San Antonio Mennonite Church newsletter, June 2000

Under Construction

"Walk a little plainer, Daddy,"
Said a little boy so frail;
"I'm following in your footsteps,
And I don't want to fail.
Sometimes your steps aren't very plain,
So walk a little plainer, Daddy,
For you are leading me.

"I know that once you walked this way,
Many years ago!
And what you did along the way
I'd really like to know;
For sometimes when I am tempted,
I don't know what to do.
So walk a little plainer, Daddy,
For I must follow you.

"Someday when I'm grown up,
You are like I want to be-
Then I will have a little boy
Who will want to follow me.
And I would want to lead him right,
And help him to be true.
So walk a little plainer, Daddy,
For we must follow you."

Author Unknown, Christian Courier
Contributed by Mary Banspach

Once again summer is upon us, with its less structured church schedule. Let me make some suggestions to keep church from just seeming to be on hold through the summer.

First, invite someone over. For Mennonites, community is one of the most important parts of being a church. Last year we set up a visitation list with assigned groups of families and suggested they get together socially over the next week. Most got together to share a meal, but we found with different people's schedules, it was difficult for some groups to find a time that suited everyone. The idea of intentionally getting together with several people from our church who you don't know very well yet is still a good way to build a stronger sense of community. This year, rather than trying to structure it, I just want to encourage each of you to look at your calendar and make plans to get together with one or more families/households/persons once each month through the summer. Find a time that suits you and call some people. If they are tied up for that date, call someone else. Think of people you'd like to get to know better, people who attend infrequently, or have stopped attending. Maybe even add someone who hasn't attended, but that you would like to have meet some of your church friends.

Secondly, find time in getting away from it all, to get away with God. Renewal isn't just resting, although you need that, or getting together with family, although that's important, or even fishing, important as that may be to the soul! But find time to get to know God a little better. For you that might mean quiet walks alone with God, or reading the Bible, or picking up a book that renews your faith.

Come back from your vacation with your relationship to God and your relationships to your church family renewed and strengthened. Have a great summer! --Duane Beachey

The church has asked Duane Beachey to continue to serve as pastor for an extended two-year term beginning in June. The process of asking Duane to fit into our plan of evolving to a full time pastor seemed a bit unconventional and I apologize for not always being clear on procedures. We hope that by fall we can do a congregation and pastor evaluation. Currently we are working with Western District Conference concerning the ordination process for Duane. It may be that we will need to go through a licensing procedure before we reach the ordination stage. It seems the bureaucratic systems are alive and well.

The process of selecting church servants went well and I thank each and every one for your cooperation. Sometimes I feel we are overly organized and structured but after the selections were nailed I felt that there were still persons in our group that weren't assigned to a position and could serve us well.

The input you have given as to how we should disburse some of our savings proved to be very helpful. The Stewardship Team met to consider your wishes and make the calculations. The final results of these determinations are on page 3. We have received some suggestions on the management of the additional savings. If there are more ideas we ask that you pass them along to members of the Stewardship Team. It looks like we can get serious about working on this by fall. We had a large air conditioning expenditure recently and fortunately the amount that was suggested for improvements will be quite helpful. As has already been reported to you, rental income will soon decrease from what our current budget indicates. --Dan Miller

We (Toby, Daniel, John) went to Guadalupe State park with the Williams, the Castañons, Duane, the Banspachs and the Bares. We got there on a Friday at 7:00 p.m. and set up the tent, started the fire, and then went fishing. By the time we got to the river and got our hooks in the water, it was pitch dark. We didn't catch anything. We went back and ate hot dogs, talked and turned in.

The next day, after a great meal, we fished from the bank and from the canoe. I caught a six inch catfish fishing from the bank. Jonathan saw it and I put it back. We fished and rode in the canoe until we left. Before we left we had watermelon at the picnic table by the parking lot. And that was the end of our camping trip.

Here are some quotes from some of the campers:
Toby: "I liked the canoeing best."
Anna: "I liked fishing."
Jonathan: "I had a lot of fun fishing."
Emily: "I liked sleeping in the tent and playing at the playground."
Joel: "I liked fishing." --Daniel Merkt-Blatz

The SAMC women's small group has begun meeting every other week. We've decided to use a study from the Women of Faith Bible Study Series titled "Celebrating Friendship". In addition, participants will each spend time telling their "story". We are currently meeting at Karen Kenagy Perez's house alternating between Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. --Deb Miller

The past several months at La Casa have been full and productive. We have had many people passing through our doors. It has been keeping us busy cleaning house, doing laundry, grocery runs and assorted other jobs to keep the house in working order. Plus we have had to plan for the summer SALSA groups.

In March we had three SALSA groups, a high school youth group from Midland, TX, a group from Bethel College in Newton KS and a youth group from Halstead, KS. All the groups enjoyed their stays here and had very rewarding and meaningful experiences. It was a rewarding time for me too, seeing the growth and learning that happened in one week.

In April we had numerous house guests from all over, and a big weekend when the house was full of wedding guests. Of course the big event was our annual ice cream booth at the King William Fair April 29. It was a hot day and business was good. A big thank you to all from the church who helped, bought ice cream, or just stopped by.

