Category: Newsletter

Harvey Cleanup Buckets

The Board of Outreach will begin a Church World Service Cleanup Bucket building campaign next week. Completed buckets from around Northern and Central Vermont will be collected by a truck from CWS. All currently available buckets will have been sent already to Texas. They are anticipating not having enough for the long haul, hence the call for buckets.
The CWS website says this:

CWS is responding through shipping material supplies and providing support to local organizations in Texas. In partnership with the Texas VOAD and the Red Cross, we anticipate that tens of thousands of CWS Hygiene Kits, School Kits and Emergency Cleanup Buckets will be shipped to affected areas. The most immediate need is for hygiene supplies for people in the shelters. Once the waters have receded and people can re-enter their homes, the need for cleaning supplies and buckets will be significant.
As of August 29, CWS has just over 1,800 CWS Emergency Cleanup Buckets in stock and anticipates running out. There is an urgent need for additional buckets to assist in this response. CWS is also preparing to commit most or all of the roughly 140,000 CWS Hygiene Kits that are in stock to Hurricane Harvey response. At that point, there will be a need to replenish the stock.  

By next Sunday, we’ll have item tags for you to pick up from church.  These tags have the name of one of the items needed for a bucket.  Each 5 gallon bucket contains the following items:

  • Four scouring pads
  • Seven sponges, including one large
  • One scrub brush
  • Eighteen reusable cleaning towels (e.g. Easy Wipes)
  • One 50 oz. or two 25 oz. bottle(s) of liquid laundry detergent
  • One 16-28 oz. bottle of liquid disinfectant dish soap
  • One 12-16 oz. bottle of household cleaner that can be mixed with water (no spray bottles)
  • One package of 48-50 clothespins
  • Clothesline, two 50 ft. or one 100 ft.
  • Five dust masks
  • Two pairs non surgical latex gloves
  • One pair work gloves, cotton with leather palm or all leather
  • 24-28 heavy duty or contractor type 30-45 gallon trash bags on a roll and removed from carton
  • One 6-9 oz. bottle of non-aerosol insect repellent

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Reset Potluck

September 9, the first non-holiday Sunday of the new school year will be our “Reset Sunday” and we are planning on a party!  Please join us for worship at 10 am and add your presence to the throng.  It’ll be good to see each other’s faces again and good to be in our beautiful sanctuary for worship.
It’s the first day of Church school too.  We’ll follow our usual pattern and have a Time Apart for Children and then they’ll leave to two different places in the building, depending on age group.
After all of this, we plan to have a potluck brunch.  I put it that way, because it requires you to make it happen — bring a small dish to pass and we’ll be all set.  (We’re also hoping the youth group will make some pancakes to share.)  So come with an appetite for food and a hunger for the gospel.

Coffee With Jesus

Well, you don’t have to drink coffee to enjoy the swirling, passionate, in-depth and really33de98e52923b6c5822a815478579795-jesus-coffee-jesus-and-coffee-quotes interesting conversations we have every Wednesday morning in Peter’s study over the scriptures.  We used to call it Bible Study.  And we do try to study it — but like any good study, our time together is constituted mainly by good conversation aimed at trying to understand a text — and, of course, coffee.
Last year we read the Gospel of Luke.  (Yes, it took us a year, precisely because we enjoy talking so much!)  This year, starting on September 20, we’re going to pick up the Book of Exodus.  What an amazing story!  It is chock full of drama, of course.  And it is filled with great, eternal themes of human prevailing. There will be no lack of conversation. . . .
We meet on Wednesday mornings at 9 am.  Bring your own bible, or not — we’ve got plenty here.  Read ahead, or not — we’ll read it together.  Sit and listen — or get right into it.  No question is wrong, and many ideas make for a rich and rewarding time.  I hope you’ll join us.