July Altar Gifts

Holy Communion         Chris and Erin Schmidgall ~ Celebrating their 25th Wedding 

                                         Anniversary (7/10)

Altar Candles                Vickie and Gregg Copeland ~ In Celebration of our Marriage (7/11)

Eternal Lamp                Sara and Jeremy Long ~ In Celebration of our 28th Wedding 

                                        Anniversary (7/6)

                                        Sara and Jeremy Long ~ In Celebration of Edie Eickemeyer’s

                                        80th birthday (7/1)

Funeral Meal Ministry service opportunities! 

Christ Lutheran Church members, in so many ways, embody diakonia - this reaching out with care and compassion in a hurting world.  One very special service of diakonia is the funeral meals that are prepared and served to grieving family and friends after funerals. Of the many understandings of the Greek word diakonia, a common image is that of a table server. Expanding the image of table serving includes all the ways that we prepare space, serve, and provide opportunities for others to experience the love and healing of Jesus. So while this service of funeral meals is quite literally “setting the table”, it is so much more.  Christ Lutheran Church is blessed to have a generous group of members who volunteer to provide food, set-up, serve, and clean-up for funeral meals, allowing family and friends to spend time together over a meal and experience this love. We are currently looking for volunteers to help with this coordination, mainly being available for about 3 hours the day of the funeral. We envision that this coordination position could be shared and rotated among several people if needed. If you are interested in helping with this coordination or other volunteer needs for funerals, please email Karen Hernes karenhernes@gmail.com or 

Karen Seykowski kjseykow@frontier.com. 

Your Love is Needed in Sunday School!

Your love – your kindness – your faith – your time. These are the best gifts you can give! Our young folks come to Sunday School each week ready to meet Jesus, to learn about God’s love and faithfulness, and that happens as they get to know YOU! We are looking for caring adults to join our team-teaching groups. 

Leaders for each group are part of a rotating team that allows for lots of flexibility in scheduling. Our Youth Helpers are amazing! The curriculum is anchored in the Good News and makes preparation easy.
The gift of relationships with faithful caring adults is so crucial to our kids – and the gift of relationships with faithful, curious, joyful kids is so lifegiving for us adults!

So please pray about joining us – contact Pr. Erica (pastorerica@clcvalpo.org) or the church office with interest or questions.

Social Ministry Monthly Emphasis

July 2024

Each month the Social Ministry highlights a special giving opportunity with July’s emphases to provide monetary support for ELCA’s Global Missions’ Selian Lutheran Hospital in Tanzania Africa and AMOS, “A Mission of Service” in Guatemala/Honduras.                             

Selian Hospital, in Arusha, Tanzania http://selianlh.or.tz, (celebrating 70 years and founded by Mark and Linda Jacobson) continues to thrive under local African leadership.  CLC is designated as an ELCA missionary partner congregation and continues to support Selian in their ministry of “providing competent and compassionate medical care, promotion of community health programs and proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

ELCA’s Global Mission nurtures the ELCA’s world engagement through the theology and practice of accompaniment by walking together with our global companions. Our work together has a multi-faceted approach to mission, from sending missionaries and personnel, to offering grants and scholarships designed to strengthen global church leadership and to support the ministries of companions.  https://www.elca.org/Our-Work/Global-Mission 

An AMOS https://www.facebook.com/amissionofservice ministry team, including CLC’s Gail Mannington (Board member and Treasurer), regularly undertakes Medical Mission trips to Esquipulas, Guatemala (next trip Feb. 21-Mar. 2, 2025.  On each trip AMOS provides medical clinics, speech pathology services and education to remote mountain villages surrounding Esquipulas and Copan, Honduras where residents have limited/no access to medical care.

During each trip the team sees and treats hundreds of patients in five clinic days, and the needs are voluminous. AMOS raises funds to purchase the prescription medications, ointments, vitamins to provide to this population and also collects over-the-counter medications for the mission team to take with them (CLC members have donated hundreds of pounds of over-the-counter medical items).  

Help achieve our goal of $2500 in July (over and above giving combined with CLC’s budgeted amount of $1200).  Use your weekly worship giving envelope mailed with check to CLC and indicate “Selian/AMOS” or contribute through Subsplash on the CLC website https://clcvalpo.org via the “Give” button and choose Monthly Social Ministry Emphasis.  Thank you to members for supporting monthly social ministry emphases.

Lutheran World Relief

School Kits

Even though summer is in full swing it's that time of year again – time to collect school supplies for Lutheran World Relief.  Our goal this year is to collect supplies for 120 school kits. 

School Kits for Lutheran World Relief are an important lifeline for learners all around the world.  As you purchase school supplies for your children, think about choosing supplies for others.  There is a basket in the Gathering Space for donations, or you can purchase from an Amazon wish list and choose to have the items delivered directly to the church.  There are a variety of suggestions on the list, with some items in bulk. The items on the wish list are only suggestions; you may be able to find cheaper items as the inventory changes. 

We will be collecting items through the beginning of October. The link to the Amazon wish list can be found by searching Amazon lists for "CLC School Kit," or by clicking the link below. 

Amazon CLC School Kit wish list 

Our goal this year is to collect enough supplies for 100 kits, each kit containing the following: 

FOUR – 70-sheet notebooks of wide- or college-ruled paper, approximately 8” x 10 ½” (LWR cannot use loose-leaf paper).  Walmart and Meijer have these for 45 cents each. We need 480 total.

ONE – 30-centimeter ruler, or a ruler with centimeters on one side and inches on the other (these are usually 2 for $1 at Dollar General).

ONE – pair of blunt scissors (safety scissors with embedded steel blades work well).

FIVE – black or blue ballpoint pens (no gel ink).

ONE – box of 16 or 24 crayons.

ONE – pencil sharpener.

ONE – 2.5" eraser.

FIVE – unsharpened #2 pencils with erasers.

If you find any great deals on supplies, please let me know at kathyjopage@gmail.com and I will share with others.

Gathering supplies with your children as you prepare for returning to school is a great way to remind you and them that we need to continue to love our neighbors, near and far.  It helps us all remember that God’s love is everywhere!  Thank you for your support!