Dear Friends,

Mark Vogel, our long- time facilities person, is retiring this month.  I hope you will join us on Reformation Sunday, October 29, for a farewell/reception for Mark.  Mark has been a part of the Peace Staff for over 15 years!  We wish him all the best in his new adventures!!

If you want to sign up for the updated COVID vaccine and/or the seasonal flu shot, please let me know by this Thursday, October 12, morning.  I will be closing the appointments on Thursday and ordering of vaccines we need for Saturday, October 14.  If you have an appointment time, please plan on arriving at least 5 minutes before your appointment.

With Halloween just around the corner, we need your help with donating candy for the   Trunk or Treat event. Please bring your bags of candy and drop them off in the church office.  We need families who are willing to host cars in the parking lot for the event. We will supply the refill candy for your car. This is an excellent opportunity for confirmation families to host cars. Your student will receive service hours for the evening. I invite all of our members to consider hosting a car in the lot for Halloween.  This has been a fun event for our congregation, and we desperately need your participation!! If you can host a car, we will begin parking around 4:30pm. The event is from 5-6:30pm.

Confirmation News:  I encourage all confirmation families to read Chantal’s email. We are moving confirmation classes back to Wednesday evenings at 6 pm. Important: the new schedule of Wednesday evening confirmation class begins on Wednesday, October 25,

at 6 pm.

Peace Lutheran will be attending the National Youth Gathering in New Orleans next summer. You will receive an email with the date of time of the informational meeting. Our leaders look forward to preparing our youth for this life changing event. If you are interested in your young person going, please watch for the email.

This month is the kickoff of the “After Sunday” Stewardship Campaign. Thank you to those of you who have been contributing the ‘foundational funds’ for the campaign. If you would like to be a foundational giver, please contact me for the details. “After Sunday,” is the encouragement to live out our faith in ‘real world’ ways in our day to day lives. Each of us is blessed to be a blessing in the lives of others; the campaign is our challenge to find and be aware of the unique ways that we live out our faith in the midst of the world, as we care for those around us.

I attended our Finance meeting last evening and we looked at the financial standing of the congregation moving into this fall season.  As of yesterday, our line of credit has reached $69,000. Our limit on this line is $75,000. It’s important for each of us to be in prayer about our own giving and gifting to the mission and ministry of Peace Lutheran. It is even more important for each of us to remember that God is a God of abundance and not scarcity. God will do what God does to bless our congregation, and God will accomplish God’s will through the people of God. That’s been the story for all the years of this congregation, and will be its story of the future.

As we journey through the “After Sunday” campaign, I hope that we might all be in prayer and conversation. I also want to encourage you to invite your family and friends to worship with you. Each of us is a unique sort of evangelist, and each of us has an invitation to share with someone in our lives. Pray about who is on your heart this week, and invite them to join us on Sunday!

As Christian people, we pray for peace in the Middle East. Please keep the nation of Israel in your prayers; please keep the Palestinian/Arab people in your prayers: please pray for those mourning the death of their loved ones in your prayers: and please remember that God so loved the whole world, and that includes all the people in the world, no matter their beliefs, religion or what region of the world they live in. War and peace are complicated truths: be open in your prayers to the conversation of the Holy Spirit, as we pray for an end to this war, and for peace to be restored.

For those who like to give online, place your mouse over the purple link below.

www.peacecoonrapids.org/giving/ and press Control + Click. This will take you to Peace’s website page for Giving

OR SCAN QR CODE

I hope you have a great week.  Take care… blessings…

Pastor Valerie