The Williston-West Navigator

Transition brings with it many unanswered questions. We have started to deal with it in one of the best ways I can think of. We are planning a party, a celebration really. A celebration of the time, dedication and spirit Eric Kelley has given to each of us. Save the date, July 21, 2006. At 6 PM we will gather to honor Eric with sincere wishes and fond recollections. Tickets will be sold to allow us to have an accurate count. They will go on sale June 1^st at the church office and will also be sold at Coffee Fellowship each Sunday until they are sold out. Space is limited by the fire code, so do not miss out on this very memorable night.

On a less cheerful note, as Moderator, I get the good with the bad. I am concerned. Pledges are down, attendance is down, and the Williston-West Family seems to be having a difficult time coming to grips with the TRANSITION. If you have been in church, you have heard Eric say, over and over, that the church is not the building, not the man, not the individuals, but the faith family gathered in praise of God in the word and works of Jesus Christ. To survive, we must come to understand that the Church was here for 101 years before Eric arrived and will be here and prosper long after he moves on to Jonesport USA. He has been a fantastic teacher and steward to our family. I am asking that in his honor, you join me in two ways to help our church.

1. Pledge to stay with us. Work to insure a joyful resolution of the search for a new Called Pastor. We need each person from the youngest to our most senior member to accept responsibility for our successful transition.
2. Pledge your resources to get us over the monetary shortfall we now find ourselves in. If you have not pledged, do so now. If you have pledged, join me by increasing your pledge.

With prayer and a little more from each of us we will continue to grow and prosper.

God bless Williston-West Church, its faith family and our Pastor Eric Kelley as we all travel new and challenging paths.

n important part of my job both as a parent and underwriting manager is the ability to predict the future. Some situations are easier to foresee than others. When my energetic and mischievous 4-year-old runs, with his official Luke Skywalker light saber, into a room where my meticulous 7-year-old has built a whole fleet of Lego star fighters…it doesn’t take a genius to see the future. It’s going to be loud, Legos are going to fly…and someone is going to end up crying. It’s more difficult to predict the affects of an aging workforce, higher rates of obesity, economic growth, globalization and a thousand other variables on mortality and disability trends in the American workforce. At work I make predictions insurance policy by insurance policy. My goal is not to be perfect, but to be "right" more than I am "wrong." There are a thousand complex decisions, and I might not know if I’m right for years to come.

Part of my job as a Trustee for Williston-West Church is to predict, guide and support the financial future of the Church. Some predictions are difficult; how long will the roof last? What is going to break down next? Some are far easier. Sadly, I can predict with great certainty that baring any change in pledges – we will need to continue to make withdrawals from our endowment to fund current Church operations. We have already transferred the full 2006 budgeted amount for the year – and we will be making another small withdrawal shortly. We are trending about $12,000 below our needed budget, and our budget is lean. We don’t have much we can eliminate, slash or even trim.

Is this a crisis? No – it is not a crisis, because we have a solid endowment that has been managed wisely and frugally for years. It is, however, an important challenge because we cannot continue to make withdrawals for operational costs indefinitely. We need to keep the endowment strong so that we may respond quickly and confidently to the unforeseen challenges ahead. This is not a crisis, but a challenge, and an opportunity for all members of Williston-West to incrementally share in the solution. We are roughly at the half-year mark. The $12,000 shortfall amounts to roughly $2,000 a month for the second half of the year. We have roughly 100 pledging families within the church. If every family pledged an extra $20 a month…only $5 more a Sunday…we would close the gap. Some among us will not be able to make this incremental increase…could you consider an additional $30 a month? An additional $40 a month?

Please consider how you can help Williston-West respond to this challenge. The more we work together, the lighter the load becomes for each of us. Please consider carefully how you can help. My next best option is an auction of Lego Star fighters….slightly damaged ones half-off.

It is spring. Spring brings new life. Spring brings change. Spring brings growth. Christian Education has grown. Four years ago we had 5-10 children regularly attend Sunday School. Today we average between 15 and 35. We have a growing number of pre-teens who will soon need a different kind of program to meet them where they are emotionally, socially, and religiously. Tom and I have together decided that this program needs something new.

