Lutheran Groups at St. James

On January 30, the Lutheran Men in Mission had their quarterly Saxe-Gotha Conference Gathering here at St. James. Wow! What a crowd we had. We welcomed guest speaker, Doug Haugen.

Our Women of the ELCA also met that evening, and made plans for the many different ways in which they will serve people in our congregation and in the community this year. One of those ways is through their annual dinner they provide free of charge to USC students, which will take place in February.

Our Lutheran Girls met on January 14. Their focus this month was on the story of Queen Esther. They had a class in makeup that was based on the story of Esther, and they also received charm bracelets that had charms for each of the skills they have learned this past year.

What fun it is to be Lutheran, and to work and learn together as we share the good news of Jesus Christ in this world!

Hunger And Thirst No More

The Women of St. James as well as our Lutheran Girl Pioneers used our time and our skills to put on a bake sale and a cake auction this month. The purpose of all of our baking was to earn money for our sister synod in Tanzania, as our Christian brothers and sisters miles and miles away continue to suffer through a time of drought. The money we earned will go toward the purchase and building of pipelines to make water accessible to these Tanzanian village people.

Another exciting project that we have taken on this Fall has been to help school children at nearby Red Bank Elementary School who go hungry on the weekends because of no food in their homes. We are currently accepting donations of individually pre-packaged foods, such as mac and cheese, ramen noodles, juice boxes, poptarts, fruit or pudding cups, and chef boyardee food items.

Together, we fight hunger and thirst in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, who came to set the prisoner free, to make the blind to see, the deaf to hear, the hungry to be filled, and the world to know of his love!

Knit Together

The Lutheran Girl Pioneers enjoyed learning how to knit and purl this past weekend with the help of some of our Lutheran Women.

Afterwards, they enjoyed making caramel apples and popcorn balls. Yummmmm!  Fun was had by all, and they are looking forward to their next meeting next month where they will learn cake decorating!