Special points of interest:

Inside this issue:  The Entwistles   XYZ’s OUTING    The Womens Retreat      Uniquely Grace

How many times in our lives do we choose a path because a friend took the time to offer an invitation? Linda Entwistle and Rose McCarthy are friends and fellow scrapbookers. When Rose invited Linda to Grace two years ago, Linda was at a place in her life where she was looking for a church and so she accepted Rose’s invitation and visited. She kept coming back. Linda says, "We love Grace. It feels like home. Eli, Kyra, and I each feel safe and nurtured there, both spiritually and socially."

Besides Linda, the Entwistle family includes Bill, a computer programmer, Eli, a sixth grader at Judah Christian School, and Kyra, a second grader at Thomas Paine. Linda, a former teacher, now works as office coordinator at St. Joseph’s Institute for the Deaf at Carle.

Eli and Kyra are both active in Sunday School and VBS and have been regulars in Grace musicals and plays. Eli is a piano student of Gordon Wilson’s and is a member of the Spirit Ringers Youth Handbell Choir. He is a Boy Scout and has a paper route. Kyra is a member of the Cherub Choir. She is a Brownie and shares her mother’s love for reading. Bill enjoys jazz music and model rocketry. Linda is the leader of the fellowship small group and coordinates Grace’s food ministry. She also helps with the children’s activities. Being a part of the Tuesday evening Bible study group has been especially important to Linda and has been fulfilling for her spiritually and personally. Together, the family enjoys biking, hiking, camping, and swimming.

Never underestimate the power of an invitation. Our lives are enriched by the people we invite to share our Christian journey.

Join us on Thursday, October 9 for good fellowship, food and adventure. We will meet at the church at 10:30 a.m., and then travel to the Covered Bridge Restaurant at Eugene, IN for lunch. Following lunch we will travel to Forest Glen Preserve near Westville, IL to learn what is available in the way of educational programs, facilities, trails, campground and maybe even a hayrack ride. In addition, the beauty of Autumn will be very evident and we should see a lot of deer. Call your reservation to the Huberts at 367-6395 no later than Tuesday, October 7. In no answer, please leave a message.

October is here and along with it comes the fall colors in all their splendor. Another evidence of God’s creative beauty that abounds all around us. A beauty that can’t be appreciated unless we take time to look and truly see.

This is my favorite month, with its warm days and cool nights. Harvest is in full swing and farmers are receiving their rewards for spring and summer toil in the fields. It is a good month to travel and appreciate the beauty that exists in the changing colors of the leaves. The crispness of the air in the mornings puts a spring in one’s step.

This is also a good month to reflect on the nine months that have passed and the two that are ahead in 2003. No, everything is not all right in the world and we would all like to see peace prevail and terrorism wiped out. But our hope and our strength lies in the power of God, and our willingness to work together to serve him and do his will. We must reach out to one another in Christian love and compassion. Pray for God’s direction in your life and in the life of our church. Pray for our vision and all that will be working to make it become a reality.

Prayer has a powerful impact on both the one being prayed for and the one praying. We must never forget that God still answers prayers. They are answered in his way and in his timing. Please lift up in prayer the joys and concerns of our congregation and others.

Dear Lord and Heavenly Father, we thank you for the beauty of this season. Give us spiritual eyes to truly see "the touch of the Master’s hand". In our hectic pace of life, slow us down in order to appreciate your creation all around.

Make us sensitive to the needs of those around us. Help us to be more like Christ in our daily walk. Give us spiritual wisdom and spiritual strength to know your will and to do your will.

We lift up the joys and concerns of our family and our church. Amen

Links to bulletins containing Joys and Concerns:   

Girls in grades four through eight are invited to join the girls' chorus. Practices will be held at the church on Tuesdays at 6:30 beginning September 30. At the first practice, participants will choose music and decide on a name for the group. If you have questions, please contact Gordy Wilson at 328-1414 or 778-1473.

The Senior high youth group will begin regular meetings 4:30-6 p.m. on Sunday, October 5. Dinner will be provided. If you have questions, contact Callie Knight at 355-3317.

The Women's Retreat will be November 9-10 at the Shelbyville Historic Inn, in Shelbyville IL. We will meet at the church at 8:30 Saturday morning and return by 5:00 Sunday afternoon. The cost of the room is $60 for two double beds or $68 for two queen beds. We will be enjoying the outdoors, enjoying each other, and missing you if you don't come! Call Anne Parker (367-1813) or Karen Henderson (328-4473) by October 15th to sign up.

