Have you ever wanted to participate in “The Great Commission” and to go out into the world and “Be The Church?” 

For 19 years, missionary teams from St. David’s St. Aidan’s and other area churches have been going to Honduras, most recently focusing on supporting the work of the LAMB Institute’s children’s home in San Buena Ventura.  For more information on LAMB’s mission work please visit their website:  https://www.lambinstitute.org. 
 
St. David's is now  starting the process to plan trips  for 2023, with an adult trip potentially at the end of February and a youth/adult trip in June.  Whether you are possibly interested in going on the trip or just want more information on how you can support our involvement with LAMB, you are invited  attend an informational meeting in Grace Hall on Wednesday, November 2, at 7:00 p.m.

This meeting is both for adults and youth 7th – 12th grade.  If you are not able to attend this meeting, for more information or to express an interest, please contact the office.  We will forward your information to Bill Sleeper.

Please prayerfully consider if God is calling you to participate on a trip this year.  It will change your life forever.

Thank you to St. David’s parish and Preschool families for joining in to serve our neighbors at Mimosa Elementary School to create a safe and fun trick or treating experience!

There are so many ways to help and serve!

• Decorate your car trunk (think silly, not scary!) and give out candy (lots of candy!!) for Trunk or Treat! Our goal is to have 40 decorated car trunks! Sign up by emailing Judy Hine, Director of Children's Ministries.


• Donate candy (lots of candy!!) There will be a bin at the Children’s Table in the church hallway!

 

We fully expect several hundred guests to attend Trunk or Treat! as they have in years past. Trunk or Treat is possible because of your participation! 

• This year we will not be serving food. Only candy!!
• The trick or treating line will flow one way beginning at the back of the parking lot with guests exiting at the front of the parking lot.

Serving together, we can shine a brighter light in our community!
 
If you have any questions, please reach out to Judy Hine, Director of Children's Ministries.
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St. David's is committed to being a better neighbor and shining the light of God's love into our community.  In the coming weeks we will do so by working with NFCC to make sure that all our neighbors have a warm coat and winter accessories for this winter.

There are several ways that you can help support this program:

• Donate a new or gently used winter coat or winter accessories by bringing them to the Church mailbox hallway by Sunday, October 5. All sizes are needed: Infant through Adult.
• Purchase an item from NFCC's registry.
• Or make a financial contribution to the program.
• Volunteer for NFCC to help collect, sort, and distribute to families in need.

By working together, we can help ease the financial strain of seasonal purchases for needy families.

As part of St. David’s mission to “Be A Better Neighbor,” St. David's is proud to host Family Promise’s Brunch and Bubbly Fashion Show, Saturday, September 17, 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

Please join us for a delicious champagne lunch, a Versona fashion presentation, and a raffle ticket auction benefiting the Family Promise of North Fulton and Dekalb.  Family Promise is a local organization supporting family homelessness, with a vision where every child has a safe home to rest their head at night.

You may purchase tickets here!

At St. David’s, our closest neighbor, literally and figuratively, is Mimosa Elementary School. For the last 9 years, our parish has hosted Path to Shine, part of a statewide Episcopal Jubilee ministry with some 15 chapters in the Atlanta area. This one-day-a-week, after-school program helps develop precious minds and spirits with activities that include play time, food, homework, reading, crafts, and most importantly, fellowship.

We are looking for four more mentors for this Fall.  We need volunteers who will serve as mentors, forming a one-on-one relationship that God uses to transform both mentor and mentee. We meet in the Jeffords Hall classrooms, Wednesdays, from 2:15 to 5 p.m. No experience needed. No financial commitment. Just a heart that’s open to God’s love.

The more mentors we have, the more children we can serve. So please, consider this call to be a better neighbor to the children next door. Also, as we enter a new school year and these children and families face enormous new pressures, please keep our children and mentors in your prayers.

​To volunteer or get more information, contact Judith Windsor. 

 By Alden Hathaway, II

My father, Bishop Hathaway of Pittsburgh, credits the late Bishop Festo Kivengere of the Diocese of Rukungeri-Kigezi in Southwestern Uganda with his conversion to the evangelical faith that helped lead the renewal movement in the Episcopal Church and establish a new seminary in an old steel town, Ambridge, PA, just down river from Pittsburgh. Once my father said to Bishop Festo “How can I ever repay what you have done for me and our church.” Festo replied “Alden, you come to Africa and you’ll know what to do”.

