December 2008
Holiday Thanks
Thank you to everyone who helped on November 30 to decorate the meetinghouse for the Christmas season, and to all who are providing 30+ memorial poinsettias to beautify the sanctuary throughout December.  Please let them remind you to pray often for those who mourn the deaths of loved ones especially sensitively during the holiday season.
 
 
Christmas Card Exchange Table
Starting December 7, you are welcome to save postage expense by bringing your Christmas cards for others in the Meeting to the Card Exchange Table in the parlor.  Please be sure to check the table each Sunday in December to see if there are items waiting there for you.
Holiday Dinner December 7!
Come feast with Friends at the church's annual Thanksgiving-Christmas dinner to be held December 7 after the Sunday School hour (approximately 11:30 AM). The Welcome Class is providing the meat courses, bread, drinks, and table service. Everyone attending is asked to bring salad, vegetable, and/or dessert dishes (if you are able) to share potluck style. Please join us!
 
Christmas Stocking Offering
The USFW is again sponsoring an offering to buy Christmas gifts for a cottage of kids at White's Residential & Family Services near Wabash.  You may help fill the "offering stocking" in the Holiday Dinner line on December 7, or give your donation to the church office.
 
 
December Monthly Meeting For Business
The December Monthly Meeting for Business will be held right after the Holiday Dinner on December 7.  Everyone is asked to stay to attend Business Meeting, which will include consideration and approval of the 2009 budget.  Please plan to participate.

 
 
Book Discussion December 7
The Book Discussion Group will meet at the parsonage at 6:30 PM on December 7 to discuss Mildred A. Kalish's Little Heathens:  Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression.  We also will choose the group's next book(s) to read through the winter.  Please join us for interesting discussion, fellowship, and snacks, even if you haven't yet read Little Heathens.
 
 
Cantata Choir Rehearsal Schedule
Wednesdays December 3 and 10 -- 7:00 PM
Saturday December 13 -- 1:00 - 3:00 PM
 
 
 
William Penn Class Dinner December 14
The William Penn Sunday School Class will hold their Christmas dinner at the Summers Pointe assisted living center on Sunday December 14 at 12:30 PM.  Please make reservations with Delilah Wilkinson (584-5690).
 
 
Christmas Program & Holiday Desserts
The joint Winchester Friends/Rural Friends choir will present the cantata Come to the Manger (Mark Hayes) at Winchester Friends on December 14 at 6:30 PM.  The service will conclude with a candlelight meditation, followed by sharing of everyone's favorite Holiday Desserts downstairs.  Please invite a friend, bring a plate of your most enticing Christmas sweets or savory finger-foods to share, and join us for this evening of worship, music, and fellowship.
  
 
Birthday Party for Jesus December 21
The Christian Education Committee invites all kids (from age 3 up through 5th graders) to the Junior Church
 Birthday Party for Jesus during the 9:15 AM worship hour on Sunday December 21.  There will be a Christmas Bible lesson, games, refreshments, and gifts for all the kids.  Don't miss it!  Invite a friend!
  

 
Community Christmas Food Baskets
Winchester's Community & Family Services (the agency that operates the Community Food Pantry) seeks the help of area churches for their 2008 Christmas Basket program, which aims to help 350 local families needing assistance during the holidays.  CFS asks for donations of canned and dry food items, plus money for the purchase of perishable and supplemental items, to be turned in to the church office by December 8.  Volunteers are invited to help sort and count the food items from 6-9 PM on December 11 at the 4-H Fairgrounds; to pack the boxes on December 15 from 6-9 PM, also at the fairgrounds; and to deliver the food boxes from the fairgrounds at 9 AM on December 20.  Any excess food items collected will be donated to the ongoing Community Food Pantry.  If you would like to help in some way, please phone AnnMarie Browne at 584-3666 or e-mail: amb1824@globalsite.net

  

 
Angel Tree Project
Through this Quaker-initiated program, children of income-qualified Randolph County families receive Christmas gifts from anonymous donors.  You may pick up an Angel Tree angel detailing gift suggestions for one local child at either the courthouse, SVR Hospital, or Wal-Mart.  Please do not wrap the gifts (but wrapping paper may be included if you'd like).  Your purchases and the angel must be turned in to the courthouse, Wal-Mart, or Winchester Friends (no matter where you got the angel) by December 15.
 
 

 
USFW December News
The evening United Society of Friends Women group decorated a tree and a wreath for the county extension service's Time for Trees auction held on November 20, raising $70 for the local Community Food Pantry.
 
The afternoon and evening USFWs held their annual combined Christmas dinner meeting on December 2 at the home of Virginia Densmore.  The groups approved donating $300 to the Community & Family Services Christmas Basket project, $500 to the Gas Help Fund, $500 to the Community Food Pantry, and $400 to USFW International for FUM missions needs.  They also will supplement the December 7 Stocking Offering for Whites Residential & Family Services.
 
USFW 2009 Planner:  The Evening USFW will meet at 7 PM on Tuesday January 13 at the church, and the Afternoon USFW will meet Wednesday January 14 at 1:30 PM, also at the church.
 
USFW Holiday Apple Dumplings:  Around 200 frozen apple dumplings remain in the church basement storeroom freezer, ready to bake for your Christmas/ New Year's dinners ($1.50 each).  Cinnamon and caramel sauce recipe copies (free!) are available above the freezer.
 

