1 Footprints A publication of UNITED METHODIST CHURCH OF LUDINGTON 5810 Bryant Road, Ludington, MI 49431 (231) 843-8340 Email: [email protected]www.ludingtonumc.org Our Mission: Reveal the Grace of God by welcoming and serving all in Christ! NOVEMBER 2021 In November, we turn a corner in the year. Our thoughts and habits turn toward colder days, and the coming holy seasons. Our hearts are drawn toward home. We prepare for the coming of winter by doing lots of work. Our hands are made busy with weather stripping, cleaning gutters, raking leaves, and filling the pantry or freezer with the bounty of the harvest. If I had to nail down this time of year to a single word it suppose it would be: Preparation. To prepare means to make ready, make room, and look forward with expectation for what is to come. And what is to come next for us, the people of the United Methodist Church of Luding- ton? How are we in preparation for the coming of God among us? We observe and celebrate a number of sacred days that help shape our lives with the story of God. These include: All Saint’s Day. The time we remember those we have lost, honor their legacy, and turn our hearts toward God for comfort. Please join us on Sunday November 7 for a time of reflection and hope. Thanksgiving. A holiday to take stock of the blessings that fill our lives. We set aside time to eat together with family and friends. We are also challenged to return thanks to God by giving a Thanksgiving offering that blesses those in the community who are in need. The mission team has chosen this year to bestow this collection on Lakeshore Food Club. LFC provides needed dignity and resources to our community. Please support this wonderful ministry partner. Advent and Christmas. Yes, it is coming and coming fast. Just look around Wal-mart! Christmas trees are now on display. The first Sunday of Advent is November 28. I invite you to be part of a very special presentation during worship from Kay DeMoss, who will share her unique collection of nativity scenes. It will be a wonderful way to draw us into the stories of the holiday season. “From the Pastor’s Heart” continues on page 3
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Footprints A publication of UNITED METHODIST CHURCH OF LUDINGTON 5810 Bryant Road, Ludington, MI 49431 (231) 843-8340 Email: [email protected]
www.ludingtonumc.org Our Mission: Reveal the Grace of God by welcoming and serving all in Christ!
NOVEMBER 2021
In November, we turn a corner in the year. Our thoughts and habits turn toward colder days, and the coming holy seasons. Our hearts are drawn toward home. We prepare for the coming of winter by doing lots of work. Our hands are made busy with weather stripping, cleaning gutters, raking leaves, and filling the pantry or freezer with the bounty of the harvest. If I had to nail down this time of year to a single word it suppose it would be: Preparation.
To prepare means to make ready, make room, and look forward with expectation for what is to come. And what is to come next for us, the people of the United Methodist Church of Luding-ton? How are we in preparation for the coming of God among us?
We observe and celebrate a number of sacred days that help shape our lives with the story of God. These include:
All Saint’s Day. The time we remember those we have lost, honor their legacy, and turn our hearts toward God for comfort. Please join us on Sunday November 7 for a time of reflection and hope.
Thanksgiving. A holiday to take stock of the blessings that fill our lives. We set aside time to eat together with family and friends. We are also challenged to return thanks to God by giving a Thanksgiving offering that blesses those in the community who are in need. The mission team has chosen this year to bestow this collection on Lakeshore Food Club. LFC provides needed dignity and resources to our community. Please support this wonderful ministry partner. Advent and Christmas. Yes, it is coming and coming fast. Just look around Wal-mart! Christmas trees are now on display. The first Sunday of Advent is November 28. I invite you to be part of a very special presentation during worship from Kay DeMoss, who will share her unique collection of nativity scenes. It will be a wonderful way to draw us into the stories of the holiday season. “From the Pastor’s Heart” continues on page 3
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Please continue to wear a mask when you are in the church building for any reason. As Christians, we care about other people. Being vaccinated and wearing a mask can help prevent the transmission of COVID-19 and its
variants, saving lives and taking pressure off of our exhaust-ed hospital personnel.