My father, Bishop Hathaway of Pittsburgh, went to Africa in early 1997 to visit an orphanage his diocese was supporting. He arrived late after dusk. There was no electric light and the darkness so thick, as my father said, “you could not see your hand in front of your face”.Other Bishops in Uganda noticed the orphanage lighting and asked about their orphanages, schools, and health centers. My father said, “Well if Jesus wills it – we will support”. And in faith, I followed authorizing the order of hundreds of solar lighting systems, when many in Washington, DC said I was crazy to do so. But by spring, 1997, Solar Light for Africa was born with over 350 solar lighting systems shipped to Uganda to initiate the lighting.

Of course, we would travel to Uganda to inspect these first installations. So, in the summer of 1998, my father, son, and I, travelled through Uganda to inspect the installations. As we passed through Bishop Festo Kivengere’s old diocese we descended into the Great Rift Valley where the narrow road crossed a one lane steel bridge over a river. As we crossed, we both noticed a sign on the bridge steel; “Manufactured by American Bridge Company, Ambridge PA”. We were deep in Bishop Festo’s Diocese to cross a relic of an old bridge from the heart of my father’s diocese.

As we climbed the other side of the Rift Valley we entered into the dark Impenetrable Forest near dusk with the Congo border only a few miles further to the west. I looked around the darkening landscape only to find lights twinkling through the deep foliage, and I remarked to our contractor. “Why are we here? These villages all have light. What more could we offer through Solar Light for Africa?” The response from the contractor “Those lights are your lights.”

We visited a small chicken farmer and priest in in the area who used one of the lights to light the room where his chickens fed, so that chickens could see their food to eat. He found that, after installing the light, the egg production doubled, increasing his family’s income significantly, such that, he was able to teach his parishioners to do the same when they received their lights. Each year when we returned his school was larger than the year before and the people around doing economically much better. We could see that the solar lights were literally raising the standard of living, and the bridge in the Rift Valley was confirmation that we were responding in synch with our Lord’s wishes as set down by Bishop Festo in his words; “Alden, you come to Africa and you will know what to do.” Since 1997, Solar Light for Africa (www.solarlightforafrica.org) has installed over 2800 solar lighting systems in nine sub-Saharan African countries in the name of Him who is the Light of the World. This year, after a two-year COVID hiatus, we will be returning with a youth mission to install more light.

About Alden Hathaway
Alden Hathaway, son of Bishop Hathaway, has made fifteen visits to Africa since. He is passionate about this program. To learn more about current projects, please click on this link, https://greencom.io

St. David's supports Solar Light for Africa in an effort to Be A Better Neighbor to those who live in the world around us.
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Yes, kids just got out of school.  They are not thinking about the fall.  But we are. St. David's participation in the North Fulton Community Charities backpack drive has been a tremendous help. We're gearing up for July.
 
This year, our focus is on high school students. Our goal is to produce 18 fully stocked backpacks to deliver to NFCC. The items and quantities are very specific.  The youth group at St. David's has volunteered to do the sorting.  Essentially helping their peer group.

Recipe for Success:

• Please review the list of items here. 
• Decide what you can do. 
• Take one or more of the "backpack tickets" from the hallway window. 
• Deliver your items to the designated bins in the hallway.
• Dates: July 3-24 for drop off.  Our deadline to turn in completed packs is July 27.

St. David's is happy to announce that we are able to return to Honduras for a building mission trip!

There is a trip being scheduled for Friday, June 17, through Saturday, June 25, by the Church of the Holy Spirit and we have been invited to join. John McKinnon from St. David's and Amy Hill from St. Aidan's will be part of the adult contingent. 

This trip is open to rising eighth-graders through adults. Adult missioners who cannot manage building activities will have other options. If you are interested in attending or have questions, please contact Bill Sleeper or the church office. A final commitment is needed by the end of April.

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Clean Start for the New Year
Most of us worry more about having time to do the laundry than about having detergent to use, but that is not true for everyone around us. One highly sought- but seldom donated item at the North Fulton Community Charities' Food Pantry is laundry detergent.
Let’s help! Please bring POWDERED laundry detergent to church and leave it in the mailbox hallway. Our young people will divide it all up into smaller, labelled baggies for the Pantry.  We made 200 bags last time. Let’s outdo ourselves this year!
 
PLUS, Fruit for February
As fast as we put peaches, pears, and pineapple, etc. on shelves, they fly out the door to a family in need. Please consider adding a can or two of fruit to your grocery cart each time you shop in February. Drop your cans in the Blue Bin in the mailbox hallway and they will find their way to the Pantry!
General Food Pantry Word to the Wise:  Please avoid glass containers. Too many opportunities for breakage.  
Both items needed for February.