ADVENT FAMILY NIGHT FESTIVITIES AND ALTERNATIVE GIFT FAIR

ADVENT FAMILY NIGHT FESTIVITIES

and ALTERNATIVE GIFT FAIR

Sunday, December 4

Beginning at 5:00 pm (sanctuary)

All are welcome!! 

Plan to invite extended family and friends

Children’s and Youth Choirs present

“Around the World It’s Christmas” with music from

Spain, France, England, Poland and the USA

Also music by the Cherub and Handbell Choirs

Look forward to hearing

“O Little Town of Bethlehem” by the Handbell Choir

There will also be time for congregational carol singing

AFTERWARD, MEET IN FELLOWSHIP HALL FOR

Advent Crafts

Wassail and Fellowship

Decorating of the Fellowship Hall Christmas Tree

Our theme is Christmas Around the World

PLEASE BRING AN ORNAMENT FOR OUR CHRITMAS TREE FROM ANOTHER COUNTRY

 IF YOU CAN FOR A FESTIVE INTERNATIONAL CHRISTMAS TREE!

Music by the Mansfield brass, coordinated by APC member Chuck Reeder

Alternative Giving Opportunities (Fellowship Hall alcove) (please turn over for details)

SHARE TOGETHER IN A FINGER FOOD POTLUCK SUPPER

AND CONVERSATION

Please bring plentiful quantities of finger foods to share:

appetizers, chicken, sandwiches, pizza, veggies, desserts, etc.

THE JOY OF GIVING. . .

2011 Alternative Giving Opportunities

through Ardmore Presbyterian Church

Items listed under Give and Donate will be available for purchase at Advent Family Night and, if supplies last, following worship on Sundays, December 11^th and 18^th.

GIVE. . . in the name of a loved one or friend and make a difference.

Appropriate gift cards will be available to explain gift to recipient.

PROJECT NEEDS FOR CARING HANDS MINISTRY, INDIA

ARUN & SHOBA MASSEY, Directors

To be given in Christ’s name to the children of the Devadasi (temple prostitute) community

$10 = school supplies;  $15 = food supplement;  $15 = saree;  $5 = Christmas gifts

SOLE (Shoe Gift Care Program)

Sole provides Payless gift cards for people who need assistance to buy shoes.  The Philadelphia Presbytery provides these cards to Care Closets, churches and organizations with which they partner. 

$15 = children’s shoes; $18 = women’s shoes; $20 = men’s shoes)

HEIFER PROJECT – “Give the World a Present” (A tradition at APC)

Instead of material gifts, choose to honor your friends, family or business associates with gifts that help struggling families lift themselves out of poverty.

Rabbits, honeybees, tree seedlings and more (Gifts available from $10 to $500)

PURCHASE with a purpose - gifts that help create a sustainable life for others.

FAIR TRADE ITEMS

Fair trade shares the bounty of trade with those who grow the crops.

Olive Oil (750 and 500 ml bottles), organic hot cocoa mix, coffee, candy bars

DONATE. . . gifts allowing your shopping to have a meaningful purpose.

THE MITTEN TREE

Items will be given to Maternity Care Coalition of Philadelphia –

Strengthening families, one baby at a time.

Bring hand-knit or purchased mittens, hats and scarves to decorate the tree in the church entry beginning Sunday, November 27^th (1^st Sunday in Advent). 

JOHN GLOUCESTER HOUSE “HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JESUS” GIFT ITEMS

Provide gifts for children in the Point Breeze community of Philadelphia

Needed: Educational, sports/recreational toys or gift cards for children from 1^st – 8^th grades

Bring unwrapped gifts to Advent Family Night or to the church office by

Monday, December 12^th.

APC Preschool Openings

Hear Yea, Hear Yea,  

Friends and Neighbors, Spread the Word...

APC PRESCHOOL OPENINGS

Spaces available for:

Young Threes

(turning 3 years old between Sept. & Dec.)