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Come worship in person at 10:00 am Sundays! Or watch the livestream on our Facebook page, watch the taped service later, or see the broadcast on Spectrum Channel 190 Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Fri-day at 3:00 pm.
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The church office is staffed by volunteers Monday through Thursday from 9:00 am to noon. The outer south office door is left unlocked 24/7 for deliveries and so that people can come pick up their offering envelopes, Upper Rooms, postcards to mail to shut-ins, and bulletins. Laurie works a hybrid schedule and is usually in the office Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday from 10:00 to 2:00. Pastor Hillary’s cell phone number is 231-480-1514, and her email is [email protected].
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Our youth group, Legacy, meets each Sunday at 5 pm. The first Sunday of each month, Legacy will join in a United Youth Rally with other churches in the community from 5 to 8 pm. There are free activities, great worship, a powerful message, and delicious food at each rally. The location changes monthly depending on which church is hosting.
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We are in the process of re-opening our nursery and chil-dren’s Christian education. If you would be willing to invest in young children for a Sunday each month, please contact the church to sign up and begin the background check pro-cess. The wonderful thing about online streaming is that you will never miss a worship service if you want to volun-teer. It will always be available to watch online.
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The following resident of Ludington nursing homes or as-sisted living facilities has a birthday in November. Send him a card!
Nov. 1—Eldred Chevalia, MediLodge, 1000 E. Tinkham, Ludington, MI 49431
On November 7, All Saints Sunday, we will remember those members and friends of our church family who have died since All Saints Sunday 2020. Please call or email the church with names of those you would like us to remember at the service. So far we are aware of the following people: Robert Fawcett, Sue Hodde, Loraine Abrahamson, Betty Reynolds, Laura Sorensen, Betty Ford, Elaine Beach, Rose Marie Sutton, Clarice O’Herron, Arnold Burke, Carol Hunt, Richard Ruis, Debbie MacDonald, Nancy Rossi, Bob Ford, Lonnie Pratt, Stub Willick, Ginger Newell.
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Our beautiful prayer shawls on display during our worship service There are many shawls of different colors and sizes, all lovingly made. Some have already been given to people in need and two ladies wanting to knit! A small pink fuzzy shawl was given to little Grace. We will be giving a shawl to our new friend and exchange student, Maren. Because this is a way too make our shawls more visible, we will continue to display them this way on the second Sunday of the month. Shirley Mitchell will be there to assist you.
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United Church Directories will be here Monday, November 1 from 2:00 to 8:30 pm. If you still need to have your photo taken for our church directory, sign up at https://ucdir.com. The login is mi1629 and the password is photos.
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Looking ahead, join us after worship on December 5 to help decorate the church building for Christmas. We are working on an intergenerational Christmas program for December 19. There will be more information to come about how everyone can participate in activities that enrich the season. (Watch for the details in next month’s newsletter.) And of course, we will light candles on Christmas Eve, sing Silent Night, and bask in the glow of a manger full of God’s glory in Christ. I delight in these holy times of sharing and making memories. Of course, they are also busy and may require a bit more from us. Yet, something extraordinary happens when we come together and share our gifts. We become a part of something beautiful, and the words of John’s gospel come true: “In Him (Jesus) was life and that the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.” Our exchange student Maren has brought much joy and light into our family. She often plays her favorite song for us by the band Leland that reflects on the light that came in Jesus. The words can speak to us even as we prepare for the season to come:
“Waymaker.
Miracle Worker.
Promise Keeper.
Light in the darkness.
My God,
That is who You are.”
We worship a great God who is making a way for us. Let’s celebrate that in the coming days!