A new small group for girls in 4th through 8th graces is forming at Grace. At the first meeting on Tuesday, September 30, the girls will choose music and a name for the group. Plans are to meet each Tuesday evening from 6:30 to 7:30 in the Sanctuary Choir Loft. The group is under the direction of Gordy Wilson.

In discussions between Marcia Burns and Gordy, it was agreed that there were many talented young women who might enjoy a chance to express themselves musically in worship and other functions. Many of the girls have already proved their abilities in events like the children’s musicals.

We hope the girls will find such joy in this activity that they will invite their friends and we will make an "awesome offering" to Grace Church and our neighbors!

The parade and the band pass by with the sounds of patriotism and liberty.

But in the black church, the song remembers the longing for freedom that arose from the hot cotton fields of slavery.

In the great cathedral and the village church, the organist touches the keys to bring glorious hymns to life.

But in downtown Champaign (and in scattered places over the world), skilled workmen craft the pipes that gently change the moving air to sounds that thrill the ear.

Our friend played the violin in the university string quartet that lifted the audience from the concert hall to places of the imagination.

But it was in a dingy Chicago industrial building's upper floor that old European craftsmen took his violin bow (to my utter amazement at its value) to replace the hair that brushed the strings to melody.

The hearty, but sometimes monotone, cadence calls mingle with the dust on the military training trail.

But around the Civil War campfire, late at night, the lonely songs of home and love rose like the smoke, upward to the sky.

With sight and hearing, we read and sing from the pages of the hymnal.

But we forget that the gospel song lyricist, Fanny Crosby, was blind, and that the great symphonic composer, Beethoven, became deaf, yet continued to write some of the world's finest music.

It was the end of a loud, chaotic day in the Urbana Prairie School classroom.

But one child lingered on to straighten things in her desk, and the teacher heard her gently singing, "I have the peace that passeth understanding. . ."

We expect the solace of quiet music at the funeral of one we have loved.

But after they had been beaten and thrown into jail for their witness in Philippi, Paul and Silas sang together in the middle of the night--to the amazement of the jailer and their fellow inmates.

We hear the sound of voice and trumpet, but the song begins in the heart and mind.

Paul E. Kunkel at Urbana, Illinois September 20, 2003

Dear Grace United Methodist Church,

Thank you for helping sponsor part of my summer camp fee.

I attended the horseback riding camp at Jensen Woods. I had a great time riding horses, playing, singing praises, meeting new people and just all around having fun.

So thanks again.
Benjamin King

Bread for the World is a Christian, grassroots organization which supports legislation to aid poor and hungry people in our nation and around the world. This year’s campaign is called "Rise to the Challenge: End World Hunger" and supports the Millennium Challenge Fund, which seeks to cut extreme poverty and hunger, combat AIDS and malaria, reduce child mortality, and achieve universal primary education by the year 2015.

We’ve been asked to write our members of Congress to urge the US to fund the MCA to the level that our president requested earlier this year. The House has already voted and Tim Johnson supported Bread for the World’s goals. A thank you is appropriate for him. The Senate will act soon so we can still voice our opinion to Senators Durbin and Fitzgerald. Their addresses appear below:

Tim Johnson

1229 Longworth House Office Bldg.

Washington, DC 20515-1315

332 Dirksen Office Bldg.

Washington, DC 20510-1304

555 Dirksen Office Bldg.

Washington, DC 20510-1305

Sample Letters (as of September 18, 2003)

Your name

Your Address
Date

Senator ____________________
U.S. Senate
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator ______________ :

Please push to bring S. 925 to the Senate floor and support the provisions in S. 925 to establish the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA). A poverty-focused MCA would assist countries who use their resources well, and it could help reduce hunger, fight disease and educate children in the world’s poorest countries.

Congress must also make sure this new program has the funding it needs without cutting other good development and emergency aid programs. Please see that the MCA receives at least $1.3 billion this year, which reflects the president’s budget request.

Please do everything in your power to support this legislation.

Rep. ____________________
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Representative______________

I am very pleased to see that the House recently passed H.R. 1950, which created the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA). The MCA will assist countries who use their resources well, and it will help reduce hunger, fight disease and educate children in the world's poorest countries.

Please do everything in your power to support the MCA.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
(Your Name)

Please bring your letters in envelopes (stamped or unstamped) to be dedicated in worship on October 5^th. If you have questions, call Pat Ziebart 337-6952.