Thanks to All the Helping-Hands-for Haiti! Youth Pizza & Planning Lunch; Habitat-for-Humanity Build in New Haven

March 30, 2019
 
Dear Hearts,

Thanks for being Helping-Hands-for-Haiti!  Thanks to all who participated in last Sunday's Benefit Pancake Breakfast for St. Luke's School & Church in Martel, Haiti!  Our Sunday School served a delicious meal, and we were honored to hear from the founder of the New York Haiti Project, the Rev. Sam Owen, about their project with the community of Martel.  Fr. Sam preached at our 10a.m. service and showed a video and slides about the people of Martel, their commitment to education, and the challenges they face.

You can ask those who enjoyed the breakfast how to find Martel, about the handsomely finished three-room schoolhouse which opens into one room for Sunday worship; how impressed folks were with the children's uniforms made by local seamstresses, and the joy the children appear to have in their school and in playing soccer!

I think we were all a bit dumbfounded that the School can provide an education for 75 children through the fifth grade for $2100 a month!  Our Sunday School's breakfast received gifts of just over half that -- enough to cover just over two weeks of the school's expenses.  When asked, Fr. Sam reported that the demand and interest in adding additional grades, and buildings, to St. Luke's is certainly there; local folks have given more adjacent land for expansion, and the children's families, mostly subsistence farmers, do contribute toward the cost of education.  That said, the ten participating parishes in the New York Haiti Project, cover most of the school's operating expenses.  We are one of those parishes. 

Thanks to all who responded when our children passed the basket for the children of Martel!  It's not too late to participate.  Please make your check out to Christ Church, with "Haiti" in the memo line, or put cash in an envelope marked for Haiti and with your name so your gift may be recorded.

Special thanks go to our Sunday School for hosting such a splendid breakfast!  The pancakes and sausage were done to perfection; the children were delightful servers, and the tables were set with beautiful pansies and clever Helping-Hands!  Please join me in thanking Sunday School Director Laurie Varley, our teachers and their helpers for supporting our children, and all of us, in making a truly helpful difference in the lives of 75 Haitian children. 
 
This Sunday, March 31, our Faith Formation team invites our Middle and High School Youth for a lunch of Pizza & Planning.  Besides having fun together, our goal is to brainstorm about events for the spring and summer, and maybe to even think big about longer term goals!  Please gather in the Rectory after the 10a.m. service.  Jack-the-dog will be happy to greet you!

Next weekend has two hands-on events of interest to youth and adults:
Christ Church folks will gather with folks from St. Andrew's (Madison) for a Raise-the-Roof Habitat-for-Humanity build in New Haven on Saturday, April 6, 9a.m. to 3p.m.  See Senior Warden Rose Robinson for details (yes, bring your own lunch!) and to sign-up.  There's always something constructive for folks of every skill level to do!

On the next day, Sunday, April 7, there will be a celebration and demonstration about "Beating Guns Into Garden Tools," at 6p.m. at the United Church UCC on the New Haven Green (corner of Temple & Elm).  When Bishop Jim Curry spoke to us several weeks ago about "beating swords in ploughshares, and spears into pruning hooks," he showed us a garden tool made from a rifle barrel, a decorative leaf made from a rifle bolt, and a heart made from the cross-section of a shotgun barrel.  National leaders of this movement will speak, and participants will be able to try their hand at the forge!

Sunday March 31 closes out early registration for Spring Training,  a day of workshops and fellowship for the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, on Saturday, April 27th this year, in Berlin, CT.  Between 9a.m. and 4p.m., there will be opportunities for prayer, snacks, three workshops (from 18 pages of options!) and lunch.  You can find the catalog here.   Registration and more information are available here.  Early registration for $15 ends March 31st.  We can carpool to Berlin High School, about 50 minutes away.
  
But first, I look forward to worship, a calmer day for our Sunday School, Coffee Hour, "The Way of Love," Pizza and Planning this Sunday morning.
 In faith, hope, and love,
Harrison+
YFNR