Many Hands for Malawi

MANY HANDS FOR MALAWI: PACKATHON
NOVEMBER 9 TO 11 

We’re seeking more than 1,000 volunteers this year to help scoop, pack, seal and box 350,000 meals for Malawi. We’re partnering
with Children of the Nations, whose program in Malawi works toward self-sufficiency for meal recipients. We’re excited to support the people
in the program who are working toward sustainability and self-reliance.
The Packathon is a great opportunity for groups to do good and make a difference together! We also need other volunteers, such as team
leaders, who help oversee the packing stations, and those who can help on the equipment and supply teams.

Because the ingredients are not donated but are purchased, we’re also seeking donations. Supplies for the Packathon cost about $45,000. To view volunteer opportunities or donate to the event, please go
to mh-mm.org. Thank you!

State of the Church – Oct. 2018

As summer fades, with family vacations just a memory and kids back in school, it’s time to look ahead to my favorite season…fall. And of course that means our Mount Calvary annual meeting is right around the corner—Sunday, October 7 to be precise.

As a prelude to the meeting, I want to offer a refresher this month on some of the key efforts that your church council is working on.
Our most recent strategic plan, which included congregation input from a church-wide survey, resulted in a guiding imperative to celebrate and communicate who we are and to build on our strengths. We learned from our survey that we are clearly doing most things very well, and in these areas we are striving to move from good to great. There are also a few areas that we found which required our attention to make some necessary improvements.

The output from our planning process was the following eight initiatives (included here in abbreviated form), and we assembled a team for each initiative composed of our council members and the pastors. The eight initiatives are:

• Ministry: Grow faith and values through life-stages, and connect the generations.
• Leadership: Develop an organizational development and succession plan.
• Worship: Continue developing and evolving worship to meet the ever changing needs
of our congregation.
• Inclusion: Work to overcome social and cultural boundaries within our walls, and seek
to develop “radical hospitality.”
• Stewardship: Clarify and align relationships between funds/campaigns, and develop
multi-year facilities and benevolence approach.
• Awareness: Develop and deploy an identity plan to tell our theological and community
story.
• Listening: Develop and deploy active ad hoc and periodic feedback disciplines.
• Partnership: Introduce tools to evaluate partnerships, communicate activities and status to the congregation, and solicit volunteers and support for various partnerships.

You will receive an update from one of the initiative teams at our annual meeting, but this will also be a great opportunity for you to ask about any of the initiatives.

I look forward to seeing you on October 7.

Mike Kasprick
Council President

Epiphany Gallery – Featured Artist, Bob McLain

We speak of inclusion; we are asked how many people can fit under our umbrella; we are challenged to draw the circle wider; we are called to love God’s people.

Artist Bob McLain feels a pull to draw faces. His work is a study of the human face and is also a personal commitment to honor the faces and their people. His work includes the faces of young and old; it includes faces of people who have known joy and sorrow, success and struggle; it includes faces of people whose skin colors range from light to
dark; it includes faces of people who each have stories; it includes faces of people who are surrounded by love and family and faces of people who know loneliness and rejection; it includes faces, created and cherished by God, drawn with love and respect by Bob McLain.

In preparation for his drawings, Bob takes photographs of the face from nine specific angles. From these photographs, he can capture a replication of the face as well as find a variety of moods within the expressions. Bob explains his drawing process, “The first part of my study is done with graphite pencil to work the tonal values of the face. The second part of the study explores skin colors of different nationalities using acrylic paint and colored pencil.” The series, “Faces,” is a beautiful celebration of the many faces we encounter. The series has a gentle voice that says, “I see you.”

Bob graduated from Minnetonka High School and earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Art Education from Mankato State University. He has worked as an art teacher, graphic designer at Tonka Toys, and has his own art studio. Bob and his wife Kathy have been members of Mount Calvary for over 40 years. Now retired and living in Chaska, Bob can
be found painting, woodworking, researching and always learning

Quilting News Oct 2018

We are a group that finds joy in making quilts for homeless people in the west metro and Minneapolis. Recent donations include Families Moving Forward and the new Family Retreat Center at Luther Park Bible Camp. The camp got a huge gift of 12 bed size quilts from Ann Fox.

We also conducted a silent auction selling smaller quilts to raise money for the camp. Sharon Roos and Lynne Walker helped make some of the last few remaining quilts that were needed at the camp.

If you think you might like to join our group, no skill is required. When we get together we mainly tie the three layers of the quilts together, so if you can tie a knot, you can be in our group. We meet in the Undercroft the first three Thursdays of every month from 9 to 2.

We hope you will join us!