by your faith. To submit an article please email to Eric Graf, Good News Editor, at eric.graf@comcast.net or mail to Eric at 1531 SE Pershing St. Portland, OR 97202.
Raise Funds for St. Mark when you Search or Shop Online. Check out these websites: www.iGive.com and www.iSearchiGive.com. Both of these sites are set up to send small donations to St. Mark for each time the site is used. The iGive site involves online shopping. The iSearchiGive site is a search engine like Google that puts one cent into the St. Mark account for every valid search. If you are someone who uses the web a lot each day, we would appreciate the extra funds using these sites could bring in. On the site you will be asked to enter the organization you are supporting. Just type in “St Mark Presbyterian Church.” So far just a few users have raised about $7.50 using iSearchiGive!
Summer “Relief” Church School Teachers Needed. If you are willing and able to teach a small group of church school children one Sunday this summer and give our regular teachers a much needed and appreciated summer break, please contact Cherie Kennedy at 503-698-8308. Our summer schedule of combined classes (due to decrease in summer attendance) will begin June 21st with Cherie Kennedy as teachers. Teachers are needed from June 28th to Sept 6th.
Thank You to Grounds Workers! The grounds that surround our building are looking especially neat and trim now thanks to the crew that put in many back-breaking hours last weekend. Thank you to (in alphabetical order!) Barbara Campbell, Suzanne Chase, Eric and Sue Graf, Carrie Hess, Johanna, Thane, Tory, and Stuart Norton, Carl and Susie Petterson, John Salmon, Margaret Shearer, and David Stewart-Smith.
St. Mark Scrip Sales. Scrip “cards” will be available to pick up following worship. Future order dates are May 31st, June 14th, July 5th, Aug 2th and Aug 30th. Please do not mail orders or checks to scrip coordinators at their homes.
Welsh Hymn Singing Festival and Tea. The Bryn Seion Welsh Church of Beavercreek, Oregon will commemorate its 125th Anniversary as part of its 74th Annual Gymanfa Ganu, Welsh Hymn Festival, on Sunday, June 28, 2009. The first hymn session will begin at 1:45 pm with a Welsh High Tea at 4:00 pm ($7.50) and a 2nd session of singing at 6 pm. The church has long had a close relationship with Presbyterian Churches in Portland. More information is available of foyer bulletin board.
Clark Center Meals In April we served 80+ men a taco/burrito bar dinner. The new menu was enthusiastically received by the residents and staff. To cover the April meal’s expenses, we still need about $30 in cash donations. For future meals (the next is July 19th), we encourage St. Markers to purchase and donate scrip cards from Fred Meyers. This way St. Mark gets a donation in addition to the Clark Center. The July team leaders will organize the meal and request specific food donations as the date comes closer
St. Mark Mission Team to India June 30-July 20, 2009
David Stewart-Smith and Barbara Campbell are traveling in July to our mission partners, BIRDS (Bharati Integrated Rural Development Society), an NGO in the state of Andra Pradesh, in south central India. Many members of St. Mark have traveled as part of a team serving BIRDS in past years, including, Barbara Campbell, Bill Coddington, Ginger Edwards, Capi and Katy Reed, Carol and Kathryn Stewart-Smith, and Kathy and Patricia Voll. St Mark works in cooperation with Cascades Presbytery and two other churches in our Presbytery, Albany United Presbyterian Church and First Presbyterian Church, Portland in providing mission assistance to BIRDS. This year three members from the Albany church are also part of our team.
The team will live and work at the BIRDS farm and training compound SE of Nandyal, India. The BIRDS farm provides comfortable dormitory rooms and meals for the team as well as transportation, interpreters, and local supervisors for their projects. This year our projects will include 1) purchasing uniforms and sandals for 125 children at the compound’s boarding home, 2) training women in making soap for a small business, 3) cleaning the exterior of the local church which BIRDS Director Rev. Paul Raja Rao serves, 4) building another dry compost toilet on the site, 5) visiting the Nandyal Diocese of Church of South India Boarding Home to bring back information for other churches in Cascades Presbytery on how they can support and partner with a boarding home. and 6) training community health workers, students in local school, and two test villages, in SODIS. SODIS, a Solar Water Disinfection method, improves the microbiological quality of drinking water, using solar UV radiation and temperature to inactivate pathogens causing diarrhea. For more about SODIS you may check out their website at www.sodis.ch/.
As part of their work, every team also visits many local villages to listen to the story of the lives of the Dalit people and their concerns and needs and to encourage them to continue to fight for their legal rights as land owners in a country that officially no longer recognizes the caste system.
The team needs the support of everyone at St. Mark. We need your prayers as we travel and live in India. We need your prayers for the work of BIRDS and the Dalit people. We also need financial donations to cover the cost of shoes ($2 each x 125 = $250) and supplies for use in the various training and toilet projects. Please make checks payable to “St. Mark” with a note for either “BIRDS Shoes” or “2009 Team Visit” and mail to the church or put in offering on Sunday.
We will be taking pictures of St. Mark this year to share with our friends at BIRDS, and would like to get pictures of any people who have sponsored children to share with the children. We can also deliver small gifts and letters from sponsors to their children at the farm. |
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