With a grateful heart,
Pastor Hillary Thurston-Cox
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UMW Executive Board will meet Monday, November 8 at 1:00 pm. UMW General Meeting will meet Monday, November 29 at 1:30 pm. All
ladies of the church are welcome! Coming soon: The UMW are going to hold their famous Second Time Around sale in Fellowship Hall on Saturday, November 20 from 9 am to 2 pm. You know you have stuff you don’t want or need anymore! So start setting aside items to be donated for the sale. ((No clothing or large old TVS, please!) The items will be sold by donation with profits going to missions. We need workers for setup the two days before the sale (after 4 pm Thursday and all day Friday). Call Karen Genson at 843-2482 with questions. A generous thank you to all who contributed hygiene items to be donated to The Hope Project, a program supporting survivors of human trafficking. I delivered a large load of a good variety of items. Carmen Biggs, co-owner of Humani-Tea, gave a big thank you! You can donate items any time by dropping them off at HumaniTea here in Ludington. Karen Genson, UMW President The November Ladies’ Lunch Date will be November 16, 11:30 am at Applebees. Judy Hill
Interested in helping with an intergenerational Christmas program? A planning meeting will be held after Sunday worship on November 14. Join Pastor Hillary and other leaders as they work to-w a r d p r e s e n t i n g “Cardboard Testimonies” on December 19.
The latest news from the American Red Cross is our ap-proved new schedule for UMCL drives beginning Friday, November 12, 2021; following next to January 07, 2022; March 04, 2022; May 06, 2022; July 08, 2022; and Septem-ber 09, 2022. The new dates are hopefully to accommodate more Red Cross personnel to be present to move the flow of donors while eliminating the wait time we have experi-enced in our last drives. Due to last minute call outs on the morning of our last drive only three Red Cross staff arrived - one driver and two personnel to draw blood - for all our scheduled donors (40). When notified at check-in time some donors choose not to stay knowing the wait would be hours… We regret this inconvenience to all donors, and our volunteers, who were scheduled and didn’t receive any advance notice until they arrived at the site. We are very thankful for those who were able to accomplish the feat of collecting twenty pints. We were notified that all of our donations for September were sent to the Muskegon Mercy Campus. The Red Cross has been experiencing changes in personnel in our District and Region. Beginning October 15 we have a new Regional Manager and a new District Manager. Zak Krebs is returning to the Washington State area and our Regional Manager, out of Petoskey, is retiring. JP Lanning of Kalamazoo will be the new Regional Manager. We wish each of them much success in their new endeavors. The need for blood donors still remains critical. There is presently a shortage of donors, personnel to draw blood, and volunteers. Donors, please go online and fill in your preferred time for giving as early as possible. www.Redcross.org. Volunteers, please call Barb at 443-910-6328 to volunteer for November 12. A successful drive depends on everyone working together. Barb Woodworth, UMCL Blood Drive Coordinator Editor’s Note: We thank Barb for these years of fine service as our church’s Blood Drive Coordinator. She is resigning as of December 31, 2021. We will miss her! Barb’s nursing skills and Red Cross experience have been invaluable. Now we will need a new coordinator. If you may be interested in being our church’s Blood Drive Coordinator, please contact Barb to find out what the job entails.
