Pentecost Offering. On Saturday June 28th from 6:30 8:30PM, Loose Canon will be having another sing-along/concert

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1 VOLUME 59 ISSUE 5 MAY 2014 who'd like to join us, they are more than welcome. Please feel free to share any information you receive from us about this program - the more people who participate, the bigger the change we can make in the world to help others. Bethany has a unique opportunity to offer our parents, children and youth a summer reading program that, not only encourages summer reading, but helps make the world a better place. Much of the focus of our ministry at Bethany is providing food to hungry people. "Read to feed is a reading incentive service-learning program that offers global education opportunities and will foster in children (and youth) a love for reading, a passion to help others and a motivation to help create a better world." We will be getting our Read to Feed kit this next week. Please visit to explore all the fun videos, resources and information provided from Heifer.org. We are seeking out book lists for suggested summer reading from many sources. If you have access to any of these great lists, please forward them to Stacy Kidd (brennandstacy@msn.com) and she will help to compile a shared list that we can post for the summer. We are excited to share this program with our families and friends. If you know of others As a practice of gratitude many in our congregation set aside a few cents at each meal, in gratitude for having enough to eat and remembering that too many in our community go hungry. We bring those coins to worship on the second Sunday of each month. They are collected and used for hunger ministries in our community. Sunday, May 11, is coin Sunday. Bring your pennies! On Saturday June 28th from 6:30 8:30PM, Loose Canon will be having another sing-along/concert AND ice cream AND pie/cobbler event! We will also be collecting food and money for the NW Tacoma Fish Food Bank. More to follow next month but mark it on your calendar! Pentecost Offering The Pentecost offering will be received on June 8.

2 It was on the Sunday It was on the Sunday that he pulled the corn. They arrived with flowers, shuffling through the dawn as the dawn snuffed out the last candles of night. Their faces betrayed their belief that yesterday would always be better than tomorrow, despite what he said. He would not say it again, so why bother to believe him on that score? Dear friends, What a glorious spring week we ve had! I hope you are taking time to be outside and soak up the sun and warmth. We ll be continuing to celebrate Easter in worship through June 1, and so liturgically and seasonally, I wanted to share some of my favorite Easter and spring poems and prayers. Enjoy! Grace and peace, Sarah i thank you God for most this amazing day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue dream of sky; and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes (i who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun s birthday; this is the birth day of life and love and wings; and of the gay great happening illimitably earth) how should tasting touching hearing seeing breathing any - lifted from the no of all nothing - human merely being doubt unimaginable You? (now the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened) e. e. cummings Page 2 And the flowers, they too were silent witnesses to disbelief. Like the grass, they were cut to be dried to death, cut off from the root, the bulb, the source of life. He was the flower they cherished, the flower now perished whose fate the lilies of the field, now tight in hand, would re-enact. So when they passed the crouched figure at the edge of the road, they thought little of him, scarcely seeing his form through their tears. Had they looked even a little, they would have seen a man letting grain fall through his fingers, dropping to the earth to die and yet to rise again. It was on the Sunday that he pulled the corn. Wild Goose Resource Group, Stages on the Way You beyond Our Weary Selves You God, Lord and Sovereign, you God, lover and partner. You are God of all our possibilities. You preside over all our comings and goings, all our wealth and all our poverty, all our sickness and all our health, all our despair and all our hope, all our living and all our dying. And we are grateful. You are God of all of our impossibilities. You have presided over the emancipations and healings of our mothers and fathers; you have presided over the wondrous transformations in our own lives; you have and will preside over those parts of our lives that we imagine to be closed. And we are grateful. So be your true self, enacting the things impossible for us, that we might yet be whole among the blind who see and the dead who are raised; that we may yet witness your will for peace, your vision for justice, your vetoing all our killing fields. At the outset of this day, we place our lives in your strong hands. Before the end of this day, do newness among us in the very places where we are tired in fear, we are exhausted in guilt, we are spent in anxiety. Make all things new, we pray in the new-making name of Jesus. Walter Brueggemann, Prayers for a Privileged People

