Mayan Hands Fair Trade Sale
Looking for a unique gift for the holidays? The Alplaus UWF is sponsoring a Mayan Hands Fair Trade Sale on Friday and Saturday, November 4th and 5th from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. in Fellowship Hall.
These high-quality hand-woven items make beautiful gifts. The Mayan Hands is a fair-trade nonprofit organization that helps women in nine Guatemalan communities earn a fair return for their work. The Pandemic greatly affected the Mayan Hands organization’s ability to raise money for these talented women and they are thankful for being able to finally come together again in person to help support them. Your purchases of their handmade products will be greatly appreciated and help to support these talented Guatemalan weavers.
The Alplaus UWF will have a bagel fundraiser sale at the same time.
Annual Charge Conference
Churches near each other have been asked to combine their annual conferences and this year we will be hosting Centre Glenville. Our church leadership thought it would be fun to invite them here for a potluck brunch on Saturday, November 12th at 11am, prior to the conference. Please join us and let Lisa Beretz know if you will be attending by calling/texting 518-330-9277, email LLBeretz@gmail.com or by signup sheet in our Fellowship Hall. Volunteers will be needed to help with the brunch set-up & clean-up also. Please come and share our good fellowship with our neighboring church as we get together for the first time to share a meal together.
The United Woman in Faith
UWF meeting October 20th. The scripture reading for the meeting will be Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16 and 12:1-2. Meetings start at 12:30pm and usually last about 2hrs, followed by a short business meeting. UWF is open to all women of our church community, please join us! Please mark your calendar and spread the word that we will once again have an in person Mayan Hands sale Friday, November 4 thru Sunday, November 6th!! More information will be in next month’s Muse.
Fall Cleanup
Fall cleanup at the church will be held Sunday, October 23, 2022 after service. I am compiling a list of items that need to be cleaned or serviced. These items can be completed prior to Clean Up Sunday, but prefer not to do them afterwards because then they generally don't get done.
It was brought to my attention that two people were saying the new library is a fire hazard because it only has one door in it. If that were the case, the nursery, the sanctuary office, the pastor's office and the one upstairs classroom would also be fire hazards, as they each only have one door. For the past three years we have had the Town Building Inspector certify that our building is fire safe. Also, in a conversation with the building inspector recently, the library and all the other single door rooms in the church are safe because they empty into rooms with marked fire exits. Taking care of the church is a tough enough job without negative input from naysayers. It would be much more productive if people would bring their concerns to church leadership instead of spreading misinformation.
Update on Mission Opportunities
We made sandwiches in September and October for Schenectady Street Soldiers. Many people contributed ingredients and time to make and deliver over 50 sandwiches each month. Thank you to all who gave a helping hand! On October 16th, Street Soldiers served 238 neighbors who were in need; this was a new record. There is definitely a need as costs are still on the rise. They are having a hard time keeping pantry items stocked, and have been limiting how many cans of food or boxes of mac and cheese (a favorite) each person can take. In November, our church is especially busy due to Church Charge Conference, Hanging of the Greens as Advent begins, etc. So instead of making sandwiches, we will be collecting pantry items for Street Soldiers with planned delivery on or about November 20th. There will be a collection box in the church entry for non-perishable items. Any item is appreciated!
A great number of sweatshirts, sweaters, coats and hats were donated by members of our congregation to be sent to Ukraine, which I delivered on Monday October 17th. They are not yet sure of the shipping date to Ukraine due to the recent increased Russian bombings which make it more difficult. As soon as it’s feasible, they will be shipped over. Thanks again to everyone who helped! When I get a new request and list of needed items, I will let you know.
We will continue to have our SICM basket in the entry as well, but these are some other ways we can help out if your heart leads you to give.
Robin Bowman , (ph 518-630-8655)
Nursery Items
In an effort to make room for some other items in the small play room, it was decided to remove several items from the nursery area: playpen, changing table, baby swing, and cradle. If you donated those items and would like them back, please contact Barb Trask by Oct. 31. If no one claims them, they will be donated to a charity organization.
