From the Pastor's Desk

We have definitely entered the "Holiday Season", with Thanksgiving and the first Sunday in Advent coming on the same weekend! Many thanks to all who made it such a great Thanksgiving Day here at Our Savior with the Thanksgiving service at 11am and Thanksgiving Dinner at noon. About 140 people were served and all of the "reviews" were great! A special thanks to our chief cook, Colleen Heagy who spent the last days before Thanksgiving here in the church kitchen getting everything going.

And speaking of food, our Wednesday suppers resume this week, with beef pot roast on the menu. These are wonderful opportunities to have a great meal and get to visit with other members of the Our Savior church family. A donation basket is available for you to help cover the cost of the meal. Plan on joining us.

This coming weekend, our Lutheran Men in Mission will be serving some very special refreshments after all 3 services, including Saturday evening. This is a part our annual Christmas gift project in cooperation with Our Savior's Youth Group. Along with the special food, an offering basket will be available for anyone to make a donation which will be used to provide Christmas gifts for a number of families in our community who are in need. At their December 8th meeting, the Youth Group will take the money received from this upcoming weekend, along with information about the families (ages and genders of the children) and go Christmas shopping for them. After the shopping, the gifts are wrapped and the families are notified as to when they can come by and pick up the gifts. This is a wonderful cooperative way so many can work together to be a sign of God's grace at work in this holy season.

So, in the middle of all of the sights, sounds and smells of this season, may they all be reminders of the One who comes to bring us Life and Hope and Peace. May our eyes be open to God's coming, not just at the end of time, but among us now, in this season, in all kinds of ways, great and small. And may we be living examples of God's New Day dawning upon us and all of creation as we "…lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light, and live honorably as in the day..." (Romans 13, this past Sunday). This is what this season is really about!

See you in church!

Pastor A.C. 'Jack' Diehl III