Peoples UMC News: Alive With The Lord

Alive With the Lord

The days, April 11 and 12 are only two days in the long life of Peoples Church, but they were filled with sharing, serving and celebrating our Christian and Methodist faith.

Beginning before 7:00 a.m. in the morning Brad Morrison began preparing breakfast for the once a month Men’s Breakfast. With pancakes, sausage and bacon along with juice and coffee the once a month get-together was underway. Our usual location in the vestry would soon be overtaken by an aerobics class that usually meets in Ellis Hall. A call from Kathy Brann indicated that we could wedge ourselves into a corner of Ellis Hall since she and Amy Wellington would already have their Craft and Scrapbooking Day set up in the hall.

The men were few in number on this morning with Brad, Art, Keith, Jim, Earle, Tom and Dan in attendance. After an opening prayer we sat down to eat and chat. Chatting can run the range of thoughts that men may engage in from sports to the life of the church. We all felt that it is important to serve the community and we should be determining in what way that might be done. While nothing was decided, at least the talk of the day centered our thoughts on how we might serve beyond what we already do.

Since the women came to set up more materials for their craft and scrapbooking day, we invited them to partake of the feast that Brad had prepared. In turn a few of the men stayed around long enough to assist Amy, Kathy and Rosemary as they continued to perfect their “craft room”.

Returning later in the day to see how things were going, I found that there were several people of all ages involved in scrapbooking and other crafts, but was informed that some people had already come and gone and others were still expected before the day was over. Several tables had been set up and a great amount of material was scattered around the tables. There were many pieces of machinery around the edge of the room that could be used for cutting paper with any number of design cutters. Since it was around noon time that the pictures were taken, several of those participating had frequented Subway and Ananias for sandwiches. I spied all kinds of sweet treats that had been made available at the kitchen counter. Thanks are extended especially to Kathy and Amy for making this opportunity available.

At 1:30 p.m. a team of 13 folks from Peoples travelled to the gym at the Elm Street UMC for the second annual “Stop the Growling” food packing event. Cori Heatley from Thornton Heights UMC spearheaded the project for the Casco Bay Cluster for this second year of operation. Her goals were to pack 32,000 meals and raise $7800 to support this $.25 a meal project through Outreach Inc. She had set up three packing sessions that ran from 12:00 noon to around 6:00 p.m. Peoples among other teams were scheduled for the 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. slot.

Arriving around 1:30 p.m. were Keith and Becky Snoddy, Janice Huelin, Rosemary Herd, Linda Wade, Bonnie Farrand, Carol Bruneau, Betty, Eric and Ellis Splettstoesser, Betty Smith and Art and Marlene Tordoff.

Once we were given a brief training session the two teams that we were on began to package 2 scoops of pasta and a scoop of a nutritious soy mix into a bag that already included a packet of cheese. The packets were then passed to the scales for weighing, followed by heat sealing and then placed on a grid with two layers of 18 packets. These would be placed in a carton and sealed. In a little over an hour the two teams had packed 16 boxes. Many of the team members then were free to go, but one team stayed long enough to pack an additional five cases. If our figuring was correct Peoples Packers had actually packed 4,536 meal packets. To help support the purchase of the ingredients we at Peoples had collected nearly $400. If the event is held next year, our hope would be to improve on our participation.

Cori reported after the packing was complete that 120 folks had participated and together 26,152 meals had been packed.

Most of the meal packets would be distributed around the state to food pantries, school lunch programs and emergency situations.

On Sunday, the congregation celebrated with the help of Pastor Tom, some of the ushers and the choir, Holy Humor Sunday. In some churches this day has been celebrated for decades and longer. The hymns may have had familiar music but the lyrics were changed with the sound of joy. In surprising Pastor Tom, Rosemary Herd did the children’s sermon and every time she came to a particular word in her story the congregation raised a picture of Tom that was taped to a stick. Fun was had by all and yet the message of joy brought direction to how we should be with each other and with all folks that we might meet at work, at school, within our families and beyond.