We had a wonderful and fruitful week at the Henderson Settlement in Frakes, Kentucky. As we planned this trip we were wondering what to expect when we got there. We knew that many changes had occurred as a result of the pandemic; last year the work camp was pretty much shut down and much cost cutting had occurred. Six of us made the trip down. We left early Saturday morn-ing after a wonderful send-off by Pastor Hillary and some friends who had made previous trips. The missionaries were the Sleemans, Janelle Schade, Kirk Myers, and the Disegnas. The trip down went smoothly; and true to form we had some items that we forgot to bring with us, but we were able to get what we needed at a Walmart that is about 45 minutes away from the settlement. Sunday evening there was an organizational meeting where meal times, camp schedules, work hours, etc. were discussed and groups vol-unteered for morning worship services. We took the first morning devotional so that we could get that out of the way and we also did not have any other service to be com-pared to. There were 5 or 6 groups down there with us, about 40 people in all. We had decided to work on projects on the campus to min-imize exposure to Covid. The ladies worked in the thrift store, sorting clothes that had recently come in to the settle-ment. This sounds simple but when a trailer load comes in it can fill an entire room and everyone must work very hard to sort, evaluate, and get the clothes and many other items ready for display. The men started with reworking a guard railing that had not turned out as expected. The next pro-ject was to seal off the ceiling in the furniture room so that bats could no longer get in there, which went smoother than we expected. Next we corrected a deck extension that had been worked on by an inexperienced group. At that time Jerry, the work camp director, asked if we could look at building a 40-foot handicap ramp for a family. The hus-band, who is very ill, could not manage the steps to get out of the house, and his wife is not real steady on her feet also. We discussed the project and since we have project money available and the need was great we said yes we would do it. This all occurred on Tuesday. Harry, who is also a work camp leader, made a rough drawing of the ramp and got materials needed for the project. In order to finish the ramp we decided to start working Wednesday morning, which is normally a day off at the work camp. On Thursday we asked Janelle and Karen to help us with the ramp. With their help and good weather we finished the ramp early Friday afternoon. Dan and Kirk also built a gate for the
ramp to keep a pesky dog off of the ramp. Thursday evening was devoted to sharing experiences from all the groups followed by a communion service. Our initial concerns were put to rest ~ Henderson Settlement is still going strong with our help and the Holy Spirit’s presence. Our church has been going there for almost 20 years, and you can ask anyone who has gone on a mission trip there, it is a special place. We thank you for your prayers and your generous giving that allowed us to build the handicap ramp. Thank you and God bless you. The Mission Team See next page for more photos and more Mission news.
Ann hard at work
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We have some good news. We are now part of the Lakeshore Food Club. We, the church, have contributed to their Be a Hero Program. This program gives supplemental support to family in need of additional funds to buy food at the Food Club. Through our contribution we will be able to help support three families for one year! In other news, Anchor of Hope in Haiti has finished their security wall and has teamed again with Feed My Starving Children to provide one meal a day to their 400 students. They have also been able to expand their education pro-gram for pregnant mothers. Our missions dollars are helping both these causes. Thank you.
~ ~ ~ Tim and Tammy Martin and the Hospitality, INC* Board sent a letter to participating churches on October 15, telling us that because of COVID restrictions the Hospitality Board has made the difficult decision to not open the shel-ter again for the 2021-2022 season. They do not have the infrastructure to maintain CDC guidelines for quarantining and isolating symptomatic or COVID positive individuals. They will provide a hot lunch,, sack lunches to go, grocer-ies, showers, laundry and transportation to another shelter or to a family member outside of our area if there is a bet-ter option. Hot lunch will be from 11 am to 1 pm on Thursdays at Community Church, starting November 4. Please spread the word to those in need. And let us keep homeless individuals and Hospitality, INC in our prayers. *In the Name of Christ
Janelle sorting clothes for the
Thrift Store
Karen sorting clothes
Hard at work on the ramp
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Thank you to Mary Bing, Larry Bing, Dawn Mumford and Dennis Genson for helping me paint the garage over the last two weeks. Dan Post, Building Maintenance Team Lead
Coming to Our Worship Service November 28
Rev. Kay DeMoss has been collecting nativity sets since 1976. Today, 45 years later, she has 450 creches and ornaments from 71 different countries. On the first Sunday of Ad-vent, Kay will be with us in worship, sharing an interactive program called “Come to the Manger.” She will have 60 sets on display and will share about the many multicultural ways the birth of the Christ Child is celebrated around the globe. Kay will also invite the congre-gation to share Christmas traditions and memories during the presentation. Kay is a Dea-con in full connection in The Michigan Conference. Her years in ministry have been spent leading ministries of Christian Education in several churches. At present she is the Senior Editor of The Michigan Conference, publishing two electronic newsletters every week; MIconnect and mifaith. She and her husband, Lynn, a retired pastor, live at Clark Retire-ment Community in Grand Rapids.
