Mt

at Mt. Joy – St. Paul’s

Sunday, November 30, Advent Celebration

Sunday, December 14: Youth Sunday, Pizza, Caroling Hayride (1 pm)

Parish is invited

Sunday, December 21, 7p.m. - St. Paul’s Christmas Pageant & Carols

Wednesday, December 24, 7:30p.m. Mt. Joy Christmas Pageant & Carols

December 24, 9:30 p.m.- Christmas Eve Holy Communion – St. Paul’s

"God walked down the stairs of heaven

with a Baby in His arms."
~ Paul Scherer

ANNOUNCEMENTS

New Member Class Forming – Come join us!

Please call the office (717-334-8585) to pre-register. 2-session Class includes a dinner with leaders and will be planned according to participants’ schedules.

St. Paul’s Ladies’Aid Christmas Party Dec. 2 at 6:30. Bring a $5 gift.

Mt. Joy LCW Christmas Luncheon Dec. 3, 12:00 Noon, General Pickett’s. All church ladies welcome!

Mt. Joy Sunday School Association will trim the Christmas tree on Dec. 13^th at 11:00 with a pizza party to follow. All help is welcome. Our thanks again this year to Dave and Donna Maring and family for the beautiful tree!

St. Paul’s last sub sale of the year deadline Nov. 30 to Ruth Hoffman. Subs will be made and delivered on Thurs. Dec. 11^th.

Mt. Joy LCW will meet at Green Acres on Jan. 7 at 1:30 for a hymn sing. All are welcome to join us.

MJ Sunday School Association will meet on Jan. 12^th, 2009 at 6:30 to take down the Christmas tree followed by the regular meeting at the Parish House.

COMING UP!

Elections of new Council members - Dec 14

Mt. Joy’s Council Retreat – January 17, 11-2

St. Paul’s Council Retreat – January 24, 12 – 3.

Mt. Joy’s Annual Meeting -January 25, 2009.

Parish Council meets at St. Paul’s on Jan 29 at 7pm.

St. Paul’s Annual Meeting - February 1, 2009.

SOUPER BOWL IS COMING! February 1

Prayer Requests - call Janet Maring (717-334-6439) or Shirley Staley (717- 334-1737). Request may be health matter or any concern, Please have address information ready, as a prayer card is sent. Please advise us when to remove names from list.

If you or your loved one are admitted to the hospital, please call the church office (717-334-8585) to let Pastor Faye know. Please call upon discharge.

CHRISTMAS CHILD THANK YOU: We would like to thank all who donated items for Christmas Child Boxes and who helped fill them. 92 boxes will be sent to needy children because of your work in this very worthwhile ministry. Thank you!

Betty and John Ridinger

BASKET BINGO THANK YOU: Brenda and I would like to thank all who volunteered your help for St. Paul’s Basket Bingo on October 3, 2008. Your excellent support meant so much more than any one word could ever express.

Thanks again so very much for everything!

God Bless, Bingo Chairman, Daniel Keeney

CHICKEN BARBEQUE THANK YOU: Thank you to all who bought or sold dinners, cleaned/baked potatoes, donated drinks/supplies, money, cleaned the parish hall, or assembled the dinners for Mt. Joy’s Chicken Barbeque, Nov. 1. Approximately 90% of Mt. Joy’s members participated this year. What a team effort!

This is Mt. Joy’s only fund raiser and funds are matched by Thrivent. All profits will benefit parish hall renovations. Special thank you to:

Hoss’s Steak & Seahouse, Gettysburg, Pa.

Mott’s Inc. and Stewardship Committee

Total dinners sold – 275 @ $7.00 each $1925.00

Cost of chicken (prepared) - $ 962.50

Total profit from dinners $ 962.50

Cash donations $ 112.00

Total Profit $1074.50

Pat Johnson, Chairperson

Mt. Joy Sunday School’s Halloween party Oct 25^th. Games were played, refreshments were served – everyone had a great time! Thanks to all who helped out and to all who attended! Prizes for costumes were awarded as follows-

Cole Lambert – Youngest (scarecrow)

Kaitlyn Martin –Prettiest (cheer leader for the Steelers)

Ben Klingensmith – Ugliest (soldier)

Ryan Birckhead – scariest (Harry Potter)

Tiffany Cool – cutest (Bunny)

Kaileigh Birckhead and Rianna White – best couple (2 little fairies)

Conner Lambert – most original (Karate boy).

Michele Weikert (witch) and Mike Henry (Patrick the starfish) - honorable mention for adults in costume.