Book Study Starting
UPDATE: Our next read will be "Joshua in a Troubled World" by Joseph Girzone. We will meet in person on Tuesdays starting September 13th at 11am. Pastor Kristi will be preparing discussion questions and will text or e-mail these questions to you on 9/11, and then hopefully offer the following weeks’ set in-person. We have invited 4 other congregations to join us. I believe we already have 3 new to us who are planning to attend! If you would like to receive the questions, text or e-mail Pastor Kristi your preferred format.
Donations to the Church
To all those who wish to continue with your pledges/contributions/gifts to the Church, you can mail them in. We still have bills to pay, even with Church being closed temporarily. Please make checks payable to Alplaus UMC and mail them to:
Carolyn Koch/Financial Secretary, 709 Pleasantview Ave., Glenville, NY 12302.
This will prevent your check from sitting in the Church mail box until someone comes by to check it and then deliver them to Carolyn.
SICM Collection
Each month our church brings donated non-perishable food items to the Schenectady Inter City Mission Food Pantry. There is a collection basket in
the entryway under the coat rack. The next time you are grocery shopping, please consider buying something that is on sale to bring into the collection.
Maybe even make it a habit of buying one thing each week that is on sale and bring it in to donate.
Mary Herrick's 100th Birthday Celebration
UPDATE: Thank you to everyone that helped to make Mary Herrick’s 100th birthday the special celebration that it was, on May 1st. It was great to get together at church and see people we haven’t seen in years!! The party was well attended by at least 50 people and the food that everyone brought to share at the party was delicious and plentiful!! The Gazette did a great article with Mary’s picture taken at the party on May 4th (Mary’s birth date) with the synopsis her daughter, Kathy, wrote about Mary’s life. The Alplaus Resident’s Association asked that everyone send Mary a card for her birthday, in the hope of her getting at least 100 cards for her 100th birthday and at last count she received 110 cards!! We were blessed to have had such a great opportunity to get together for such a special person like Mary and look forward to having more celebrations together again in the future.
Firehouse Gazebo Eagle Scout Project
I am Ben Dussault, a 17-year-old Niskayuna rising senior who lives on First Street. I am a member of Boy Scout Troop 3036 that is chartered by the Alplaus United Methodist Church. This summer I am doing my Eagle Scout Project so that I can continue my advancement to the rank of Eagle Scout. I have always wanted to do my Eagle Scout project in Alplaus and have finally decided on what I could do that would be beneficial to the Alplaus community. As some of you may be aware, the firehouse has been considering what to do with the gazebo for quite some time. I decided that this would be the perfect opportunity to get my Eagle Project done as well as benefit Alplaus. After talking it out with the Fire Commissioners, they approved my project to improve the firehouse gazebo. This project will be adding a natural stone walkway and boxwood hedge, as well as bringing in dirt to fix the ground around the gazebo. The only thing remaining to begin this project is to raise funds for the materials. This would include dirt, stone dust, pavers, shrubs, edging, and other miscellaneous items. The total material costs of the project will come to $1979.00. If you are able to contribute that would greatly help in making this project for Alplaus a success. Any and all extra funds raised will be given back to the firehouse to be used in any manner they deem fit. Please make checks out to me, and mail to Ben Dussault, 3 First St., Alplaus NY 12008. Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Benjamin Dussault, (benddussault@gmail.com)
Troop 3036
Prayer Chain
The Prayer chain has been revised! There will still be two lists. One list will remain as a phone call list. The second list will be for anyone who would like to receive the prayer request by text message. To activate the prayer chain, please call Mary Herrick (518-399-2113) or call/text Carolyn Koch (518-248-8138). Please contact Pastor Kristi (518-469-7764 or revklvp@yahoo.com) if you have the need for private prayer. If you are not already part of the prayer chain and would like to be included, please let me know. Thanks, Carolyn
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
On Hold:
Next Step Team
In October 2019, a team was established at Alplaus UMC after Amanda shared details about the 2019 General Conference during the Laity Service. This group has been meeting with other local congregations learning to prayerfully research, review, discuss and discover feelings surrounding the results from the General Conference decision where a partial version of the Traditional Plan was approved, by a vote of 438 to 384 (53.3 to 46.7 percent). Based on the General Conference results and the upcoming 2020 Conference vote, the Administration Council at Alplaus agreed to form a team to open a dialogue about the inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ+) individuals within the life and ministries of our church. Through this dialogue, we seek to find an understanding of how we plan to welcome people now and in the future within our congregation. The team will be meeting in January to plan a congregation meeting where we can have an open discussion about this topic and answer questions that you may have regarding the upcoming proposals for 2020.