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Leadership Board Finance Update November 2021
November 2021 Newsletter Submission Leadership Board Finance Update Sisters and Brothers in Christ, Our congregation is strong in many ways, including our finances. We are now in the fourth quarter of this fiscal year, and our year-end projections look great. We project our year-end financial position to be a positive $19,008. Keep in mind that this projection is our best-calculated guess. Many factors could affect our projection. For example, utility costs are projected to rise as the temperature outside decreases. However, one thing I am certain won’t change is the faithful financial support of our congregation. The testimony of your faithful giving is visible in the charts below. Thank you for your faithful giving. The members of the Leadership Board thank you because your faithfulness allows for the dreaming of new ministries within our congregation and the continuing support of existing ministries.
The generosity of our congregation is amazing. We give thanks to God for each of you. Clinton McKinven-Copus Leadership Board [email protected] 231-425-0731
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sept
Income $30,450 $32,160 $24,939 $20,619 $22,801 $31,200 $30,451 $20,727 $20,079
Bill Alexander Dean Archer Jean Bouda Luella Burke Allan Carlson Jane Clark Anne Estle John & Kathy Fletcher Linda Friedley Sandi Hall Gregg Heimall Erving Johnson Walt Johnson Bob & Sara Jones Robin Luke Rommie MacDonald Kip McCray Ed & Maralee McCumber Yvonne McCumber Gail Niethe Dave Peterson Pat Pollard Ted Radtke Marilyn & E. Dean Raven Leanne & John Ruhle Ed Sanborn Sandy and Tammy Sgro Dale Swanson John Wagner Alan, Julie and Andrew Wernette Walt Wheaton Lew Wilson Susan Wirgau Janice Wolff Linda and Louie Wolven Our Military People S. Sgt. Joseph Archer, TX S. Sgt. Daniel J. Cook, NC CS 2nd Class Emily Gibson, Persian Gulf Matthew Heard, Ft. Drum, NY Ensign Gregory Heimall III, VA S. Sgt. Jacob Hunt, VA
Catherine McNaughton Rizzo, AK Paul Nickelson, MI Nathan Palmer
Our Nursing Home and Assisted Living People Donald Barnett Carol Brezinski Eldred Chavalia Myra Easton Anne Estle, Indiana Dave Hullinger Phil Hunt Sherry Johnson Nancy Kelley Tom McCumber, Jr. Dick & Donna Nelson Ruthie Peterson Bob & Lois Rasch Bea Riffle Marian Riffle Janice Soper Roland Vandenheuvel Ellie Westcott Matthew Wilson (Greg’s Son), Oklahoma Missionaries Haiti Baudin School, Baudin Methodist Church, Ranquitte Methodist Church and Pastor Odeles Du Rosier, Anchor of Hope and Dan and Dawn Brown Zambia Soweto-Kapisha UMC, Pastor Bernard & Betty Lumene; Bwafwano Care Project and Minerva Phiri MARC: Alaska Ministries Collier, Allyson & Whaylen Hard Henderson Settlement Legacy and Youth, Oasis Sunday School Our Church—Vision for the future Pastor Hillary, husband Vaughn, daughter Grace, exchange student Maren from Norway People of Haiti and Afghanistan Refugees People affected by severe weather events
Ongoing Prayer Concerns
The Intercessory Prayer Group again meets in the church library at 10 am Tuesdays. Prayer warriors are welcome!
If you’d like to send a card to any-one on this prayer page, check the church directory for the address.
“The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” James 5:16
We need a Military Ministry Co-ordinator to keep our military list updated and to send cards. Our military people are so apprecia-tive of cards we send when they are so far away from home and serving our country. Let us not forget them.
Ginger Newell
Aug. 31, 1954—Oct. 14, 2021
Lonnie Collins Pratt Nov. 3, 1954—Oct. 7, 2021
Clarence (“Stub”) Willick June 25,1937—Oct. 16, 2021
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Coloring Page
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Footprints A publication of UNITED METHODIST CHURCH OF LUDINGTON
