Our gratitude for Daphne’s eighteen year ministry to our children, the church school teachers and to us is enormous and deeply felt. Her retirement will be a difficult fact for us to negotiate, but as Daphne always says, “Remember, God is in the mix.” We hold that hope as a bright ember to light our future without her as our Minister of Education. With full heart we wish her Godspeed as she and John visit their grandchildren in Thailand and Santa Fe. A Church member long before she assumed her position, we also look forward to the time when she will rejoin us as a fellow member who worships and shares her time, talent and treasure with us. But the task immediately at hand, is to say good-bye. To this end, several events have been planned. On Saturday, June 21st at 7:00pm in the sanctuary, all are invited to a special evening in honor of Daphne. As an individual or as a group, I encourage you to bring a poem, a puppet, a song, a story, anything to celebrate Daphne’s ministry among us. Then on Sunday, June 22nd, we will have a liturgy of thank you and farewell, followed by an all church picnic after the 10:00am service. Please bring some food to share. Let us have a grand farewell.
It is time for us to have a new pictorial directory. The last one was produced in 2004 and is now hopelessly out of date. I cannot emphasize how important it is for you to be included in the pictorial directory. This really helps us to know each person in our church family. Someone may have met you and forgotten your name, but if your picture is in the book the person will be able to make contact with you easily. The directory also becomes a very important tool to give to new members when they join the church. They are easily able to learn who you and your family are. It has also been my experience that the children of the church love to simply look through it over and over again. There is a comfort in beholding their family of faith. The pictorial directory has so many uses. It is my goal to have everyone’s picture included, especially yours.
I have entered into a contract with Olan Mills, the premier pictorial directory company. Mary and I along with David and Lyla Johnson will be taking the leadership in this project. But this is a community endeavor and we will need your help. First, we need photos and digital pictures of everyday and special events at First Church to put in the opening section of the directory. Please let me know if you have any. Secondly, we will need volunteers to greet church members when they arrive to have their picture taken at the Spencer House and to call members who have forgotten to sign up to get their pictures taken. Can you help with one of these very short term tasks? Finally, I want to give you the dates for photograph sessions so you can plan ahead and mark your calendar. The first opportunity will be Friday, August 8th from 3-9:30 and Saturday, August 9th from 10-5. Anyone may sign up for these days, but they are especially available for families with children in college. Before they head back to school, you can get a family portrait. The main dates are Tuesday November 4th to Saturday November 8th with a makeup date for Monday November 24th.
Kendrick
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