Yours in Christ,
Carolyn, Dick, Karen & Claudia
Confirmation Class - open to youth grade 6 and above - will start 9/8 at 9m. This class will be in place of regular Sunday School. Aiming for Confirmation on 5/31 (Pentecost). From umc.org: “Confirmation includes three aspects,” This Is Your Baptismal Liturgy summarizes. “a) God confirms the divine promise to those who were too young to grasp what God was doing in their baptism, b) they respond by professing their own acceptance of the grace they have received and their own faith in Christ, c) the Church, as represented by this congregation, confirms the commitments they make.” Confirmation is not a destination. It is more of a way station, a place where we renew our commitment to the journey we have been traveling under the care of others. “It is the first time that persons publicly declare their intention to live out the vows of the baptismal covenant,” Burton-Edwards teaches. “It is not intended to be the last time. It’s just that confirmation is the label we put on the first time.” It is also a time for a congregation to celebrate their young people’s commitment to “live as a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ,” and to renew their commitment to do the same.
Sunday School News
The format of our class has changed this year since the girls are now older. We have started to incorporate some of the format used during the regular church service. For example, we are lighting a candle at the beginning of class to emulate what we do during church and have discussed the symbolism of light in the Christian faith. We are also sharing our joys and concerns with one another, and sometimes they also share them during the church service. The girls continue to be our acolytes during the church service which we are very grateful for. During the first month of class we read about various miracles Jesus performed and compared them among the 4 Gospel books. We started to explore the miracles in the Old Testament.
Looking for a unique gift for the holidays? The Alplaus UWF is sponsoring a Mayan Hands Fair Trade Sale on Friday and Saturday, November 4th and 5th from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. in Fellowship Hall.
These high-quality hand-woven items make beautiful gifts. The Mayan Hands is a fair-trade nonprofit organization that helps women in nine Guatemalan communities earn a fair return for their work. The Pandemic greatly affected the Mayan Hands organization’s ability to raise money for these talented women and they are thankful for being able to finally come together again in person to help support them. Your purchases of their handmade products will be greatly appreciated and help to support these talented Guatemalan weavers.
The Alplaus UWF will have a bagel fundraiser sale at the same time.
Annual Charge Conference
Churches near each other have been asked to combine their annual conferences and this year we will be hosting Centre Glenville. Our church leadership thought it would be fun to invite them here for a potluck brunch on Saturday, November 12th at 11am, prior to the conference. Please join us and let Lisa Beretz know if you will be attending by calling/texting 518-330-9277, email LLBeretz@gmail.com or by signup sheet in our Fellowship Hall. Volunteers will be needed to help with the brunch set-up & clean-up also. Please come and share our good fellowship with our neighboring church as we get together for the first time to share a meal together.
The United Woman in Faith
UWF meeting October 20th. The scripture reading for the meeting will be Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16 and 12:1-2. Meetings start at 12:30pm and usually last about 2hrs, followed by a short business meeting. UWF is open to all women of our church community, please join us! Please mark your calendar and spread the word that we will once again have an in person Mayan Hands sale Friday, November 4 thru Sunday, November 6th!! More information will be in next month’s Muse.
Fall Cleanup
Fall cleanup at the church will be held Sunday, October 23, 2022 after service. I am compiling a list of items that need to be cleaned or serviced. These items can be completed prior to Clean Up Sunday, but prefer not to do them afterwards because then they generally don't get done.
