Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2020-04-29

Wednesday April 29th 2020
A Weekday Emailer from
Matt Matthews
 
To Members and Friends of 
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
 
Dear Friends,
 
Wednesday Dessert!  Join us for a Zoom gathering on Wednesday April 29th at 7:00 p.m. We’ll meet online to catch up, chat, visit, show off our flower gardens. Bring some dessert “to share.” We’ll practice having an online conversation with each other. Think of it as the Sunday morning coffee break after morning worship. Technology makes these gatherings over distance possible—but it might not be easy. We’ll have to figure out how to talk without talking over one another. We’ll get the hang of it. So, help us experiment. Nothing beats face to face gatherings, but in the absence of that we’re trying this. “See” you there. Email info@firstpres.church for the link.
 
A connection from our past: Bill Wimberly was our interim pastor here some years ago. I was in touch with his son Alex this week and he sends this email:
 
Thank you for reaching out. My parents have fond memories from their time at First Champaign. I hope you found yourself settled in before these unsettling times. 
 
I doubt anyone at the church would have a memory of me; I was only there a few times visiting my folks while finishing up at seminary . . .
 
I have been writing daily prayers as Leader of the Corrymeela Community. Corrymeela is an ecumenical Christian community, based in Northern Ireland, committed to the work of peace and reconciliation. We have a residential center on the north coast of Ireland that hosts about 8,000 people a year. As Leader, I am meant to hold the dispersed community of Corrymeela members together through prayer and to lead us in our mission of transforming division through human encounter. 
 
The pandemic has closed our center, but has kept me busy as we learn what it really means to be a ‘dispersed Christian community’ in these days. One thing we’ve done is to share ‘prayers for community in a time of pandemic.’ You can find those posted daily (with pretty pictures) on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Corrymeela; the whole collection is at our website: www.corrymeela.org
 
You are, of course, more than welcome to share them. 
 
Matt, I wish you every blessing in your ministry at First Champaign. We are all learning how to be the church again, and I pray that you and the congregation know of your brothers and sisters in Ireland stumbling forward in joy and faith with you. 
 
Grace and peace,
Alex
 
 
Mary Jane Kelley Shares this Springtime poem:
 
Spring/ BY Gerard Manley Hopkins
 
Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –         
   When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;         
   Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush         
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring         
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
   The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush         
   The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush         
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.         
 
What is all this juice and all this joy?         
   A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy,         
   Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,         
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,         
   Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.   
 
News:
 
Prayer Concerns: Barb Hoover is under hospice care. Join me in praying for her and husband Lon. This is hard.
 
Deaths: We rejoice that Don Dixon and Marian Babbs have entered the Church Triumphant, but we are sad we won’t see them again here. Let us pray for their families. 
 
Graveyard Walks: I’ve seen some of your family names on the silent stones of Mount Hope/Roselawn cemeteries. Thank you for the stories you are telling me and the tombstones you are introducing me to. 
 
Safe drinking water is not a privilege! Marion Medical Mission fights the water crisis in Africa by partnering with villages to build over 3,000 wells each year. In 2019, our American volunteers traveled through rural areas of Malawi, Zambia & Tanzania to provide safe water and build sustainable, protected wells for over 380,000 people in 12 weeks! These Christian volunteers dedicated every well to the Glory of God. Volunteers spent three weeks on their mission trip and and shared Christ’s love with the extreme poor over 60,000 square miles. This is amazing! Marion Medical Mission:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZqZ02BhFgk
  
Humor: Share your clean jokes with me. During this season especially we need to laugh. (What do you call a joke you make in the shower? A clean joke!) 
  
Good Word:
Psalm 13
Prayer for Deliverance from Enemies
To the leader. A Psalm of David.
1 How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
    How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I bear pain in my soul,
    and have sorrow in my heart all day long?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
3 Consider and answer me, O Lord my God!
    Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death,
4 and my enemy will say, “I have prevailed”;
    my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.
5 But I trusted in your steadfast love;
    my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
6 I will sing to the Lord,
    because he has dealt bountifully with me. 
 
Let us pray:
 
God of those in plenty, God of those in want: this disease separates us one from another. It also exposes an underlying division that has been there all along: the difference between the haves and the have–nots. May the chasm finally close between those who will wait this pandemic out with stockpiles of reserves and the luxury of rest, and those who have been waiting too long for a voice at the table, a seat at the banquet, a prayer not filled with pleas.
Amen.
 (Alex Wimberly) 
  
Much love to you all. 
 
PEACE,
 
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church


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