FROM PASTOR ANDA WILHELM

It's a cool autumn night in southeastern North Dakota where corn, soybeans, sugar beets, and sunflowers are being combined as quickly as the farm machinery can do it. Rain comes often and saturates the fields of such huge proportions it's absolutely mind boggling. It's absolutely beautiful countryside, very expansive and wide open. mainly flat topography with many sloughs, pheasants, waterfowl, cattle, and even bison. Currently the hues remind us of southcentral PA with the exception there are few maple trees here to provide red coloration. Sumacs elicit the ruby tones. We've been attempting to stock our cupboards and freezers for winter weather which we've been warned can be quite hazardous.

Our nearest large grocery store is a super Wal-Mart in Wahpeton, a small town of about 10,000. Fargo, 90,000, is eighty miles away. We're not wanting to be out on the open highways in unpredictable weather so we'll stock up on the expensive items and get fresh produce/dairy from our little SuperValue grocery that's located inside the convenience gas station. Yes, North Dakotans are quite creative and self-reliant.

Gustaf Adolf Lutheran Church is located in a small town of about 1,100 in southeastern North Dakota.

We're fifty miles west of Wahpeton which is on the eastern ND/MD border and twenty miles north of SD. The congregation is of Swedish Lutheran heritage, having organized in the late 1890's. The ELCA trend report states there are 559 baptized members, 417 confirmed members, with an average weekly attendance of 81 (2007 records). So far the largest attendance for our single service was 162, with an additional 20-30 children arriving for Sunday School. SS alone has 60-70 children enrolled. Tradition plays a large role in the history and functioning of this congregation. The annual lutefisk dinner will occur this Sunday, Reformation Sunday. You already know what gets top billing....the lutefisk, lefse, Swedish meatballs, etc. The dinner has been held since 1936 and while interest has waned, the Men's Group is willing to host it again.

( Letter to be continued in Jan. Mason-Dixon Line)

Peace+

Pastor Anda Wilhelm

“Feeding the Flock”

MJSP Parish Cook Book this Christmas

Just $10.oo

Bonnie Brown 717- 334- 8998

Pam Yingling 717-337-9957

Mt. Joy sun catchers/ornaments - A great gift

Fish, angels and doves created from stained glass removed from Mt. Joy windows are $20 each. See Betsy Reisinger or call 410-756-1669 or the Church Office, 717-334-8585. Checks payable to Mt. Joy Church, mark ‘Evangelism’ on bottom left.

PARENTS

Want a Day Out to Go Out

Shopping, Partying, Visiting,

or just have some Time for Yourselves?

We have YOUR SOLUTION

FUN FOR KIDS ~ FUN FOR YOU!

Dec. 19, 4pm – 10pm

Childcare will be offered

At Mt. Joy Parish House

By the Jesus, Justice, Jazz Youth Gathering Team

Organized Activities~ Snacks Provided

$10/hr – adjustments made for additional children from same family

Adults will be present at all times

To God’s People at Mt. Joy and St. Paul’s

From Pastor Faye Snyder and

Mt. Joy and St. Paul’s Church Councils

A Holy and Blessed

Text Box:

Christmas Season

St. Paul’s Mt. Joy

Guy Kump, Pres. Bonnie Brown, Pres.

Walter Dayett Travis Dutterer

Glenn Fream Fred Kehne

Michael Hohenstein Pat Johnson Bonnie Little Judy Miller

Evelyn Parrish Kathryn Weikert

Kristina Rodgers Michele Weikert

Shirley Staley Rodney Wolf, Jr.

Bishop Hanson’s 2008 Christmas Message

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” ~ Luke 2:15

Let’s go! Now! When angels came to some shepherds with a brilliant message one night long ago, the shepherds had a brilliant idea. Let’s go! Let’s see what God is doing!

The unknown dangers of the night did not hold them back. Perhaps they knew that some of God’s best work is done under the cover of darkness — the creation of all things, wrestling with Jacob, Israel’s escape from slavery.

Or maybe they didn’t. Maybe all they needed was the announcement of what God was up to this time. This time God would be conducting a rescue like none before — saving the whole world, bringing peace and goodwill. Once again it’s an undercover operation — God hidden deep in the flesh and working “under the sign of opposites” (as Martin Luther called it). Arriving as a baby in diapers, God’s Son recruited tax collectors and fishermen, social misfits and despised sinners in a rescue mission that culminated in the hidden power of the cross.

What if the shepherds had yawned, “That’s interesting, some other time,” and remained sitting in the night, in the dirt, in the comfort of predictable hardships and familiar enemies? Would promised joy have found them anyway?

Let’s not test that speculation with our lives. Let’s go! Let’s see what God is doing!

The Rev. Mark S. Hanson
Presiding Bishop
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

The Emmitsburg Community Chorus presents its Annual Christmas Concert on Sunday, December 7, 2008 at 3:00 pm at the Basilica of the National Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, 333 South Seton Avenue, Emmitsburg, MD. Frankie Fields, Arlene Hofe, Shirley Staley and Shirley Waybright, and Kathryn Weikert sing with the chorus and would love to have you attend.