Tom and I, with the help of our Christian Education Committee, share the job of keeping the Sunday School, and other things related to the Christian education of our children, running week to week. We have managed to keep a good thing going and growing, but we both believe that in order for our Sunday School to take the next step necessary to meet the changing needs of our kids, we are in need of new leadership. We are stepping down in our role as co-directors of Christian Education. Tom is making this decision after eight or nine years of commitment. We have so much to be grateful for in Tom. He has served these children so generously for so long. They know it, and they have benefited from his unwavering commitment. He will be stepping down on Labor Day in September. I am stepping down as of June 30 after two years in this role. I wish I could be the person to carry the program to its next venture, but changes in my work life have made this not possible for me. I cannot begin to say what joy and learning I have experienced serving our children, our families, and all of the people of our community who have shown so much support to our children, whether they have children of their own or not. Tom and I both have mixed feelings about our decision. We are enthusiastic about creating space for something new and good to happen. We are sad to not have time to serve the Sunday School as its directors. We have been a good team. I feel lucky to have Tom as a friend, and to have had him as a colleague.

Having said all of that, we are NOT washing our hands of all this Sunday School business. Tom has a strong interest in developing a youth group, and with his wife Linda’s help, will be creating opportunities for the older kids to gather in a new way, and to serve our community as well. I am sure you will be hearing more about this in the months to come. I will continue to care strongly about the children of our church. I will be teaching, writing, and speaking whenever and wherever I am needed. I enjoy all of these tasks so much I could not completely give them up.

It is our hope that by stepping down we are creating an opportunity for others to step up. We are not certain if our next leader or leaders will come from within the church or without. However, we and our committee, will be involved in this process to see that the program grows in the direction we know it will, with or without Tom and me as directors. Once we have found someone, we will be available as much as necessary to support whoever takes on this task. To all of you, we have a request. Please consider yourself or someone you know for the role of Christian Education director. The job requires approximately ten hours per week during the school year, and significantly less than that during the summer. The pay is good, and the hours are flexible, as the work can fit into your schedule. It is the perfect job for someone looking for a very part-time position, who has an interest in working with children. Tom and I and the committee will be behind anyone who steps up, so fear not.

And, speaking of fear…we do realize this is a time of significant change for Williston-West, with Eric’s departure. We ask that you not fear for our Christian Education program. We don’t. Like us, we hope you will have faith that things happen for a reason, and that the timing is right to celebrate that our growing church needs something new for the growing number of kids who are counting on us. Faith not Fear is one of my favorite slogans. Let’s all of us have faith about this and about so many other changes in our lives.

Thank you, all of you….
Amy and Tom

WHAT DOES CHURCH MEMBERSHIP MEAN?

It probably means different things to different people, but all members of Williston-West have
the following in common. This is what our Constitution and Bylaws say about Covenant Membership:

ARTICLE IV   Covenant Membership

A. A covenant member in this church is any person who has been baptized,
     presented to the Church by the Board of Deacons and made public confession of
     faith in Jesus Christ as expressed in the United Church of Christ Statement of
     Faith.

B. Covenant members shall attend the worship of the church regularly,
     participate in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, strive to live the Christian
     life, share in the life and work of the church, contribute consistently to its
     support and benevolences, and seek diligently the spiritual welfare of the
     membership and the community.

C. Any Covenant member, upon request, may be granted a letter of transfer by the
     Clerk, or dropped from the membership roles.

D. Any Covenant member who for a period of one year has not attended the
     church’s worship or contributed to its support will receive a letter of
     concern from the Board of Deacons, mailed to the last known address.  If no
     response occurs within 30 days, they may be dropped from the covenant
     membership roles by a recommendation from the Committee and a vote of the
     Council.

Seed of Peace Planting Day

Ricki Hass

Buildings and Grounds
Sumner Moulton

It has been a year since our last report, and there have been some accomplishments and some changes. Most notable, however, has been a failure: we did not get the downspouts replaced. They have been at the top of the needs list for several years, and we have had the money; it just was difficult to get the job done, for various reasons. Deferred maintenance is never wise; but in this case, it is unsightly, too. It is hoped that a "mover" will come forward for this overdue task.

One other job was eliminated from the long-languishing list, however; the plaster on the ceiling over the pulpit was repaired by Al Sebestyen, our handyman. It was quite a feat, involving iron staging, all of which he set up and took down himself, and for an extraordinarily modest fee. He also replaced a broken sump pump in the boiler room.