2 days: Monday & Friday

and

Pre-K

(turning 4 yrs. old before Sept.)

5 days: M-F

 For information call:

APC Weekday Preschool

610-642-6650

preschool@ardmorepres.org

Job Opening: Director of Youth and Children Ministry

Please pass this information to those who might be interested.

The Ardmore Presbyterian Church in Ardmore, Pennsylvania is seeking a part-time Director of Youth and Children Ministry. The Director reports to the Senior Pastor and maintains key relationships with staff and lay leaders. The Director oversees and develops ministry to our children and youth. In addition, the Director provides for the recruitment and training of all volunteers in these ministries. The part-time position assumes 20 hours a week. For a job description, click here.

Apply by sending a resume to admin@ardmorepres.org.

APC now has its own listserve

What is a listserv? The APC listserv is for the use of Ardmore Presbyterian Church and Weekday Preschool members and friends. This is NOT the official communication of the church.  Instead, it is an online community bulletin board to share information, resources and news. 

How do I become a subscriber? Send an email request to the listserve Administrator at admin@ardmorepres.org.
 

How do I send a message to APC listserv members? You must already be a subscriber then simply type ardmorepres@listserve.com in the "To" line of your message.

Who can I ask if I have questions about the listserv? Church Administrator, Raelyn Harman will oversee the administration of the listserv and will do her best to answer your questions. Either email her at admin@ardmorepres.org or call her at 610-642-6650x10.

What kinds of things are appropriate for posting to the APC listserv community? Announcements, news, information, resource sharing, or a need you'd like to make known and that is of general interest to the APC community (which includes the Weekday Preschool parents). Remember, that putting something on the listserv is equivalent to standing before the entire community and saying it aloud. Be sensitive to the impact of your words. Remember "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." (Luke 6:31)

The APC listserv is not a forum for political or topical debates or for that matter serious discussion. These debates and discussions are important, but they are outside the purpose of this listserv. We hope the listserv will facilitate face to face conversations. It is inappropriate to post negative comments about specific community members (known as flaming).

What happens if I answer a listserv message by hitting "Reply"? Your reply will go only to the person who sent the original message. If you wish to reply publicly to the list, be sure to change the address to ardmorepres@listserv.com. The list is set up this way because it is preferable to say something privately that you meant to say publicly (easily corrected) than to say something publicly that you meant to say privately (not always so easily corrected).

How can I tell when an email message came from the listserv? Each list message will have [ArdmorePres] at the beginning of the subject line. It is crucial that your subject line be succinct and accurate in describing your message. If your subject line is clear, individuals only have to read through messages that pertain to them or they are interested in.

I don't check my e-mail very often, but I'd like to be able to read listserv messages. If you check your e-mail infrequently, it makes the most sense for you to receive your listserv messages in "digest" form (messages will be sent in one bundle when a batch accumulates or at the end of each day, whichever comes first.) You can select this option by clicking on the link that appears at the bottom of each list message, logging into your account, and selecting "On" in the box that says "Set Digest Mode."

How do I unsubscribe from the listserv? Please unsubscribe yourself by going to the address at the bottom of each message. If you use Outlook, the Unsubscribe option is converted to an attachment. You can either open the attachment or request that the Administrator unsubscribe your email address.

Su Voz: Are We Alone?

Su Voz is a devotional produced by the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cuba.  Elisa Menocal is a member of Ardmore Presbyterian Church, and she is serving this year as a translator there.

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ARE WE ALONE?
MATTHEW 28:16-20
“…I am with you always...”
Matthew 28:20

The composer Tchaikovsky was a celebrity in his own country as well as the world over. And yet his success could not free him from the unhealthy anxiety which tormented him.  He felt alone and in great distress.  He wrote about the score of a melody in D minor. “Only the lonely heart can understand my anguish.”
 
