On June 23, we concluded our study of the Book of Acts using the study from Scot McKnight. The Tuesday Bible study wrapped their study up on June 18. This study took the whole school year and worked all the way through the Book of Acts. Many EPC members participated in this study and learned a lot about the early Christian Church and discussed how what they did and learned in the early church is still applicable in our lives today. We look forward to starting a study of Second Corinthians on September 8. In the meantime, we will be having a sermon discussion group discussing Pastor Rob’s sermon series on the Book of Hebrews. If you have ideas or thoughts about future Bible study topics, reach out to Eileen O or pastor Rob.
0 Comments
Summer and Fall Adult Education
The Adult Bible Study which is studying the Book of Acts should wind up by late June. For the summer, the adult education offering will be a discussion of Hebrews related to the passages preached that day. The Adult Bible Study will resume after Labor Day with a study of Second Corinthians. Second Corinthians provides a good backdrop for thought and discussion leading up to the November elections. The study should end before Advent. There will be a slight divergence of source material for the study with the Zoom Bible study being able to ask and follow more guided questions than the larger in person study that takes place every Sunday after worship. Summer in Edmonds As summer approaches, it is a good time to appreciate the City of Edmonds and all it has to offer. This summer there will be multiple activities put on by the City. Hopefully, you will have the opportunity to check out what Edmonds has to offer. Check the City of Edmonds website for particulars, but this summer, Edmonds plans a lot of activities that you may want to consider, including: Saturday Summer Market Edmonds Summer Wine Walks Edmonds Arts Festival Pride Celebration at Civic Center Playfields Puget Sound Bird Fest 4th of July Parade Edmonds in Bloom Garden Tour Concerts in the Park Taste of Edmonds Classic Car Show Do you ever misplace your keys or your glasses and have to waste precious time looking for them? Here are some hints to help keep your memory sharp.
1) Pay attention to what is important. Create a memory by saying out loud “I’m laying my keys on the table near the front door”. Many things we do during the day do not need to be remembered so we do not need to make a special memory of them but for important things like keys we need to be deliberate. 2) Write it down. Did you just use up the last of the milk or bread or laundry detergent? It is a nuisance to get home from shopping and find you forgot to pick up the very thing you went to the store for. A list is not a waste of time, but is often a time saver. 3) Step up the exercise. Recent studies have shown that physical exercise has a stimulating effect on the brain so even just walking helps the body work more efficiently. 4) Get enough sleep. Everyone has their own schedule, but sleeping helps the body get rid of toxins and extra proteins from the body and irrelevant thoughts from the brain. Even if you rest quietly when you can’t sleep, you are preparing yourself for a new day. 5) Eat well. We all know what is good for us to eat, but often fill ourselves with junk food or sweets that detract from good health. 6) Try not to multitask. Try to select the most important task and complete it before tackling the next task. That way the brain is cleared of conflicting actions and making a memory of tasks that are completed instead of having multiple unfinished ideas to unravel. These ideas are extracted from an article in the February 2024 issue of Prevention Magazine page 50 by Lisa Sein. I am trying to follow them to improve my own memory. Margaret S, Education and Outreach Elder This is an update from Seattle-King County about the drug enforcement we discussed previously in worship. The Seattle City Council passed an ordinance making public drug use a gross misdemeanor. This allows the police to arrest and charge people who are a public nuisance. Those who are arrested can face jail time if they refuse treatment for drug use. Jailed people will be offered drug treatment again. This has been shown to be effective when they stick with the program. A good percentage of those who choose to take advantage of the treatment option are able to stay clean and are given an opportunity to kick their drug addiction. Additional funds are being made available for drug treatment and mental health programs. This should help reduce the street crime and shoplifting that have become a major in Seattle. This positive step will ultimately save lives and improve our community.
Margaret S, Education Elder Did you realize that August 31 was International Overdose Day? The theme is “Recognizing those people who go unseen” acknowledging those people in our community who are affected by an overdose but may go unseen in the crisis. This movement was started by Sally Finn at the Salvation Army in Melbourne in memory of those who are lost and to protect those who can still be saved.
