eLink News

News From The Presbytery Office

What are the Trends in Your Church?
Click here http://www.pcusa.org/research/pres_syno1.htm to see the 10-year statistical trends in your church.  Numbers do not tell the whole story, but the story is never complete without the numbers.

Annual Report Deadlines
Annual Report information was due to the Presbytery Office by January 31st.  Please try to get those worksheets to us as soon as possible – especially the necrology report and any changes in Clerk of Session contact information.  The deadline for reporting your statistical information to GA is Midnight on February 23rd.  Annual report packets were available for pick-up at the November Presbytery meeting, any packets not picked-up at that meeting were mailed to the Clerk of Session the following day.

New Year, New Elders
As your sessions re-organize for a new year of church business, don’t forget to encourage new elders to sign up for eLink .

News from the Churches

Mini-Missions Fair at Ebenezer
Ebenezer Presbyterian Church (2426 Scrubgrass Road, Grove City) will hold a Mini-Missions Fair on Feb. 21st at 6 PM, snow date Feb. 28th.  Come enjoy desserts, hear at least five speakers, and browse displays.  For more information, call the church at 814-786-7004.

Needed
Organist or Pianist for Wurtemburg Presbyterian Church for Sunday morning choir practice and worship service.  Reply to wpresbyterian@zoominternet.net or PO Box 709, Ellwood City, PA  16117.

Report from the Africa Mission Trip

As eLink subscribers know, Shenango Presbytery has a group traveling in Africa.  We will be posting emails from them but because this material is on the worldwide web we cannot use sensitive words because of the security of our hosts.

Sent at 5:00 pm Africa time on Sunday, February 2, 2010

Today was another great day for us.  We left about 8am to see some small pyramids and another archeological site about 3.5 hours north of the city.    The sites were fascinating and the desert setting was very striking.  Some of you will be surprised to see pictures of your loved ones riding on a camel!

After the pyramids we visited a church in a desert town called Shendi.  We had a wonderful visit with the church there. This town is very much dominated by Muslims and things are hard there for the church.  The church members asked us to pray specifically that God would work in a way that would give them more freedom to worship.

We were told before we came how much the Christians here would be excited about our coming, but nothing can really prepare you for the overwhelming warmth that awaits you here.  The ladies of the church apologized for the modesty of the refreshments they served us when we came.  Mind you, it was mid afternoon and they brought each one of us cold bottled water, then a soda, followed by cookies and candy.  I said to them, “What else could we possibly want?”  We told them that the best thing to give as a welcome is one’s heart, and that this they had given us in abundance.

We would also ask you to pray that God would help us and our brothers and sisters here to bring this time together to an ending that would fulfill all the good plans God had for this important time.

Grace and Peace,

Jim Leuenberger