It was brought to my attention that two people were saying the new library is a fire hazard because it only has one door in it. If that were the case, the nursery, the sanctuary office, the pastor's office and the one upstairs classroom would also be fire hazards, as they each only have one door. For the past three years we have had the Town Building Inspector certify that our building is fire safe. Also, in a conversation with the building inspector recently, the library and all the other single door rooms in the church are safe because they empty into rooms with marked fire exits. Taking care of the church is a tough enough job without negative input from naysayers. It would be much more productive if people would bring their concerns to church leadership instead of spreading misinformation.
Update on Mission Opportunities
We made sandwiches in September and October for Schenectady Street Soldiers. Many people contributed ingredients and time to make and deliver over 50 sandwiches each month. Thank you to all who gave a helping hand! On October 16th, Street Soldiers served 238 neighbors who were in need; this was a new record. There is definitely a need as costs are still on the rise. They are having a hard time keeping pantry items stocked, and have been limiting how many cans of food or boxes of mac and cheese (a favorite) each person can take. In November, our church is especially busy due to Church Charge Conference, Hanging of the Greens as Advent begins, etc. So instead of making sandwiches, we will be collecting pantry items for Street Soldiers with planned delivery on or about November 20th. There will be a collection box in the church entry for non-perishable items. Any item is appreciated!
A great number of sweatshirts, sweaters, coats and hats were donated by members of our congregation to be sent to Ukraine, which I delivered on Monday October 17th. They are not yet sure of the shipping date to Ukraine due to the recent increased Russian bombings which make it more difficult. As soon as it’s feasible, they will be shipped over. Thanks again to everyone who helped! When I get a new request and list of needed items, I will let you know.
We will continue to have our SICM basket in the entry as well, but these are some other ways we can help out if your heart leads you to give.
Robin Bowman , (ph 518-630-8655)
Nursery Items
In an effort to make room for some other items in the small play room, it was decided to remove several items from the nursery area: playpen, changing table, baby swing, and cradle. If you donated those items and would like them back, please contact Barb Trask by Oct. 31. If no one claims them, they will be donated to a charity organization.
Book Study Starting
UPDATE: Our next read will be "Joshua in a Troubled World" by Joseph Girzone. We will meet in person on Tuesdays starting September 13th at 11am. Pastor Kristi will be preparing discussion questions and will text or e-mail these questions to you on 9/11, and then hopefully offer the following weeks’ set in-person. We have invited 4 other congregations to join us. I believe we already have 3 new to us who are planning to attend! If you would like to receive the questions, text or e-mail Pastor Kristi your preferred format.
Donations to the Church
To all those who wish to continue with your pledges/contributions/gifts to the Church, you can mail them in. We still have bills to pay, even with Church being closed temporarily. Please make checks payable to Alplaus UMC and mail them to:
Carolyn Koch/Financial Secretary, 709 Pleasantview Ave., Glenville, NY 12302.
This will prevent your check from sitting in the Church mail box until someone comes by to check it and then deliver them to Carolyn.
SICM Collection
Each month our church brings donated non-perishable food items to the Schenectady Inter City Mission Food Pantry. There is a collection basket in
the entryway under the coat rack. The next time you are grocery shopping, please consider buying something that is on sale to bring into the collection.
Maybe even make it a habit of buying one thing each week that is on sale and bring it in to donate.
Mary Herrick's 100th Birthday Celebration
UPDATE: Thank you to everyone that helped to make Mary Herrick’s 100th birthday the special celebration that it was, on May 1st. It was great to get together at church and see people we haven’t seen in years!! The party was well attended by at least 50 people and the food that everyone brought to share at the party was delicious and plentiful!! The Gazette did a great article with Mary’s picture taken at the party on May 4th (Mary’s birth date) with the synopsis her daughter, Kathy, wrote about Mary’s life. The Alplaus Resident’s Association asked that everyone send Mary a card for her birthday, in the hope of her getting at least 100 cards for her 100th birthday and at last count she received 110 cards!! We were blessed to have had such a great opportunity to get together for such a special person like Mary and look forward to having more celebrations together again in the future.
