Simon’s Says
Help Wanted
I want to share two appeals for assistance today. I’ve mentioned before the ways the national setting of the United Church of Christ uses our mission dollars both for current relief efforts and in anticipation of future needs. The system works pretty well until unprecedented storms like Hurricane Fiona, which walloped Puerto Rico, and Ian, which devastated a good chunk of Florida. According to the UCC’s web page, “The UCC Hurricanes 2022 Appeal will be used to help those impacted by Hurricanes Ian and Fiona - and storms still to come.” Puerto Rico is still recovering from Hurricane Maria five years ago, and as our Mission Team discovered, parts of Florida are still rebuilding after a pair of deadly storms in 2018. If you’d like to help with the relief and recovery efforts, the link to our denomination’s hurricane appeal is here:
https://support.ucc.org/donate---hurricanes-2022
Closer to home, one of the things the pandemic taught us is that food insecurity is a deeper and broader problem in our region than many people think, and the depravations of Covid-19 have exacerbated the problem. Our congregation has a history of generosity when it comes to feeding our neighbors, and there will be more opportunities down the road. For now though, the church office is in dire need of Adams - or comparable - gift cards. We have a small clientele whom we serve regularly through this ministry, and don’t want to have to turn anyone away; if you can help out, please feel free to drop cards at the church office, or simply put them in the offering plate on Sunday - we’ll know what to do with them!
This weekend we will acknowledge the Columbus / Indigenous People’s observation with a look at some difficult histories, biblical history as well as our own. Links to the bulletin and service are here:
