What a thrill to read about St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in a national publication.  Our Caring for Creation Committee has accomplished great things and made St. Andrews an example of how to care about God’s creation.

We have our What’s on Wednesday (WOW) Wednesday night, Oc.t 22, and the exciting Kirking of the Tartans celebrates the Scottish heritage of the Presbyterian Church, this Sunday, Oct. 26 at 11 a.m.

WOW (What’s On Wednesday), our church supper/fellowship/education  is back on the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month.

Worships Arts for the kids starts at 5 p.m. with choir after that, and then at 6 p.m. a great family supper and fellowship.  Sometimes the meal is potluck and sometimes we cater in from local restaurants.  Cost of the catered dinner is $8 for adults, $3 for kids 4-12, kids 3 and under are free, family max is $25

The next WOW is Wednesday, Oct. 22, at 6 p.m. in Heffner Hall. Mary Jane Cornell, our interim minister, will lead us in a Bible study after dinner, and Kristy Ray will entertain the kids.

The meal will be catered by Bambinelli’s.

Please join us and bring a guest.

The Outreach Ministry will host a casual Family Concert and Picnic on the Lawn, featuring local musician Matt Donald, on Saturday, Nov. 1, from 4 to 6 p.m. at St. Andrews. Matt is a singer songwriter and takes inspiration from nature and seeing positives in situations. With this in mind, he will be performing original songs mixed with appropriate cover songs, along with some children’s songs in an Americana style.  A little blues, bluegrass, rock, jazz and folk music all on acoustic six and twelve strings guitars and ukulele.  The music will be upbeat and positive.

Please bring a picnic dinner, chairs and blankets to enjoy the concert. This is a perfect time for low-key fellowship with old and new friends, and an opportunity for kids to dance/run around and burn off post-Halloween sugar while parents and adults can talk and enjoy music, food and fall weather.

Concert will be held in Heffner Hall in case of inclement weather. Contact Outreach with any questions: SAPCoutreach@gmail.com.

Hope to see you there.

WOW has kicked off and been a great way for our intergenerational community to come together, share a meal, and learn from each other. We need volunteers to continue to make this possible. We are looking for someone to order food, to collect money, to join a set-up or clean-up team. We are hoping to create a rotation of volunteers to help to spread the opportunity of helping at WOW. Please contact Kristy Ray through the office at 770-938-2833.

Kim Rometo, a St. Andrews member, and Sandra Levinson, Vice President of Alliance for Children Everywhere (ACE), presented a moving program about ACE and how our donations for Change for Children provide educational and nutritional support for Zambian children through the programs we support there.  Kim’s story was personal and moving as she showed pictures of where she had been, children she had met and how this summer mission trip changed her life.  Also pictures in the photo are the Chairman of ACE, Walt Bryde and his wife Louise, Kim and Sandra, and Treasurers, Barbara and Tom Hugh es.

To find out more about this mission we support with our monthly Change for Children collection, click on C4C, and then explore the ACE website for more information about supporting educational and nutritional needs for orphaned or abandoned children in Zambia.

St. Andrews hosts Community Supported Agricultural (CSA), basically a group of people who pledge support to a farm operation by sharing the risks and benefits of food production.  During each session on Wednesdays a box of fresh, organic and seasonal produce comes to the church to be delivered to individual subscribers.

If you would like to join this session, please contact CSA (Mary Evans) at the office@standrewspresbyterian.org.

For the third year, St. Andrews celebrates the Kirking of the Tartans,  a service of worship that embraces Presbyterian heritage in word and music.

The service is colorful and a wee bit noisy with bagpipes, and everyone is encouraged to wear their clan or family colors, whether Scottish or not.

But the service at Saint Andrews strives to reach beyond just clan . We are not all Presbyterian by name – and we are all not all of the same family lines in heritage – but we are all brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ – and we are all the children of God. That is the blood line that binds all of us together in a clan that has been from the creation.

Come enjoy the bagpipes, the men in kilts and the wonderful celebration of the Presbyterian heritage.

After the service, we will celebrate some more with a shortbread reception. Another Scottish tradition – wonderful buttery shortbread.

This Sunday is World Communion Sunday, a day we join in communion with congregations around the world. We will also celebrate the end of our effort to Pray for the World One Country at a Time. We started this project on January 2, 2011, praying for Afghanistan and ended last Sunday praying for Zimbabwe. This journey symbolized our efforts to show that world peace was in our hands with God’s help. Come celebrate communion, hear some different languages in worship, and keep praying for the World.

Check out the new page on our website with many of the brochures we produced the last three years.

http://standrewspresbyterian.org/praying-for-the-world-one-country-at-a-time/

Please join us for a very special What’s On Wednesday (WOW), our church family dinner and education evening.  We meet every second and fourth Wednesday in Heffner Hall for dinner, fellowship and a program.

On Wednesday, October 8th at 6PM in Heffner Hall  we will be welcoming Sandra Levinson, Vice President of the Alliance for Children Everywhere (ACE). She will be sharing information on how ACE supports the Christian Alliance for Children in Zambia (CACZ), which organizes and supports many programs to nurture and love children in the name of Christ Jesus. The two organizations support the following programs in Lusaka, Zambia:
• Milk & Medicine – Officials from CACZ go into five compounds once a month to deliver supplemental nutrition and medicines to mothers with infants who are registered with the program. Infants are weighed and measured and if a child is not progressing normally then their diet is altered and the assistance is increased.
• House of Moses – provides food and shelter to abused, abandoned, or orphaned children under the age of two. Currently there are 32 children at the House of Moses.
• Bill and Bette Bryant Crisis Nursery – provides food, shelter, and schooling to abused, abandoned, or orphaned children between the ages of two and five. There are currently 25 children at the Crisis Nursery.
• Faith Works schools – these schools are for students in 7th grade or younger, which have been set up in churches in the compounds of Lusaka. Most Zambian children cannot afford to go to school. These Faith Works schools provide access to a quality education the students would not get otherwise.
• Helen DeVos Christian School – this high school (grades 8th – 12th) is an oasis in the middle of the poorest compound in Lusaka. This past year’s graduating class of 43 all passed the country’s national exam and 14 qualified for university enrollment. As part of our Building Capital Campaign, St. Andrews paid to build one of the classroom buildings on the Helen DeVos campus. Additionally, students are fed lunch every day. In many cases, this may be the only meal students eat that day. Supplemental nutrition is provided by gardens the students and staff tend on school grounds and by utilizing Stop Hunger Now meals.
• Change for Children – all of the aforementioned programs are supported by congregational gifts, direct sponsorship, and change for children.

Kim Rometo will also be sharing her experiences from her time in Lusaka this summer. We look forward to seeing you at WOW.

St. Andrews collects Change for Children on the first Sunday of the month in a large woven basket at the front of the church.  We collect our spare change in small baskets woven by Zambian women and then share this on the appointed Sunday.  You can be a part of our efforts which have helped these organizations.  Pick up your own small basket in the Narthex.

Find out more about Change for Children here.