Many people suffer from loneliness:  the widow who spends many long hours by herself, the prisoner who lies in his cell, the husband whose wife left him, the woman left alone in her apartment, the child whose parents are about to divorce, the mother whose children have left her side, the patient in the hospital at night, etc.
 
Are you one of those who feel alone?  Do the hours seem to go by in slow motion? 

Are you waiting for something without knowing what it is? God knows.  He is sensitive to your loneliness.  During the hours on the cross, the Lord Jesus knew what it meant to feel alone.  He was hanging between the sky and the earth and was receiving the punishment that our sins deserved.  And in the anguish of the moment he cried out:  “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46)  His cry was left unanswered.  But He was there only so that you and I never would have to.  Never again has he been alone.  Jesus Christ lives, He knows you, He loves you, and He is always at your side.

PRAYER:  Receive our prayer, beloved Christ, because we feel your company at all times.  Amen.

Translated by:
Elisa Menocal, M.A.
Visiting Professor of English
Evangelical Theological Seminary
Matanzas, Cuba

With Love from Cuba # 7-The Seminary, Matanzas, Monday, October 24, 2011

All my money was stolen on Saturday. I’m still a bit too upset to properly state just the facts, but I’ll try.  A week ago, my daughter had wired me money to the local Western Union office in Matanzas (there are 2) which was automatically converted into convertible Cuban pesos (CUCs).  This is by far the best way to exchange US currency into Cuban currency, because the exchange rate is nearly 1:1 minus a Western Union fee of $80 per transaction.  I had left most of the money inside of a zippered colorful Guatemalan fabric wallet, which I had placed on a wall-mounted shelf where I kept everything other than clothes: all of my books, folders, teaching materials, jewelry, mosquito repellant, etc.  The outside door of the apartment was bashed in hard enough to completely break off the entire lock and chain, which were on the floor behind it.  The break-in took place in broad daylight, sometime between 11 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. 

The Cuban police are a work of art.  This would make for a great new CSI- Special Edition: Cuba episode.  They were finger-printing and taking photographs and interviewing me until 11 p.m. and were back again today for another hour or so, with the prosecuting as well as the defending attorneys already assigned to the case.  The first thing the district attorney wanted to establish is how long I planned to be in Cuba, for when the case comes to trial.    The police detective who interviewed me and wrote out the entire report longhand for me to sign on Saturday night also returned today and I kept staring at him because he reminded me of someone.  The four of them were invited to join us for lunch in the Dining Hall, and after one more look at him I had it figured out.  I asked him whether he had ever heard of the American comedian Bill Cosby.  He had!  I told him he looked almost exactly like the actor who played the role of the teenage son in the long-running television series titled “The Bill Cosby Show.”  I asked them if they had internet access and they did, and told them to Google it to find a photo of the actor, whose first name I think is Jerome.  

Who can tell me the full name of this actor and how old he is today?  Send me a photo, please, so that I can show it to the police team.  They will be thrilled.

 Tuesday, November 1, 2011:  Yesterday I moved all of my belongings for the second time since the break-in, into another much larger, much more secure, and more modern apartment.   It is the apartment that the Seminary has been using to house the specially-invited foreign guests for short periods of time.  It is quadruple the size of my first apartment.   Most of the walls have fresh paint, a color of which my daughters might approve, i.e. not ‘eggshell’.  The floors are all 12”x12” ceramic tile, white and beige.  The bathroom’s walls and shower stall have square foot blue ceramic tiles,  an American showerhead with good 2^nd floor water pressure, a pedestal sink and mirror, and a toilet with a push-button flush on the top of the tank which actually works (most of the others around the seminary do not)  and with minimal rust stains in the bowl.   The bedroom has a nice double bed and a large air-conditioning unit.  The living room is furnished with a typically Cuban matching set of 2 rockers and 2 straight-back chairs, with woven seats and backs, and glass-topped coffee table.   The eat-in kitchen has another carved-wood table and set of 4 chairs, which I am using as my desk for now as I type this.   There is a microwave!  The refrigerator is a good size but only the top freezer part is working and I have to keep the bottom part slightly open so that it doesn’t roar.  There is one electrician who comes to work at the Seminary one day a week, and he has a huge backlog of broken fans, air-conditioners, rice-makers, washing machines, etc. to fix.    Luckily, the only thing I have to cook and refrigerate is my own homemade cat food.  And the dining room ladies love me because when they asked me,  I had antacid tablets and Ibuprofen and ballpoint pens to give them, and the I showed them the baby books Ashley made of the grandbabies, so they give me lots of leftovers to feed Semi.   Oh—and the Dining Room Lady in Charge, who is called “Mamita” by nearly everyone, told me that her real name is “Julia” and she hates it.  So I took my laptop over to the Seminary Kitchen and played John Lennon’s song for her, and the rest of the kitchen staff gathered around to listen, and since John Lennon is an iconic martyr only second to Che Guevara in this country, you can imagine the outcome.  She now proudly answers me when I call her Julia, British pronunciation, of course.

