4 Huge Events

Come and See what the Lord will do.

1-Day, all-day Vacation Bible School in Humeston at the Christian United Methodist Church. Saturday July 11th. Bring kids. Come help, or just be there to witness, share, encourage.

Ice Cream Social at the Presbyterian Church in LeRoy, Sunday July 12th, at 4:00 pm until 6 or 7 or so, sandwiches and desserts included. FWO

Humeston Watermelon Day Saturday July 18 - all day and night in the park.

Church in the Park, in Humeston at 10:00 am Sunday July 19th. Combined services offered by the Baptist and Christian/United Methodist churches.

Golf Outing

David Street, Lew Hickok, Dan White and Kevin Cline represented Humeston CUMC at the annual golf outing sponsored by the Uppermidwest Region of the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ in Norwalk. Pastor Dale rode along. The team shot 7-under par and tied for 2nd with 4 other teams, but came up short of any prizes when the tie-breakers were applied.

David Street did win a prize - for his drive on one of the par 3 holes landing closest to the pin. Congratulations Dave. Perfect day!

Day 3 - VBS at Garden Grove June 22-26

3rd day of VBS in Garden Grove. It just gets better and better. 15 kids tonight learning that Jesus gives them the Power to be Brave. Made slime for crafts. Yucky fun. Then outside for water balloons.

Kids keep requesting this energetic VBS version of There's Power in the Blood.

Day 2 - VBS at Garden Grove June 22-26

More kids tonight - 17. Wow! PTL. The theme was "Helping Others" and was based on the story of Jesus healing the blind man.

PB&J & chips for dinner. Chocolate pudding (mud) for snacks. Do you remember that in the Jesus story he healed the blind man by making mud and putting it on his eyes?

Couldn't go outdoors for games due to rain with lightening, so played Knots. Old game but new to everyone there and lots of fun.

More than doubled the weight of the coins everyone brought and last night the boys coins outweighed the girls. The money will be used to help Marion Missions build Shallow Wells in Malawi, Africa.

Watch video clips.

Day 1 - VBS at Garden Grove June 22-26

What a great start to a promising week. 11 children and lots of great help made our first night a real winner.

Sandwiches for dinner. Power Lab lesson was "Always Be Thankful" using the story of Jesus and the 10 Lepers Cleansed. Games & Crafts.

Mission focus on Marion Missions building Shallow Wells in Malawi Africa. Girls loose coin offering was 8 oz. and boys only 6 oz. The race is on, but we already know the winners will be the small children in Africa who live due to having the clean water our well will provide.

Watch video clips.

One Big Sunday

It was a big day in the parish Sunday. We had a beautiful Communion Service at LeRoy and enjoyed having visiting relatives join us. That was the early service. And then back to LeRoy for the parish potluck at noon. I went back for seconds on the ham balls and the spaghetti. Skipped the pie but somehow ended up with 3 pieces of cake on my plate. How'd that happen?

At Humeston we celebrated the Sacrament of Baptism, baptizing Juan and Jennifer's infant daughter Carlee. Baptism is such a beautiful and holy time.

Another Humeston treat was hearing from Diane. We love to hear from her, but will miss that privilege now that she is answering the call of God to enter the United Methodist ministry. In her parting remarks she particularly acknowledge a couple church members who 15 years ago began encouraging her to consider this path she is now pursuing. We will be posting her remarks.

What we cannot post, but only remember, are the few held back tears, lots of hugs, a Cokesbury Book Store gift card and Diane's reminder about the Bishop's Fit Challenge.

A last event in that Humeston service was the total surprise for Pastor Dale of the United Methodist Women Special Mission Award recognizing his commitment to ministries with women, children and youth.

Something Needs to Be Said

The Artist's Statement interprets the Pentecost story as Radical Hospitality using "color theory." Check out the chairs, the table. Listen for where you might sit and with whom you might sit.

Something needs to be said.

Radical Hospitality, Receiving God's Grace was the Theme of the 2009 Iowa Annual Conference. What is Radical Hospitality? Is there any Radical Hospitality in us?

Allow yourself 13 minutes and listen.

Christian Church Upper Midwest Update

Lots of changes here. The offices have been moved from Des Moines to the Christian Conference Center in Newton. Phone 515-255-3168. And Connie Derby Dicks is the new Administrative Coordinator for Ministries. Email cddumw@gmail.com.

Do you want to receive regular email updates? Let Connie know.

Bill Spangler-Dunning is the Lead Transitional Regional Minister and President. See his latest podcast (video update) here. Don Hiscox continues as the Associate Regional Minister but with duties re-defined more in support of clergy and churches than program. Bert Burns is the Christian Conference Center Director.

Global Mission partners continue to be Doug & Liz Searles (China), Bruce & Linda Hanson (Hondoras), John Campbell-Nelson (Indonesia), and Shannon Walker (Dominican Republic).

Is Your Computer a Tool of God's Ministry to You?

Emails. Do you receive emails that inspire you? That touch your need? That call you back to the basics of faith, family, and nation? Isn’t it amazing how timely some of them are? Please forward your favorites to Amanda Wetterling at the church office, trinityparish@iowatelecom.net. For her to post on the “Inspirations from United Trinity Parish” page as encouragement to others.

Are there inspirational sites you bookmark as favorites and visit often? Send them to Amanda so she can share them with the whole church family.

The parish webpage. For the past month Pastor Dale has been using the new Humeston Parish E-News (http://trinityparish.blogspot.com) to report on the day-to-day activities of our two churches. Check out the link to it on the blog. And oh my gosh! Have you seen the new link to Pauline (Gibbs) Williams “Humeston My Hometown” web page. History of both churches can be found there. You will absolutely love it. If you do visit the site, scroll to the bottom and check out the Firefighters site as well. You can email updates directly to her.

Blog. Every day or so Pastor Dale is adding to the church Blog, http://trinityparish.blogspot.com which we are now calling Humeston Parish Churches Online. We are calling it that so that the Google and Yahoo search engines will list our site on their first page when people search for churches in Humeston.

We’ve added a new page – the Humeston Parish E-News. We are trying hard to let you know what we have done as soon as we have done it – faster than a speeding New Era. Also we are trying to identify more clearly in the email notices we send you what the news items are about so you can quickly decide whether to you want to read them or not.

Twitter. Pastor Dale is now using twitter.com to highlight upcoming events and activities at the church. You can “following” him or the church. Sign up for your own free twitter account at www.twitter.com and then choose to follow either HumestonParish or DaleOConnell. If you follow HumestonParish you will get all parish announcements, but only those announcements. If you follow DaleOConnell you will get his announcements, parish announcements, and twitter posts from other members and friends. Either way, it’s easy to learn and really kind of fun.

Facebook. And for those of you enjoying your Facebook page, invite Dale O’Connell as a friend. You can also read his own personal blog at http://theblueheron.blogspot.com.

Stan Has Friends

I met with Stan today. He's preaching this coming Sunday, as I will be attending the Iowa Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. We planned out the service and I learned that Stan is going to talk about some of his friends.

If you are one of Stan's friends you might want to be here to defend yourself. Or, just come and listen to some good stories.