Stewardship and Mission
Thanks to everyone who made a donation to the Peacemaking Offering. The offering totaled $641.00, almost double last year’s offering.
We are now in the last quarter of 2011 and the third quarterly statements were sent recently. Please try to keep up with your pledges, if possible, so we can finish 2011 in good financial condition. If there is a problem, please contact Jim Brunner.
The 2012 Stewardship Campaign will begin on November 6 and Pledge Sunday will be on November 20. As usual, we will also collect non-perishable food items for the Burlington Food Pantry’s Thanksgiving baskets on that day. Check the Deacon’s column for a list of the food requested.
Deacons Corner
2011 Thanksgiving Food Baskets
The Burlington Pantry will be distributing Thanksgiving Food Baskets again this year. They will be giving food to over 150 families, including elderly shut-ins and veterans. The collection date will be Sunday, November 20th. We have been asked to contribute the following:
concentrate this year
Please check the expiration dates!!!
Fresh vegetables will be purchased, so if anyone would prefer to contribute money instead of food, donations would be welcome. Checks should be made payable to People Helping People.
We will also need help after the service with sorting the food and taking it to the Congregational church.
Interfaith Thanksgiving Service
Monday, November 21, 7:00 p.m.
Join with neighbors of different faiths in common expression of thanksgiving at the annual Burlington Interfaith Thanksgiving Service Monday, November 21, 2011, 7:00 p.m. at the United Church of Christ, Congregational (Bedford and Lexington Streets). Leaders and worshipers will represent Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Hindu traditions. The preacher will be Rev. Tricia de Beer, who is married to the pastor of St. Mark’s Church. As in past years, the offering will be for the Burlington Covenant for Basic Needs (emergency fund of People Helping People, administered by the Burlington Community Life Center). This a wonderful opportunity to be joined with others in being grateful for the community we have, and the gifts of our Creator, even in these troubled times.
Cabanlutan Philippine Project
An update from Priscilla Lasmarias Kelso
One of the recipients of the Christmas offering from the Burlington Presbyterian Church last year was the Cabanlutan health and education project that the church has been supporting for several years. The amount of over $300 was sent to the on-going outreach to rural Filipinos in one of the central islands in the Philippines.
The good news is that Priscilla Kelso, the project’s advocate, spent 6 months in the Philippines recently with her husband, Rev. Bart Kelso, as volunteer professors at a Presbyterian university, an hour away from the Cabanlutan project. So the Kelsos were able to make several visits to the village where subsistence farmers and their families live.
Here are some updates on what has been happening to this community of people that Bart and Priscilla know personally and have visited several times in their trips to Asia:
1. The health center (a small building used as a place for volunteer health services) continues to be a place where people gather weekly for health check-ups by doctors and nurses from the city 7 kilometers away. Pre-natal exams and guidelines on preventing dengue fever are a current priority.
2. A new Christian community is emerging with the building of a small church in a piece of land donated by Priscilla’s family. This has been particularly encouraging, as a thriving youth outreach has drawn many young people into this faith community of rural families.
3. The village school has produced graduates who, with some financial assistance, are able to attend a community college in the nearby city. Several of these students are girls whom Priscilla has personally sponsored to give them a future beyond working in the sugar cane fields. This education outreach is an on-going focus of the Cabanlutan project.
All in all, Burlington Presbyterian Church has been a faithful participant in building up this small model of hope for the poor in the Philippines. The village was spared from the destruction caused by recent typhoons and is grateful for this ongoing partnership from half a world away.
Presbyterian Church in Burlington 