 I am told that this will be my home until the end of my stay at the seminary.   My new little Cuban Siamese kitten loves the new place.  There is a brick-floored outdoor laundry patio off the kitchen with an old-fashioned double-sink.  I just found enough plastic-covered old wire to attach to the aluminum slats in the windows diagonally crossing between the living room and the kitchen, to create a clothesline.   I feed the cat on this outdoor porch, because of the ants.  (One drop of anything edible, liquid or solid, on any surface anywhere, will immediately attract literally hundreds of little ants.) 

 Last night Semi caught something that looked like a cross between a flattened slug, a huge leech, and an enormous cockroach.  He brought it inside to play with it.  I took one look at the thing and picked him up with it in his mouth and put them both outside.   By the time I came back with a piece of toilet paper in hand to flush the thing away, it looked like Semi (short for Seminario) was literally licking his lips.  When I described the disgusting creature to my neighbors, I was told that it was todo muslo “all muscle, highly rich in protein, a healthy treat for a cat.” 

Also last night, I and several others experienced the worst thunder and lightning storm of our lives.   It lasted for hours and was followed by torrential downpours.   Today it was all that people were talking about.  We are more susceptible to lightning and thunder because of our location at the highest point of land, combined with a lot of very tall trees.   At my house in Haverford, I would grab a daughter or a cat and run out to enjoy any summer or winter storm from the comfort of a porch swing and the relative safety of a covered balcony.  Last night, I grabbed the cat for dear life.

By the way, Semi knows who broke down the door and robbed my money.  I had left him behind to nap. A friend and I went walking down to the farmers’ market over the bridge at the bottom end of our street, then alongside the river San Juan to the Matanzas Bay.  We walked along the bay to eat lunch at a state-owned restaurant (it takes moneda nacional, Cuban pesos, and is thus affordable even for a student) overlooking a small half-moon beach.

The Rector (who is the CEO of the Seminary) had been traveling abroad during the robbery, but upon his return he immediately called me to his office to discuss the robbery.  The Seminary does not carry insurance, but he offered to try to raise enough to reimburse me.   Instead, we recalculated the sum totals of expenditures directly related to my stay, such as monthly fees for the religious visa, transportation to and from the airport in Havana, and paying back the deacon for the money he had loaned me to hold me until my daughter wired me more money via Western Union.   The totals were close enough to one another and we agreed that it was a fair arrangement.  The Rector feels that even if the police catch the thief, the money will have been spent.  The police told me that the thief has to pay the money back a bit at a time. 

I am thankful that all that was taken from my apartment was cash.  My laptop was untouched right on the desk; my digital camera right next to it.  The case with my jewelry had been opened but nothing was taken.  The thief took my Spanish-English dictionary and my bible off the desk and placed them on the floor behind the broken door so that it would not be entirely open.   So what I saw when I returned to little apartment was my Semi sitting, quite calmly, right inside the opening of the broken door left slightly ajar. 

