OUT OF THE PARK

I want to thank you and the Bloomington Athletic Association for your generous response for baseball equipment for the youth of our sister parish community in Jinotega, Nicaragua. Sister Parish volunteers packaged up last Sunday 45 boxes and 1360 pounds of mainly baseballs, along with some soccer and basketball, equipment. Bridging provided a truck to take it all to the shipper.

Thanks to all for your help and donations!  Thanks also for your ongoing and undying support of the efforts of the Sister Parish ministry! Thanks especially to Sue Kellett who leads this great effort. What a team! You hit it out of the park!

LOCK-UP TEAMS

One very unique ministry at St. Edward’s are the Lock-up Teams. This sounds rather threatening, but it actually allows for hospitality and openness. Two nights each week we do not have maintenance staff present to lock the church. And so on Thursday and Friday nights the Lock-up teams close the church. This lets us schedule meetings on those evenings and enables the chapel to be kept open beyond normal business hours. We are one of the few parishes in the Archdiocese that has its chapel open from early morning, usually by 7:30 am, until 9:30 or 10:00 pm. The Lock-up teams are essential for this to happen.

Since I have been here (1998) Fran O'Brien has served as coordinator of this program. He has done a wonderful job and is now stepping down. Parishioner Bill Bach has volunteered to head it now. Thank you Bill, and thanks to all who serve in this great ministry. And a very special thank you to Fran.

All members of the volunteer Lock-Up Teams are invited to a special Open House.

Date:         Saturday, March 13
Time:        9:00 am - 10:30 am
Location:   Auditorium (lower level)
RSVP:       Call the parish office, (952) 835-7101 by Monday, March 8

Donuts, coffee and juice will be served.  We have a few vacant positions on the Teams and would welcome any new volunteers to come to the Open House. For more information call Rena Chrysler, Director of Stewardship & Administration (952) 835-7101 x208, or the new Chair of the Lock-Up Teams, Bill Bach, at (952) 884-7300 (work) or (952) 884-3811 (home).

ANYWAY

We began Lent with 3 very prayerful Ash Wednesday services. At the noon service, our Director of Adult Faith Formation, Heidi Busse, gave a wonderful message in which she recited a poem attributed to Mother Teresa. It is titled,
"Do It Anyway," and reportedly was written on the wall of Mother Teresa's home for children in Calcutta. This poem seems to be based on a composition originally by Kent Keith, but much of the second half has been re-written in a more spiritual way.  It is a good reflection as we begin Lent which is a special time for us to focus on our relationship with God.

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered.
               Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. 
               Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. 
               Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. 
               Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight.
               Create anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. 
               Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, will often be forgotten. 
               Do good anyway.

Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. 
               Give your best anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God. 
               It was never between you and them anyway. 

THANK YOU FOR MOVING FAMILIES FORWARD

I received a heartfelt thank you from Kate Van Schyndle, LSW, the social worker for the Families Moving Forward Program which we hosted last week. She writes:

Thank you for hosting! Families Moving Forward truly appreciates the warmth and love you have given to the families while they have been at your congregation.

The families absolutely loved staying at your congregation. They appreciated all of the extra help that your volunteers gave them. The families loved spending time with your volunteers!

Thank you for the wonderful communication that you kept with Families Moving Forward! FMF and volunteers communicating openly is what our program is all about - and is the best for our families!

Thank you for caring for the families while they were going through such a hard time. The understanding and care you were able to provide truly made the week easier for the parents and much better for the children.

Thank you for loving the children and taking time for each one of them. Thank you for ensuring that they had food in their tummies and a warm safe place to sleep.

Thank you, as well, for coping with such an uncertain week of health concerns! Your congregation did such a wonderful job taking it in stride and working to keep all of the families and the volunteers safe and healthy! Your congregation did such a wonderful job with the families - especially with the children. Thank you for your love!

SCOUT SUNDAY

We have many young people and their families involved in scouting programs. This weekend is designated as Scout Sunday for the Boy Scouts. Scout Sunday is celebrated every year to acknowledge the component of scouting that includes that a scout is reverent. The scouts, leaders and parents truly embody the principles of time, talent and treasure.  For instance, Pack 374 this past year collected food for VEAP, raised money for the relief efforts in Haiti, supported the Tyler Fey scholarship at Holy Angels (a  former AHA student that was killed in Iraq), sent care packages and cards to the troops stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq, and have created birthday bags for children who are served through VEAP.

This year's Scout Sunday falls the day before the 100th anniversary of Scouting Feb 8th.

Congratulations Scouts.

GRACIAS!

Over the years St. Ed’s has funded clean drinking water projects in the rural areas of Jinotega, Nicaragua. One of the wells was dug for the community of Tomatoya which has a few hundred people. But the water source had much more water than the community would need. The Japanese government was looking for a more intensive program to provide water for a number of communities. Hearing about the water source at Tomatoya they funded the installation of miles of piping, pumping stations and holding tanks so that a gravity fed system could be constructed.

Hundreds of local residents, over the last months, have been digging and installing the PVC pipe from the well uphill to the holding tanks. Water from the well will be pumped miles up the hillside to fill a holding tank near the village of Saraguasca. Kids and their mothers will no longer have to walk miles each day to bring home water from polluted ponds and streams. It is like the parable of the mustard seed. Without the initial well we helped provide, none of the “outpouring” would have happened. By the way, all of the workers donated their time in doing this back breaking work. They were so happy to be able to have water coming into their communities.