Firehouse Gazebo Eagle Scout Project
I am Ben Dussault, a 17-year-old Niskayuna rising senior who lives on First Street. I am a member of Boy Scout Troop 3036 that is chartered by the Alplaus United Methodist Church. This summer I am doing my Eagle Scout Project so that I can continue my advancement to the rank of Eagle Scout. I have always wanted to do my Eagle Scout project in Alplaus and have finally decided on what I could do that would be beneficial to the Alplaus community. As some of you may be aware, the firehouse has been considering what to do with the gazebo for quite some time. I decided that this would be the perfect opportunity to get my Eagle Project done as well as benefit Alplaus. After talking it out with the Fire Commissioners, they approved my project to improve the firehouse gazebo. This project will be adding a natural stone walkway and boxwood hedge, as well as bringing in dirt to fix the ground around the gazebo. The only thing remaining to begin this project is to raise funds for the materials. This would include dirt, stone dust, pavers, shrubs, edging, and other miscellaneous items. The total material costs of the project will come to $1979.00. If you are able to contribute that would greatly help in making this project for Alplaus a success. Any and all extra funds raised will be given back to the firehouse to be used in any manner they deem fit. Please make checks out to me, and mail to Ben Dussault, 3 First St., Alplaus NY 12008. Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Benjamin Dussault, (benddussault@gmail.com)
Troop 3036
Prayer Chain
The Prayer chain has been revised! There will still be two lists. One list will remain as a phone call list. The second list will be for anyone who would like to receive the prayer request by text message. To activate the prayer chain, please call Mary Herrick (518-399-2113) or call/text Carolyn Koch (518-248-8138). Please contact Pastor Kristi (518-469-7764 or revklvp@yahoo.com) if you have the need for private prayer. If you are not already part of the prayer chain and would like to be included, please let me know. Thanks, Carolyn
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
On Hold:
Next Step Team
In October 2019, a team was established at Alplaus UMC after Amanda shared details about the 2019 General Conference during the Laity Service. This group has been meeting with other local congregations learning to prayerfully research, review, discuss and discover feelings surrounding the results from the General Conference decision where a partial version of the Traditional Plan was approved, by a vote of 438 to 384 (53.3 to 46.7 percent). Based on the General Conference results and the upcoming 2020 Conference vote, the Administration Council at Alplaus agreed to form a team to open a dialogue about the inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ+) individuals within the life and ministries of our church. Through this dialogue, we seek to find an understanding of how we plan to welcome people now and in the future within our congregation. The team will be meeting in January to plan a congregation meeting where we can have an open discussion about this topic and answer questions that you may have regarding the upcoming proposals for 2020.
Yours in Christ,
Carolyn, Dick, Karen & Claudia
Confirmation Class - open to youth grade 6 and above - will start 9/8 at 9m. This class will be in place of regular Sunday School. Aiming for Confirmation on 5/31 (Pentecost). From umc.org: “Confirmation includes three aspects,” This Is Your Baptismal Liturgy summarizes. “a) God confirms the divine promise to those who were too young to grasp what God was doing in their baptism, b) they respond by professing their own acceptance of the grace they have received and their own faith in Christ, c) the Church, as represented by this congregation, confirms the commitments they make.” Confirmation is not a destination. It is more of a way station, a place where we renew our commitment to the journey we have been traveling under the care of others. “It is the first time that persons publicly declare their intention to live out the vows of the baptismal covenant,” Burton-Edwards teaches. “It is not intended to be the last time. It’s just that confirmation is the label we put on the first time.” It is also a time for a congregation to celebrate their young people’s commitment to “live as a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ,” and to renew their commitment to do the same.
Sunday School News
The format of our class has changed this year since the girls are now older. We have started to incorporate some of the format used during the regular church service. For example, we are lighting a candle at the beginning of class to emulate what we do during church and have discussed the symbolism of light in the Christian faith. We are also sharing our joys and concerns with one another, and sometimes they also share them during the church service. The girls continue to be our acolytes during the church service which we are very grateful for. During the first month of class we read about various miracles Jesus performed and compared them among the 4 Gospel books. We started to explore the miracles in the Old Testament.