According to the Snohomish County Health Department the most common age for those suffering an overdose is from 35 to 41, however there are rapidly increasing numbers of overdoses among those over 55. Since 1999 more than 1 million deaths have occurred in the United States due to drug overdoses. At that time most overdoses were due to alcohol, opioids, or methamphetamines, however in the past year there are rapidly increasing numbers of overdoses related to fentanyl. So far this year there have been 166 deaths due to opioids, 159 deaths from fentanyl, and 105 deaths from meth in Snohomish County alone. King County has had close to 1000 deaths from overdose so far this year. What can we Do? An overdose demands immediate medical attention. Activate the 911 emergency system immediately if you find anyone unresponsive and not breathing then give CPR until help arrives. Be sure to state the emergency clearly and give the street address or exact directions to where the help is needed. Local fire departments or the Red Cross are glad to teach how to give either Regular CPR or the newer “Hands only” resuscitation methods. Emergency responders carry NARCAN, an antidote for overdose which usually gives immediate relief of overdose symptoms. Margaret S, Education Elder “The Power of One”
Back when I was a university student, my roommate had a plaque on her desk. It read: I am only one, But I am one. I cannot do everything, But I can do something. And by the Grace of God, I will do what I can do. To me, these words are an inspiration to do good wherever we can, however we can, no matter how small or how insignificant we may think it may be at the time. That there can be a ripple effect like throwing a stone in the water and the waves form larger and larger circles moving out from the middle. I’d not thought about these words for years, until recently attending St Albans Cursillo weekend #7. One of the talks referenced this quote as the ‘Power of One’. Those words came back to me verbatim from all those years ago, and they still held the same transformative power that they did when I first heard them. Variants of this poem have been attributed to various people, ranging from Helen Keller to Unitarian clergyman Edward Everett Hale to the religious revivalist Dwight L. Moody. The concept is thought to stem from Isaiah 6:8, in which God asks, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” and Isaiah eagerly responds, “Send me!” – which is also the theme of the song we sing at our Cursillo events, “Here I am, Lord!” Our retired vicar at St Michael’s Anglican Church, Derek Hinge, recently shared a humorous version of this same concept, called the “COW” principle – which stands for: CAN I do something? OUGHT I do something? WILL I do something? – Which can be applied when in doubt of whether to take action or not. It’s this concept that brought me to help with the Ukrainian refugees in our town. Like many, I’d been thinking about their terrible journeys to get out of the line of fire and how they’d left everything behind to come here. And so I went to the informational meeting at Markwell Pavilion here in our town centre, organized by Churches Together, on 23rd April of last year, where there was an appeal for volunteers to sign up for various tasks – ranging from job seeking to transportation to benefits claims and so on. At that point, we had a few first families coming into the town, being hosted by people who had offered to open up their homes, and we were expecting more to arrive. I don’t think anyone knew exactly what was to come, but felt compelled to help. As Derek’s wife, Pauline Hinge, puts it, “expect the unexpected.” I wound up sitting next to Jenny Klincke from our church, and I’d whispered to her at some point in the meeting that if there was anything I could do to help, to please contact me. Well, a few weeks went by and then one day I got a call from Jenny, who asked me to come to the Windhill church center next Wednesday ‘to see what we are up to and see what you think.’ And so I went, not really knowing anything more than that. And there at the sign-in desk was Mione Goldspink. I introduced myself and said I came to help any way I could, and Mione told me she needed help with the sign-in desk on Wednesdays. I later told my children, ‘I got the job!’ even though at the time I didn’t even know what job it was I was going to do! I later learned that Jenny had planned to have me help make sandwiches in the kitchen, so I joked to my kids that I got promoted on my first day. Now, several of you will know Mione is actively involved with Herts Welcomes Refugees, which was set up in 2016. She has also been involved with Churches Together, which has 10 member churches currently in Bishop’s Stortford. And when someone said that Churches Together should do something to help the refugees, she stepped forward and offered to form a committee. It just takes one spark to kindle the fire. From there, Bishop’s Stortford Ukrainian Guests Support was borne. Four local churches offered their facilities – St Michael’s Church, along with St Joseph’s Catholic church, offered their facilities on Wednesday mornings. The Methodist church offered space on a Friday morning, and the Charis Centre in town offered Monday mornings. Nearly 15 teachers came forward and offered their help to teach English as a second language. A few people living here already who spoke Ukrainian came forward and offered to help translate. A WhatsApp group was set up to allow everyone involved – host families, guests, and volunteers – to exchange information and problem-solve as issues arose. So now, on Wednesdays, between 11 and 2, I come to the centre and help put up the signs, take down people’s names and help with any other tasks that need doing. Volunteers from our church make sandwiches, coffee, and tea to serve for lunch. And the guests come to socialize with one another and also learn English. Many of the guests are multi-talented and highly educated – we have a cake-baker, an events organizer, a professional photographer, an MBA, a criminologist, an accountant, and lawyers. They keep a brave face despite the worries they shoulder daily. I never cease to admire their strength and courage to keep going, despite the destruction happening to their loved ones back home. Most are women and children, from