The month of May has also been busy. A group of 22 from Bluffton (OH) College will be here for 12 days. We will be finalizing plans for a full SALSA summer, which will begin May 28th and continue through the first week of August. On staff this summer will be Hugo Saucedo who will be the SALSA Program Coordinator, Abigail Smith, continuing as Associate Director, Cris Torres, and Maricela Alarcon. --Abigail A. Smith

SAMC finances are looking good, as our income is higher than expenses for the first quarter of the fiscal year. Our missions giving will be sharply higher this year, under our recently approved budget. Also, we appreciate your voices in disbursing some of our savings.

This fortunate financial picture is only possible because of your giving, which represents over 80% of our total income. Please give as God directs you. --Merle Miller

Voluntary Service Would Love Your Support…
The VS Committee is looking for some help from its church brethren and sistern to help the local VS Unit keep running smoothly. There are a number of jobs that folks can help out with on a regular basis or on an every once and a while basis-depending on what your life permits. The idea is to create a list of people the VS Committee can call on when extra support is needed. Please call or e-mail me if you can help out with any of the things listed below.

Just a reminder that the Texas Relief Sale is fast approaching - just five months away. You still have time to complete those craft projects. If you haven't started yet, now is the time to begin. Things that have sold well in the past include; silver jewelry, knitted dish cloths, aprons and tote bags, Christmas-themed gifts and ornaments, dried floral arrangements, wall hangings, wooden crafts, children's items and many others.

Remember there are funds available for purchasing supplies to make crafts. If you are interested in obtaining money from the fund or have questions about crafts for the relief sale, please let me know.

An added feature this year will be puppet shows. This is an effort to have something special for the children and to make the sale a bit more family oriented. --Deb Miller

Based on the survey of the membership, the Stewardship Team has decided to make the following contributions. Thank you for your help in this process. We hope the results are satisfactory to each and every one.

A. Mennonite Board of Education: Racial/Ethnic Leadership Prepares leaders for under-represented groups	600.00
B. Mennonite Board of Missions: Missions Leadership development for urban church-planters	1,700.00
C. Associate Groups: Hispanic Mennonite Convention Gives unity and identity to Spanish Mennonite Congregations in the U.S. & Canada; publishes a newsletter and directory; conducts pastoral seminars; encourages translation of Mennonite materials into Spanish.	800.00
D. Inter - Mennonite: Mennonite World Conference Mennonite Central Committee Ten Thousand Villages (Houston)	300.00 250.00 1,750.00
E. Conference: Western District/South Central Missions Commission Primarily for urban church planting	700.00
F. Other: Inner City of San Antonio Christian Peacemaker Team Love Fund of SAMC (for various local needs by action of the Love Fund Committee) Workshops for SAMC or Mid-Texas Convention (to help fund resource persons as well as provide scholarships for SAMC members) Peace Center of San Antonio Library	1,300.00 1,200.00 1,600.00 600.00 400.00 100.00
G. Non-Budget Improvements of SAMC facility Painting & electrical; speaker system for sanctuary; parking lot	3,700.00
TOTAL	$15,000.00

As we all know, our summer will be spent in parables. Currently, we on the worship committee are getting ready by passing around the sign up sheet, planning our first parable week, and looking for resource materials that could be helpful to us this summer. Now, we could have followed the summer Jubilee curriculum, but for a variety of reasons, decided to branch out into a different direction. I am intrigued by parables. I remember years ago someone saying that parables are like the Trojan Horse-they sneak in important lessons under a somewhat innocuous guise. I'm not sure the parables are that subtle. I was reading about parables and children by Jerome Berryman. A thought that stayed with me is that we can teach ABOUT the parable or be IN the parable. He says that the parable is Jesus' experience of God...His experience conveyed in a living way. "As we return to the same parable over and over we enter into the experience Jesus had of God." What a treat to look forward to a summer of all of us breaking open the parable experiences in our own ways. Our hope as a committee is that this is an enjoyable, teaching, building and fun time for all of us.

A newer item involves our next year--beginning in September. We have decided to spend a day doing some reflection and visioning for the whole liturgical year. We will be planning worship themes with the bigger picture in mind instead of 2 months at a time. Sometimes it has been hard for me to feel good about our work as we juggle planning the present worship times and try to look ahead to the worship too. Looking to the whole year will give more intentionality to our worship. It feels freeing to think of having some structure already in place. We invite you to participate if you wish. Our planning day is Saturday, August 19 from 8:00 to 3:00. If you have ideas of themes or studies, feel free to pass that information on to anyone on the committee. Fill out those evaluation cards AND if you are out there in the congregation wishing to be a part of this great committee, let us know!! --Stacey Merkt

June 2-4: MDS 50th Anniversary Celebration, Hesston, KS
June 18-22: Mid-Texas Mennonite Children's Camp, Leakey, TX (Still needing volunteers to help)

COMING SOON-San Antonio Mennonite Church's very own web site at http://www.sanantonio.tx.us.mennonite.net/! Right now the site only has basic information about SAMC taken from the Mennonite Directory. A password has just been issued to us from mennonite.net. We will now begin editing the site, adding information and personalizing the site. If you have suggestions about what you would like to see included (or not included) on our church web site, or if you have pictures of church events or the church building that could be scanned in and used for the site, please pass them on to me. --Wanda Reinford

SAMC Mission
Our mission is to embody and proclaim the Good News of Jesus to our neighbor, while growing in an abiding relationship with Christ and fellow believers.

	SAMC NEWSLETTER JUNE 2000
San Antonio Mennonite Church 1443 S. St. Mary's San Antonio TX 78210 (210) 533-0642