It’s time to begin gearing up for our annual Christmas Basket Project. This has been an ongoing project of the church for several years. This month we will be sending letters to each of the five grade schools ask-ing for names of five students’ families who could use our help for Christmas. In addition, church members may submit names of friends or family members that are struggling and can use a little help over the holidays. Names can be submitted to the Church Office beginning Monday, December 2, through Friday, December 13, 2019.

All families are assigned a code: Their names and other identifying information remain confidential until the baskets (boxes) are delivered. This year, delivery will be on Saturday, December 21. In the past each family has received from three to seven box-es of food and household items, based on the size of their family.

Monthly, during the year, we collect household items as announced in the church’s newsletter. These are items that cannot be purchased with food stamps, such as laun-dry soap, paper towels, and cleanser.

In November the “Tag Board” will be placed in the Fellowship Hall. It holds tags for the various non-perishable food items, such as tuna, canned vegetables and fruit, and soups or pasta that members are asked to contribute. Money is also welcome and is used to buy fresh food such as eggs, turkeys, or hams. We ask that all donations be at the church by Sunday, December 15. Assembling the boxes will begin December 16 during several work sessions to be announced in the December Highlights. ALL Volun-teers are welcome to help assemble the boxes and deliver them.

We appreciate your prayers and donations to make this a blessing to all who volunteer and who receive our gifts. Questions or further information contact: Rosalyn Taylor (360) 477-4062.2

The Answer for Youth is a drop in center that serves homeless and at risk teens and disadvantaged young adults. They have been open for several years now.TAFY was founded with Christian principles, and the founders frequently find opportunities to share their faith with the clients. They believe in a very personal ministry with the youth. In the years that they have been open, they have gone from around five youths a night to up to 70 youths at times! They serve hot food, have a washer and dryer, a shower, full clothes closet, and offer a variety of classes.
       For several years now, they have been cultivating an organic garden, so one of the classes is on cooking the food from the garden! They offer help with medical expenses like prescriptions, eye glasses and first aid. They provide celebrations for holidays, baby showers and birthdays. They are located at 826 East First Street.

NOTES FROM THE FIELD – MISSIONS COMMITTEE

Currently working in 28 different states, three continents and Syria, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance enables congregations and mis-sion partners of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) to witness to the healing love of Christ through caring for communities adversely affected by crisis and catastrophic event. Presbyterian Disaster As-sistance is the emergency and refugee program of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. The core budget, including staff and administrative costs, is funded through the One Great Hour of Sharing, and its program work is addi-tionally funded through designated gifts.

Presbyterian Disaster Assistance:

•  Focuses on the long-term recovery of disaster impacted communities.
•  Provides training and disaster preparedness for presbyteries and synods.
• Works collaboratively with church partners and members of the ACT Alliance (Action by Churches Together) internationally and nationally with other faith-based responders.
• Connects partners locally and internationally with key organizations active in the response — United Nations, NVOAD (National Voluntary Agencies Active in Disas-ter), World Food Program, Red Cross, FEMA and others.

FPCPA contributed $2,000.00 to PDA in 2019. Additionally, local congregations can act by putting together clean-up, hygiene or school kits. Consult the following link for addi-tional information: https://pda.pcusa.org/page/kits/.

The Mission and Outreach committee has served by seeking the will of God in helping to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ both locally and globally. We are thankful for the faithful giving of our members. The session approved our request that they provide 13.5% (thirteen and a half percent) of the total church budget for missions.
    We support Presbyterian Missions, both in our Northwest Coast Presbytery and through the Presbyterian Church (USA) missions worldwide at the general assembly level.
    We also support these missionaries: the Pearsons under JAARS-Wycliffe Translators, the Hongos under Christian Vision. We support the following Presbyterian Church (USA) mission co-workers—Dr. Martha Sommers, Jeff and Christi Boyd and Rev. Renee and Justin Sundberg. If you would like to know how to contact these people and to know what they do, the mission and outreach committee will be happy to connect them to you.

School has started and it is time again to think about an opportunity to support our schools. This is our 11th year of volunteering in our schools. We are in four grade schools: Hamilton, Roosevelt, Jefferson and Dry Creek. Our involvement is greatly ap-preciated by children, teachers and staff..

Many of the tutoring jobs are as simple as reading one on one with a child or practicing basic math facts with flash cards. Most of the jobs are usually 1 hour, once a week. As well as tutoring, we are providing twice monthly baked cookies to the staff and teachers at three grade schools this year.

Classroom Volunteers will start in mid-October.

Signup sheets are at the Connection Center.

Here are the specific opportunities for your consideration:
1. Basic Tutoring in Reading or Writing
2. Basic Tutoring in Math
3. Help Teachers with Paperwork Filing, copying, prep. for art projects, etc.
4. Helping Teachers with Occasional Special Projects
5. Accompany Students on Field Trips
6. Bake Cookies for the Staff

I will be providing information about background checks for tutors in the future.

I want to give a big THANK YOU to all our past volunteers. Our cookies are helping raise morale at the schools. With our classroom volunteers, it's amazing the difference just one hour a week makes in the lives of the children and teachers.
If you have any questions, please call Sheri Stutesman at 360-452-6139.