places like Odessa, Kharkhiv, Mariupol, Kyiev. Some are from Russia but speak Ukrainian, and some are from Ukraine but speak Russian. On Fridays, the county has provided an ESOL teacher to run a certification course from October through March. This month, about 10 students are taking their qualification exam, thanks largely to the volunteer efforts of the churches and community to bring this all together and make it happen. It hasn’t always been easy, and there have been challenges along the way. We seem to have stopped getting new people coming, and have stabilized at about 70 families total. Numbers fluctuate as people find work, change homes, go back to visit family, attend school or deal with the never-ending paperwork that must be processed for support. But there have been moments of positivity and hope. For example, there was a New Year’s party where we all danced, sang, played games and shared food together. On 25th of February, the guests organized a prayer service to mark the passing of a year since the invasion began. For many, understandably, this was a somber time of reflection. And just as another example of the transformative power of like-minded people coming together to help others, when the earthquake happened in Turkey and Syria, a Turkish immigrant in Bishop’s Stortford sent out an appeal for winter coats and other supplies to box up and ship out to the people suffering in the bitter cold. This had been posted on the WhatsApp group and the mother of a 2-year-old Ukrainian boy came in the next morning with nappies and baby food to donate. I was so touched, because here was someone a refugee herself who was giving what little she had for others in the world who were suffering. Which made me think about how those who have the least often give the most. In Summary: Sometimes we want to make a difference, and help people, but don’t know where to start. Or the problem seems too big or too complicated. But as the Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu said, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” We are called to be “the light of the world” according to Matthew 5:14 wherever we live and serve in the world. It just takes one person, or a few people, to step forward and be willing to take action in order to start a chain reaction of kindness and bring a community together for positive change. We can all do something, however small, and however seemingly insignificant, to contribute to an important cause. Together, our contributions can grow exponentially. And that is what the Power of One is all about. Ultreya! Written by Betty P Submitted by Margaret S February is National Cancer Prevention month. According to National Cancer Society, over 119 million new cancer cases are expected in the US in 2023 and about 18 million Americans with cancer are alive today. Unfortunately, people who have or had cancer often face problems with discrimination. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) provides protection for individuals who currently have cancer, are in remission, or have a history of cancer. These protections are for individuals who are looking for a job, or already have a job. To learn more please review the following resources.
1) Cancer in the workplace and the ADA US Equal Employment Opportunity Committee 2) Your Employment Rights as a Person with a Disability and the ADA by Pacific ADA Center website: www.adapacific.org Phone 800-949-4232 (This site provides information about all disabilities, vision, hearing, medical conditions or handicaps.) For the latest information on COVID Treatment see Health Advisory Increasing COVID Treatment. A data dashboard explores details of opioid overdoses in Snohomish County including symptoms of overdose: www.snohomishoverdoseprevention.com/data Prompt treatment saves lives. Margaret S, Education Elder Bible Study resumed after summer vacation and is held at 2 times during the week, either on Sundays following church service, or at 10 am Tuesday mornings via Zoom. Our study continues in the book Toward the Kingdom of Heaven by Amy-Jill Levine.
The study center on the Sermon on the Mount as found in Matthew chapters 5-7 with practical advice on how to incorporate the bible teaching into our everyday lives. It answers such questions as how to get along with people we disagree with and how tradition is tied in with present policies of our church. The study lessons are led by volunteers taking turns each week with a lively discussion on every topic. Pastor Rob is giving classes on how to join the church. Please contact him if you are interested in taking the class. Margaret S, Education Elder October is pastor appreciation month, and we are all thankful to have Pastor Rob and his wife, Carol as part of our church. Pastor Rob has been busy sharing the church’s message through Tik-Tok and Facebook so all can see and find us, and is currently giving membership classes to those who want to join. Please join us in thanking God for sending us our massager who brings us the Word from the bible and inspires us with encouragement to follow that Word.
Margaret S, Outreach Elder Our Bible Study based on the book “Wholehearted Faith” by Rachael Held Evans and led by Pastor Rob Christ was completed the week of April 3.
Now a new Bible Study is scheduled to begin on Sunday, April 24 following church service, with a repeat class on Tuesday mornings at 10 AM. Books for the Bible Study are “Toward the Kingdom of Heaven” by Amy-Jill Levine and are on the table by the church entry. This is a collection of 40 readings based on the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapters 5-7 and designed to tie the old and new testaments together and help us understand how the Jewish faith influences and enhances our Christian Beliefs. These classes will have rotating leaders with Pastor Rob taking part as he can. Easter Sunday gave us the privilege and opportunity for our church choir to sing and our guest musicians including Nicole E to perform during the service. Following the service we had coffee and refreshments provided by Kathy M and Gina Z. We are indeed blessed to have them share their presence and talents. Margaret S, Education and Outreach Elder |
Archives
June 2024
The CallerA monthly newsletter of upcoming events, celebrations, and news of the church community. Categories
All
|