Dear Friends,

I hope you are having a happy new year.  2025 comes with some daunting challenges as we seek to respond with compassion and kindness within a society that is fractured in many different ways.  May we all seek community with one another by participating in meeting together, worship or service, to remind us of connection and the power of that connection that transcends us and permeates our realities.  Haven’t you left the meeting for worship feeling as if you are replenished by Spirit? Have you experienced the joy of service in the community as well? There are several good opportunities to be of service and to participate including coming to worship at 10 AM each Sunday.  It is good to see the people who are holding you in the Light and have a chance to sit in silence listening for the Divine collaboratively together.  The peace of open worship can’t be surpassed in any other church worship, and I am glad it is a significant portion of every service in a manner that is respectful of everyone’s beliefs.

One of those opportunities for service includes the Interfaith Food Pantry.   There are three good ways to be involved.  You could volunteer to help on the days that we are stocking (second Tuesday of the month) or on pantry nights from 5-7 (last two Tuesdays of each month.)  There are several kinds of work that range in difficulty and strength, but all are joyful while serving so it is a very uplifting experience.  If you want to volunteer, please call Linda Warner at 541-281-5535. But there are other ways to serve the Interfaith Food Pantry.  We are collecting coats and blankets that are given out during the warm months on the nights of the food pantry.  There is nothing like the face of a child who knows she won’t be cold as she shows everyone her “new” blanket.  So if you have two coats and only need one, please donate the coats.  If you have a blanket that has just stayed in that linen closet for a year, and you could do without it, please donate the laundered blanket.  These can be dropped off at the church office, and if I am not here, just leave them on the floor next to the office door.  The final way that you can help is financially and with canned or boxed foods that go directly to the Interfaith Food Pantry.  You can write a check to Klamath Lutheran Church and  in the memo line put the words “food pantry.”

The Interfaith Food Pantry is also promoting an event on January 29, 2025 at 3:00 PM at Klamath Lutheran Church.  This is an ecumenical and interfaith event. OHSU has a street nursing program that trains soon-to-be nurses in assistance of the unhoused population in Klamath Falls.  The director of the program is Marilyn Gran-Moravec.   She will be our guest speaker and will talk in depth about the street nursing program.  This will be at Klamath Lutheran Church, 1175 Crescent Ave. Klamath Falls.  For an article on the program you can go to https://www.thelundreport.org/content/ohsu-expands-street-nursing-teams-southern-oregon.

Lastly, our book study for Klamath Falls Friends Church is starting in one week, Sunday January 19 at 11:15.  The focus is a book called “A Quaker Ecology” by Cherice Bock.  Cherice will join us through zoom to talk about the first chapter of why and how she wrote the book.  Sarah Watson is the book group facilitator.  It is a small book that is not only easy to read, but practical in ways that show how we are interconnected  and that lead to eco-reformation.  The books are on the entry table in the entry room at the meeting house.

Thank you for listening, and I hope to see you at one of these events.

Peace,

Leigh

Calendar for January 

• ·      January 14 – Ministry & Care 5:30
• ·       January 19 – 9:00 AM Peace and Social Concerns
• ·       January 19 – First Book Group of Quaker Ecology (will meet after worship on the third Sunday of each month until April and end with an Earth Day celebration) Books are on the entryway table.
• ·       January 20 – 5:30 Administrative Meeting
• ·       January 26 – Monthly Meeting for Business
• ·       January 29, 3:00 PM The OHSU Street Nursing Program explained in length at Klamath Lutheran Church at 1175 Crescent Ave, Klamath Falls, OR 97601 — Please come; it is a good ministry