Our week of mission to GCCP will be here before we know it! We will leave after our church service at Grace UMC on June 13th about 11 -11:30 a.m. We will meet with Katie Peterson, our contact and leader for the week and her interns, at 7 p.m. at the Newberry United Methodist Church. We will have orientation and then head to our home away from home at Halfway Lake Cabins. On Monday we begin our week of service.
Today Dianne Hansen, our AGMK cook surpreme and Sarah Anderson (nickednamed mini-Julie since she is my legs) met to plan out our menus. I will tell you Dianne is going to be preparing some great meals for us to enjoy and to sustain us during the week. There will be an Italian Night, a Mexican Night, an All Birthday Night — wow! We will share two meals with Katie and various folks at the East End of the U.P. And ladies from Grace UMC and friends will be preparing cookies, cakes and bars for us to munch for snacks. We also planned our untensils and needs from a practical standpoint. Thank you ladies for being so conscientious about this phase of our preparation.
To fund raise we have a booth at church and we are selling “hammers” for $1 or more, a quilt raffle and individual and team sponsorships. We have had many generous donations. Last weekend three of the team members worked at a home planting trees and more to earn donations to their funds for mission. We still have other opportunities for yard work, and car and dog washing, available for the guys and gals going on mission to earn money for their individual funds.
This week paperwork will go out to all team members. This is a very important part of our preparation and we do use this material during our week for administrative purposes. Please remember that a notary will need to endorse these forms. We are hoping to meet together at my House (Bandmom’s home in Hancock) June 4th to share a meal and to turn in paperwork and answer any questions folks may have about the week.
Schedule
I had the pleasure of talking to Lars this morning and e-mailing with Paul and Maryann about our upcoming worship time at Houghton Baptist Church this coming Sunday, May 23rd. We are looking forward to joining this community for services at 9 a.m. and 11:15 a.m. to share song and the story of our work in the Keweenaw and on the Eastern End of the U.P. We will be focusing on 2 Corinthians 3:2-3 for our message.
Then in two weeks we will be worshiping at our home church, Grace United Methodist Church in Houghton. We are excited about sharing our plans for the upcoming mission season all in context of the widow of Zarephath written about in 1 Kings 17. This service begins with Praise at 9:15 a.m. and the Worship service at 9:30 a.m.
As we come to the end of May we also come to the end of our monthly visits to area nursing homes until this coming September. We’ll really miss our friends at Houghton County Medical Care, Cypress Manor, Portage Pointe and Bayside Village during our summer work. But, we can’t do both our mission weeks and sing each weekend at the various sites. We are — gasp — getting older and there is only so much energy available. However, we will have one last visit to BAYSIDE VILLAGE on May 30th — so we’ll get hugs to tide us over the summer months.
Then we will be preparing to be joined by the following groups for the following mission weeks here in the Keweenaw:
WI-VIM June 27-3
Royal Oak UMC July 11-16
Trinity UMC, PA Aug 8 - 13 along with some folks from WI
More soon — pray for these mission weeks and these times of worship. Keep our country and our leaders in your prayers and our local churches.
Bandmom