 
Energy Assistance Program
For Friends' convenience, Anne Riddle offers to help them fill out and submit applications for the government's Energy Assistance Program.  This program provides subsidies for the heating and electric bills of households whose size and total income is at or below the following guidelines:  1 person - $15,600;  2 persons - $21,000;  3 persons - $26,400;  4 persons - $31,800;  additional persons - $5400 each.  Applicants must provide documentation of household income, Social Security numbers, birthdates, and a current electric and/or heating bill.   If you would like Anne's help with this application process, you are welcome to phone her (584-4585) to set up an appointment.

 
Committees' December Hiatus
Christian Education, Trustees, Missions & Social Concerns, and Ministry & Oversight committees do not plan to meet this month due to all the holiday activities.  Regular meeting schedules will resume in January 2009.
 
Bulletin Cover Art Sought
The Ministry & Oversight invites artistic Friends in our Meeting to work this winter on designs for Sunday bulletin covers (drawings, photographs, kids' refrigerator art, other artwork, accompanied by favorite Bible verses, etc.) that could be produced in-house using the office computer and photocopier.  Starting in April, we will save part of the expense of commercially-printed worship folders by producing half of each Sunday's bulletins using our own artists' covers.  (Color artwork is welcome, but for now the copies will be black and white.)  The artwork should fit in a 5 1/2" X 8 1/2" space, allowing a little room also for text to be printed.  Please contact Pam Ferguson with your questions and ideas, or submit your artwork to the church office.
 
Congratulations!
to Rachel and Gabe Tudor (of Canton, OH) on the birth of their daughter Lily Beth on November 3, and to grandparents Mary and Jeff Clark of our Meeting!

 

 
-Notes-
Thank you to all who gave to the "Open Bible" offering on November 16 for Gideons International.  $474 was received for their ministry of scripture distribution. 
 
Thank you to the numerous Friends who gave many hours for moving, sorting, cleaning, displaying, and distributing toys, then cleaning up after the Toy Connection ministry held December 3.
 
Celebrate the Arts:  Share your musical or nonmusical artistic abilities in praise to the Lord to enhance Friends' worship experience on the last Sunday of each month when the choir does not sing.  Sign the sheet in the church parlor, or phone the office to choose a date.
 
FOAM (Fast Once A Month) with Winchester Quarterly Meeting Friends to address hunger -- skip a meal each month, donate its cost to the FOAM Fund, and use the time saved to advocate for compassionate public policy and to pray for those who suffer.
 
Shareholders in Shalom stocking stuffers (books, crocheted items, cutting boards, greeting cards, first aid kits for your car's glove box) are available in the parlor.  This year's profits go to the Mennonite meat canning ministry that distributes food to people in natural disaster and conflict situations in ways that promote peace.
 
Locally raised/processed beef is available to Friends at cost from the church storage room freezer.  Donations for Norman Peters' farm-raised rabbit meat (also in the freezer) will go to the local food pantry.

 
 
The Season of Giving
God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.... Now He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness.  You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and....your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.       (II Corinthians 9:8-11)
 
Friends are invited to participate in the 2008 Christmas Envelope Offering for Missions both to express your own gratitude and to "result in thanksgiving to God" in several current situations of need as detailed below.  Please use the special Christmas Offering envelope in your pre-numbered set; or you may add an extra amount to your regular offering with the "Christmas Missions Offering" amount clearly specified on the envelope; or you may place a clearly-designated "Christmas Missions Offering" in the Sunday offering plate or bring it to the church office.
 
Cuba Yearly Meeting Hurricane Relief    Winchester Friends' missions focus has been on Cuba Friends for the past six months at a time when Cuba was hit by a succession of damaging hurricanes.  Your generosity can help them rebuild their homes and worship/ministry facilities, plus enable them to reach out in Jesus' love to their neighbors in need.
 
Gas Help Fund    The economic downturn of 2008, coming as it did on the heels of soaring energy prices, makes Ohio Valley Gas Company's offer of a dollar-for-dollar match of our donations especially timely for helping area residents who struggle to afford heating for their homes through the winter.  (As part of her social services ministry through our Meeting, Ellen Craig helps OVG screen Gas Help Fund applications.)
 
Community & Family Services Food Pantry    On the third Sunday of each month, Winchester Friends collects staple food items for the Community Pantry to be shared with local residents experiencing hardship and difficulty providing adequate nutrition for their families.  Coupled with half of our Fast Once A Month Fund, our Christmas Missions Offering donations will help C&FS buy items to fill gaps on the Pantry shelves during this period of increasing requests for assistance.
 
Shareholders In Shalom Food For Peace    Several Friends are combining their skills and creativity with Shareholders "seed money" to produce items for sale to "grow" the funds for buying meat to be canned by the Mennonite mobile canning ministry in northern Indiana in January and February.  Our Christmas Missions Offering can fund the purchase of additional meat to be canned.  That food will be shipped to hungry people in situations of natural disaster and calamity all over the world and distributed in ways that nurture reconciliation and build peace.  If you would be interested in joining a group of Friends to work on the mobile canner on February 2 or 3, please notify the church office.
 
 

Help Bring Change to Cuba    The Junior Church kids' five-gallon water jar bank remains in the meetinghouse parlor each Sunday, ready to receive your spare pocket change until Christmas to provide support for FUM's missions efforts in Cuba. When the kids started their project in July, they had no idea that soon there would be a humanitarian disaster in Cuba needing their help. Thanks to Friends' faithful donations, the bank is getting a little heavier each week.  Let's fill it too full to carry!
 
Christmas Blessings
from the church staff and all who work together
in ministry at Winchester Friends! 
 

 
Please keep the church office updated with your current address,
phone, email, and birthday and anniversary information.
 
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