Friends,

This Sunday is communion Sunday in our own sanctuary!  While it will be good to be together again worshipping regularly in our own space, I will have fond memories of the summer and our informal worship and fellowship in Hayden Hall as well as the alternate Sundays we spent with the good folks at the Church of the Beatitudes.  

Also, I send out a special thank you to all who have shown up to beautify and organize CCOV during the hot summer months.  You have truly readied it for fall and made it beautiful as well as functional!  I’m excited about all that we are planning including a church bazaar on the morning of December 6, where we can sell unused stuff the church as accumulated.  We welcome donations from your fall clean-out at home too.  More information will be forthcoming.

Council has indeed been busy over the summer months—also planning our new outreach mission project, partnering with Foster Your Future, a local organization dedicated to helping young people transition from foster care into adulthood.  We will raise funds through the same mechanism that worked so successfully for our well project in Kenya—our wine-paring dinners.  Be thinking about folks from the community whom you might invite.  It’s a fine opportunity to meet the good people of CCOV, enjoy delicious food, wine, and music, and the evenings provide a way for the greater community to partner with us.  The first dinner, “An Evening in Barcelona,” is Sunday, November 23 at 5 PM, after we finish decorating the sanctuary for Advent.  We will feature Spanish and some Portuguese wines as well as tapas.  Kudos to Paulan for completing the necessary grant money application (possibly $3000!) the Southwest Conference has offered to get us on the way to our $15,000 goal for this worthy endeavor.  Stay tuned for more information about Foster Your Future.  

I am so glad to be a part of such a wonderful church, which is truly on the move, bringing the Kingdom ever closer!

Blessings,

Co-pastor Sandi