Friday, January 20, 2023

Hello everyone:

If the first few weeks in January have been any indication, St. Andrews may have turned a bit of a corner as we continue to come out of the COVID pandemic. Church attendance has been up - which is normally unusual for January and there is a strong spirit in the air - a sense of excitement and promise.  Andrew Hight and I were chatting the other day and both of us felt the same thing - the future is looking brighter, and it is something we are all celebrating right now.

Part of it has to do with the potential legendary mission that we are exploring - working with people with disabilities both from a programming and housing point of view - but most importantly, helping to create a strong sense of belonging for people with disabilities here at St. Andrews.  We listened with great joy to the Buddy choir on Sunday as they sang their beautiful song called Belonging, with its beautiful lyrics "I've been here all along, I want to feel like I belong".  It was truly inspirational.  It is crucial to understand that this initiative would require St. Andrew’s working with community partners.  This is something we could never do on our own.  We don’t have the know how and we don’t have the money.  But working with others may make this a great possibility.  It is exciting.

The rest of the week brought us back down to earth - meetings about budgets and year end financial reports. Although the future looks bright, the present reality coming out of COVID is still a challenge.  Financial donations by the congregation were down slightly from the year before, but deeper challenges were realized in lack of revenue from parking and facility rental due to COVID.  We will need to be creative and patient with faith and trust in God as we move forward.

I think that’s enough for now.  Sorry this was later than usual this week.  I had a head cold that decided to settle into my chest, so I have been working from home in between times of resting and sleeping to try to get rid of a very persistent and nasty cough.

Take care all of you.

Marty