The notable change has been the assumption by Erik Hanna of jobs in addition to those normally associated with a sexton’s duties. The extra interest he has shown in the building and grounds during the past year or so is commendable. He has been working on projects big and small, to prevent or correct what would otherwise be progressive deterioration, and to help beautify the inside and outside. e.g.:

- Hanging all those lovely banners (made by Roxanna Brophy) in the sanctuary

- Getting rid of the pigeons (put up mesh over the vent openings used as nests)

- Repairing a broken leg on a couch in the parlor

- Installing bathroom doorstops to prevent holes in the plaster from door knobs

- Cleaning out leaves from the gutters, to prevent water damage

- Cleaning out the bell tower

- Removing a pew (with Eric Kelley’s help) for wheelchair access

- Painting the wall of the stairs to the third floor, which had unsightly cracks.

In addition, he responded immediately in cleaning up after a burst radiator in the breezeway, which had drenched the entire room in steam and water. Further, and perhaps most important, he has been familiarizing himself, under Eric Kelley’s tutelage, of the workings of the operational systems (gas, water, heating and electric) in the building.

Erik was also the major participant in a painting detail last summer, together with Patrick Costin, that redid the ramp to the sanctuary and the doors to the fire escape on the parish building. Prior to the painting, a rotted board in the ramp had been replaced.

Aftin Doughty, perhaps THE stalwart in the kitchen, finally had enough of looking through a broken and dysfunctional, dirty window over the sink, found a replacement in the cellar and washed and re-hung it. Aftin, incidentally, was responsible years ago for much of the building maintenance.

A major project last summer involved disposing of two large, heavy tables which had been donated to us, but for which we had little need or space. With the coordinating efforts of Penney Armstrong, church administrator, and after much effort, we were able to find a home for them at Mercy Hospital. Penney also arranged for some plumbing repairs by Al Sebestyen, viz., a leaky toilet and a cracked wash basin drainpipe, and for plastering of a bathroom ceiling, damaged by water from the drainpipe.

We are grateful for the new, large storage refrigerator in the kitchen, which was a gift to the church by a group of members who have not sought the recognition they deserve.

Finally, we have some new equipment: a 40-foot extension ladder (for work on the gutters, etc.), an 8-foot ladder for interior use, a vacuum for the second floor and a wet vac for carpet spills, etc.

It is evident that many people are responsible for keeping the church in shape, and we are fortunate to have their skills and dedication.

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The Cora L. Brown Foundation
Madeline Bates

P>In its beginning, it was known as the Portland Diet Mission, organized in 1898 by Mrs. Charles Burr, wife of a prominent Portland physician. Mrs. Burr felt that nourishing food was greatly needed by sick and elderly people who were not charity cases but needed temporary help.

Since then, the work of the organization has been financially supported by Portland churches and by income from invested funds, H.M. Payson. A group of fourteen-to-twenty churches, both Catholic and Protestant, have been affiliated with the Diet Mission over the years. There are now five or six churches which are affiliated with the Foundation. Each church sends a representative to monthly meetings. Money from member churches comes from collections and yearly donations.

For many years, food was served to the clients from a room at City Hall, with each participating church collecting, preparing and dispensing food three mornings a week for the number of weeks promised by the church. A member of the Diet Mission was present to check on food tickets given to the clients previously. When able, the clients came to City Hall for the food. In other cases, the Diet Mission employed high school boys to deliver the baskets for 25 cents each. During World War II, when ration books and food shortages appeared, this method became impractical. Now a monthly check is sent to each client instead.

In the early days, the food donations included a loaf of bread, tea bags, milk, tapioca and a square of butter. Now six clients get $1-$300 a month, and we have $50 food certificates. On all holidays (Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving) 17-20 clients receive complete dinners. The Foundation also helps pay gas, light and telephone bills, and helps with rent and medical expenses.

The original idea was to help single individuals, the sick and elderly, or chronic invalids. We have taken on a few families with children when a special need arises. If we learn after investigation that there is any church connection, that church may be asked to assume the milk expense. The Foundation is not meant to be a permanent form of support, but a donation toward medicines and living expenses. In addition, the foundation supports the Red Cross and disaster relief appeals.

Cora L. Brown moved to the Woodfords area in 1935 and joined the Diet Mission. The oldest continuous member, she has been the investigating chairman for sixty years, receiving daily calls from needy families. In December 1996 she was honored by the group when the Diet Mission changed its name to the Cora L. Brown Foundation.

We wish the Foundation continued success in helping members of our community.

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