3 Adult Sunday Morning Adult Study For the 6 weeks after Easter, Rev. Kari McFarland will be leading a class on materials from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) on the Presbyterian understanding of Christian Marriage. This is not a marriage class, but is a faithbased conversation about the definition of marriage so that our churches might model a form of discussion that is difficult to find in the public square. Please join us. Weekly Bible Study and Prayer Every Tuesday, 11 a.m. noon, at Bethany, led by Pastor Sarah. You re welcome whether it s your first time to open a Bible or your ten thousandth. Weekly Breakfast Prayer Group Every Wednesday, 7 a.m., we break bread at Knapps in the Proctor District, share our spiritual journey and commit to praying for each other through the week. It s a great mid-week opportunity to get centered and refreshed. Monthly Prayer Breakfast Group The fourth Saturday of each month, 8 a.m. We break bread at the Antique Sandwich Company on Pearl, share our spiritual journey and commit to praying for each other through the month. It s a great monthly opportunity to get brunch, and get centered and refreshed. Bethany History Do you know Forbes Hall, the downstairs hall got its' name? It is named after George Hall who was from Scotland and was a trustee, treasurer and handyman at Bethany starting in the 1940's. Youth and Children Children s Church Children s Church for children ages 2 years to fifth grade meets weekly during worship. Children join us in the sanctuary for the beginning of worship and then are dismissed to their class shortly after our opening music. Youth Group The Youth Group meets twice a month. They will meet on May 4 and 18. They have interesting and passionate discussions, fun activities, good food and great friendships are forming. Elementary Sunday School On Sunday mornings, during Adult Sunday School, at 9 am KayAnna League is teaching an elementary Sunday School class for 1st to 6th grade. They meet downstairs. There is childcare for younger kids and KayAnna also brings a breakfast snack. Page 3

4 Book Club The May Book Club meeting will be held at the home of Janet Marsh, 7:00 PM on May 27th. The book for discussion is "The Absolutist" by John Boyne. Pat Warner has the book kit, so if you need a copy, please get in touch with her. The book kit needs to be returned to Pierce County library by May 25th, so please return your book to Pat by that time. Thank you The book for June if the non fiction memoir "I Am Malala" by Malala Yousafzai with Christine Lamb. Host home to be announced. As always we encourage anyone who is interested to attend, as we meet on the 4th Tuesday 7:00 PM each month for discussion and refreshments Pastor Sarah sent out a church wide letter regarding leasing space in our building for a cell phone antenna. Please see insert for a copy of that letter. Pierce County Hunger Alliance Pierce County Hunger Advocates will be meeting the 4th Monday of every month from 7-9 PM at Bethany. They will meet May 26. STARBARD GALLERY The showing in Starbard Gallery for the months of May and June are watercolor paintings by Carol Fry. Her art work is for sale and you can deal directly with the artist. Calling all Bethany artists: We would like to have a display in the Gallery during the summer months of July and August of all our talented Bethany people. This includes paintings, photographs, paper art, jewelry, knitting, etc. Please let Pat Warner know if you would like to participate. Page 4

5 News & N Food Bank Recruits Needed At fifty plus years and counting, the food bank is Bethany s longest running mission program! Currently the Northwest FISH Food Bank is open Wednesdays from Noon to 4PM and Saturdays from 11:30AM to 3PM. Bethany hosts the food bank every six weeks and is asked to provide 5 volunteers on Wednesday and 6 on Saturday. Food bank policy is that children accompanying their parents should be 13 or older. Volunteers are to be at Mason United Methodist one half-hour prior to opening. Bethany next hosts the food bank on May 7 & 10. Join us! If you need to know more about this outreach service opportunity, please Bernie Cooper at Fiber Arts Bethany's Fiber Arts group will be meeting from 10:00-12:00 the first Saturday of each month. Any church member or friends who are interested in joining us for some old fashioned "bee" time, you are welcome to join us. We will be considering a new name soon. If you have ideas or questions, feel free to Stacy Kidd at brennandstacy@msn.com or call May Birthdays 4 Virginia Priest 5 Toby Roberts 9 Kathryn Dahl 14 Carolyn Crain 14 Kris Miskimens 16 Mary Lucile Born 21 Ron Rockwell 22 KayAanna Clarkson 31 Wayne Hart 31 Bill Brooks May 25 - Read to Feed Kick-Off August 5 - Block Party August 17 - Bethany Annual Picnic September 7 - End of Read to Feed October 25 - Let's Eat (Previously Dinners for Eight) December 7 - Fair Trade Market Nancy Houk 5116 N. 23rd Tacoma, WA Page 5

6 4420 North 41st Street Tacoma WA (253) We are an inclusive faith community. We welcome all people. Bethany Presbyterian Church Staff Elders Deacons Pastor Rev. Sarah Wiles Jan Blackburn Shirley Blood Parish Associate Custodian Director of Music Office Administrator Christian Educator Child Care Provider Organist Rev. David Alger Ann Bailey Erin Cronshaw Robin Dunne KayAnna League Dezerae Overman Louise Ulbricht Kathryn Dahl Dennis Fulton Andrea Greenfield **Alisa Sutherland Abbie Waters Peter Walsh **Clerk of Session Teri Brooks Joanne Flint Nancy Houk Florence Jensen Gene Sanders Marci Walsh Pat Warner Office Hours: Monday - Friday: 9:00-1:00 Worship: 10:30 am Coffee Hour: 12:00 pm TEAMS CE = Christian Education HOT = Hospitality & Outreach RES = Resources SG = Spiritual Growth