My life is just now beginning to get back to whatever was starting to become normal before the break-in.  The next episode will have to do a bit of back-tracking so that I can finish telling you about the Cuban Pony Express, the 3 days spent at our grandmother’s house on the beach in Varadero with my cousin Alicia,  the visit from my 4 students so that we could go ‘swimming in English,’  and last week’s class where I decided to show them the documentary film made in 1992 about my aunt.  We discussed their reaction to the film in today’s class.  Tomorrow they turn in something in writing.  Thus far, since I’m making up the course as we go along, the emphasis has been mostly on verbal communication.  The end of the trimester is already on November 25^th and I have yet to give them a grade for any written work. 

I apologize for the mass-mailing, but if you write to me individually, I will of course email you back in private.

With love from Cuba

Elisa

Minute for Stewardship: Director of Youth and Children Ministry

presented in worship on November 6, 2011...

Good morning.

As members of the congregation, we all make a promise to our children at their Baptism:

Do we the members of the Church of Jesus Christ, promise to guide and nurture [this child] by word and deed, with love and prayer, encouraging this child to know and follow Christ and to be a faithful member of his Church

I am here this morning as a child of this church who was baptized and confirmed here and attended Sunday School and Youth Fellowship. As a mother, I volunteered as a Sunday School teacher for 20 years and for the last 9 years, I have participated as a member of the CEC. The education of our children and youth are very important to the future of our congregation. As the leader of the Christian Education Committee and as a member of this congregation who contemplates my stewardship responsibilities at this time each year, just as we all do, I would like to share with you our need, as a congregation to financially support the expanded role of our Director of Youth and Children Ministries.

As you know, our Christian Education director, Kristen Thomas-Clarke, moved on in September to a new position in her field of library sciences, and we need to fill her position. Kristen’s position was officially compensated for 10 hours a week. She also volunteered many additional hours. This position is responsible for recruiting, training and leading a small army of 20-30 volunteers to teach our children and run their fellowship activities. This position is also responsible for selecting our educational materials, developing materials for our annual Spiritual Enrichment Retreat and Vacation Bible School. This position also participates as a member of the Christian Education Committee.

After reviewing the job responsibilities, and thoughtful and prayerful discussion, the Christian Education Committee recommended to the Session that to effectively keep our promise to “encourage our children to know and follow Christ and to be a faithful member of his Church” we need to expand and strengthen the children and youth program offerings. In order to accomplish this, we need to increase the hours of this role by adding 10 hours a week to the Director of Youth and Children Ministries. . . . . . . .taking it to a 20 hour a week position.

 At their August Session meeting, the Session approved the job description for the Director of Youth and Children Ministries voting to increase the hours of the Director position from 10 hours a week to 20 hours a week. At the September Session meeting, Session agreed to increase the compensation commensurate with the increase in hours.

To attract a candidate that has an education and experience in Youth ministries, we need to offer a competitive compensation package.  This commitment will result in a total of 20 hours a week and an increase to our budget of $10,000/year for a total compensation package of $20,000/year. We believe that 20 hours/week will meet the needs of our congregation and that this compensation level is in line with comparable positions elsewhere in the Presbytery.

As members of this congregation, we have a responsibility to support the programs that are critical to the success of our ministries. We do this by volunteering and by our financial support. Each of us needs to give prayerful thought to how we can best contribute to Ardmore Presbyterian’s ministries. $10,000 is a lot of money to raise, but think about it this way. . . That’s only $1.60 per week from each family in the church.  Without this additional support, the funding would have to be allocated from other areas within the church that also depend upon our membership’s stewardship for their ministries and programs.   

As you consider your stewardship commitment for the coming year, please consider increasing your pledge and including in that increase $1.60 a week to fund the compensation of this critical position.

The Christian Education Committee prays for you as you weigh the importance of this need to the future of the Ardmore Presbyterian Church.

Thank you.

Kathy Toal

Moderator, Christian Education Committee