Click here for the Current Smyrna Calendar.

Family Weekend

We have reserved Camp Adams for a family over night camping trip on July 18-19. We will have two cabins- one for boys and one for girls. The camp will be ours after 4:30 on the 18th. Please sign up in the narthex or call the church office so we can have an idea as to how much food to buy. We had a great time last year, and hope we can have an even bigger turn out this year around the camp fire.

Our Sunday service on July 19th will be at 11 AM at Camp Adams and will be lead by our youth group. Following the service we will have a pot luck luncheon.

Summer Salad Suppers

We will continue our tradition of Summer Salad Suppers with potluck suppers on Tuesday evenings at 6 p.m. beginning July 21 (the week after Vacation Bible School). Everyone is invited to bring their favorite salad to share.

The program for the first Tuesday will be a slide show of Dave and Jean Akers trip with CARE to Bolivia. Following dinner the other four Tuesdays we will be reviewing material on the environment put out by the Thoughtful Christian, the same company that prepared the material we used to review the Lord’s Prayer. We will be meeting for a total of five Tuesday evenings with our last supper to be on August 18th.

Honoring Graduates; thanking Teachers and Support Personnel

Smyrna UCC honored three college graduates, three high school graduates and 11 eighth grade graduates on June 7th.

College grads were: Ethan Boss from U of O, Ryan and Laura Yoder from OSU.

Eighth grade and high school grads were: Matt Emmert, Mariah Shultz, Nolan Griffith, Katlin Neff, Daphne Kober, Autumn Rose Barros, Kirstan Gano, Dakota Okert, Anna Marine, Carleigh Dewald, Idalis Ray Maria Flores, Zane Schultz, Tonnee Parish and Tessa Frost.

 Congratulations to all. We also thanked all the teachers and doorpersons of Sunday School who faithfully taught all our children throughout the year. They are: Audrey Yoder, Angela Stierle, Carly Sether, Ginger Redlinger, Kirstan Gano, Andrew Mahar, Rebecca Yoder, Kathy Robinson, Tina Marshall, Sandra Mahar, Patricia Bullard, Sarah Milner and Ann Bangs.

A big thank you went out to Chuck Odell, Rod Bullard and Paul Yoder for making  props for the Godly Play classroom. We all enjoyed a special coffee hour by the Christian Eduction Committee and David and Bernadette Yoder.

Congratulations and Thank You Everyone!

 --Angela Stierle

 

Help Needed

I have been coming out to Canby and mowing the grass(lawn) at the house in Canby.  I have been using Larry’s riding lawnmower.  Unfortunately it has quit mowing and I am needing someone who can take their riding lawn mower over to the house and mow for me until we decide what we are going to do. Is their anyone you know who would like this job?  Please call me on my cell phone if you can or know anyone who can do it. 

Half Full

One of my favorite quotes is “We all see the world through our own eyes.” I take the quote to mean that we each have our own perspective on things- and often our perspective may be a little self-centered. The Talmud says we don’t see the world as it is, but rather as we are.

Recently, one of my favorite cartoons showed a man leaving his home to go for a walk wearing a hat that had stars hanging from the brim of the hat. The caption of the cartoon said that the man like to feel like he was the center of the universe.

We all tend to be a little self-centered at times, and forget how truly blessed we are. We look at our glass as being half empty rather than remembering that it is often more than half full.

My recent trip to Bolivia was a strong reminder of the blessings we enjoy. We spent the week at altitudes of 12,000 to 14,000 feet. We were high enough to need to wear sun screen during the day, and to be cold at night when the temperature went below freezing. Few of the homes had heat and none of the schools did. We attended two night school programs where the students sat wearing their winter coats and gloves. We visited a silver mine where men (and women and children) work 6 days a week for a wage of $2 per day. We also visited a village where about 100 people had lived without electricity or running water until a year ago.

We are blessed to live in a country where we have so many comforts. This Father’s Day I am also reminded of how blessed I am to have healthy, happy children. We only have two children- but with a husband and a fiancé- our “children” have grown to four. Who knows- maybe there will be grandchildren some day? And now with Smyrna and the youth group I have a much larger group of children to care about.

We are blessed to be sponsoring about a dozen kids for camp this summer. We are blessed to have a talented group of leaders who are planning a Vacation Bible School. We are blessed to have talented musicians and singers. I have been a part of the Smyrna community now for two years and can attest that it truly is a community that is rich in spirit.

Thank God from whom all blessings flow. This is a day to rejoice and be glad- and to see the glass as half full and count our blessings.

---Pastor Dave

DavidAkers@smyrna-ucc.org

UCY Parade Plans

Come see Smyrna’s UCY float through the Molalla Kiddies’ Parade on July 2! The theme this year is “Pioneers on Parade.” UCY members and their helpers will meet at Molalla High School on Frances St at 5 p.m. in order to be ready for the parade start time of 6 p.m.

Excursions 4 All went on their first excursion to Silver Falls State Park on June 31st. Tina, Jeff, and Josh Marshall, Virgil and Chris Foster, Sandra and Andrew Mahar, and Rod and Pat Bullard all went. We all enjoyed having a picnic lunch, and then went for approximately a 2 mile hike and saw the Upper and Lower South Falls, and they were very pretty. When we were done, we all enjoyed listening to Virgil play his recorder. A fun time was had by all. Please check The Behold or The Church Bulletin for the next excursion.

—Sandra Mahar

Please join us to help our mother, Carol Loe, celebrate her 64th birthday Saturday, June 18, 2009 4 p.m. The party will be at the home of Shirley Frison, 7234 N. Wilbur Ave, Portland, OR It will be a potluck Please bring your own lawn chair. Everyone will cut their own piece of cake

The Diaconate invites you to join the Smyrna United Church of Christ lending team. Kiva is a non-profit website that allows you to lend as little as $25 to a specific low-income entrepreneur across the globe. You choose who to lend to — whether a baker in Afghanistan, a goat herder in Uganda, a farmer in Peru, a restaurateur in Cambodia, or a tailor in Iraq — and as they repay the loan, you get your money back. If you join the Smyrna lending team, we can work together to alleviate poverty. Once you’re a part of the team, you can choose to have a future loan on can “count” towards our team’s impact. The loan is still yours, and repayments still come to you — but you can also choose to have the loan show up in our team’s collective portfolio, so our team’s overall impact will grow!

Check out the Smyrna United Church of Christ Kiva Lending Team, and learn more about Kiva in general by going to http://www.kiva.org At the top of the page, click on ‘community’ To the right and part way down the page find ‘search for a lending team’ type in ‘Smyrna’ click search Then click ‘join the team’ choose to whom you would like to make a loan and for how much.

“Flatter me, and I may not believe you. Criticize me, and I may not like you. Ignore me, and I may not forgive you. Encourage me, and I may not forget you.”

—William Arther Ward, author, educator, speaker (1921-1994)—

Thomas Daniels Web Consulting