Thank you, thank you, thank you! The celebration of 30 years in ministry together last weekend was wonderful! Yinz (that is how they say “y’all” in Pittsburgh) look good in black and gold, and we will look forward to attending the game in Pittsburgh in our new Steeler jerseys! Thank you for all the love and support across the years and for daring to take a chance on a young pastor who was only two years into ordained ministry. Thank you to Rae for striking just the right balance in the sermon and to the choir for singing that anthem that is near and dear to my heart. Karen and I are grateful that God called us here to serve with you, for it has been and continues to be a blessing to us both! Thank you too for the collection of cleaning kits, laundry supplies, and money for the Decapolis project. What a wonderful way to celebrate our shared ministry! Thirty years ago, our Outreach budget was $22,000 a year; this year the budget is $90,000, and with additional gifts to special offerings, Glorious Gifts, and Four Cents Per Meal, our total giving to minister to our neighbors in need in our community and far beyond approaches $120,000! We have long-standing relationships with Crystal and Raph in Nigeria and our mission partners in Illubabor Synod in Ethiopia. We have built houses in Baja and provided warm coats for those being released from prison. We regularly collect cleaning supplies and paper products for Valley Mission, food for the Verona Food Pantry, and toiletry items and snacks for Shelburne Middle School. We recycle plastic into park benches and distribute food to our Hispanic neighbors. We serve meals at Trinity Soup Kitchen and read to children at Community Child Care Center. We share our facilities with countless non-profit groups in our community and annually host Helping Hands and the NAACP Prayer Breakfast. We provide scholarships for children to attend our preschool who otherwise could not afford to do so, and we have helped resettle families from Bosnia, Liberia, and Afghanistan as they found a home in the United States. All these out-reach ministries are our attempts to love our neighbors in tangible ways as Jesus calls us to do. Your generous support in sharing your time and talents and giving to the General Fund makes that possible. As we look to the future, we trust that God will continue to work in us and through us to do good, to worship with joy, to grow in faith, and to serve together as instruments of God’s grace, peace, and love to our neighbors down the street and across the world. I look forward to sharing in that journey with you this year and in the years ahead!
— John Peterson
