Jim Rollins

(Editor’s note: Our front page for November comes to us from Connie Buck. She brought us the “Moment for Stewardship” on Sunday, October 23, with these thoughts.)

Recently the headline on a news story in The Advocate read “New Orleans residents say time both crawls and is a blur.” The lead paragraph described an antique shop of clocks by saying “They crowd against a wall – the tall grandfather with glistening copper chimes, the simple mantle piece with carvings in its mahogany, the wall-hung French one with its century-old porcelain dial – all of them whispering different times.”

As people we focus a lot on time and as the old-timers would say – time-pieces. Many of us have those stately grandfather clocks in our homes and probably a number of you have your father’s watch. We spend a lot of time talking about how fast this month has passed or thinking, “Will that sermon ever end?” We know it’s less than 60 days to Christmas.

We are all familiar with the Bible verse “There is a time for everything, and everything on earth has its special season.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1)

At Highland it is time for the Stewardship Campaign for 2006.

We know that stewardship is about our time, our talents, and our treasures, but let’s take a moment now to focus specifically on our finances.

Our budget for 2005 is over $182,000, which means anticipated income and expenses of approximately $15,000 a month. But during 2005, unfortunately, our income has averaged slightly less than $15,000 while our expenses have averaged slightly more than $15,000 every month. In our preparation for 2006 we have put together an asking budget of only $186,437, which is about 2% more than our 2005 budget.

But a church budget is more than figures – it is people, programs, property, and our tithe to God through benevolences.

Highland Members have received more detailed information about the 2006 budget in themail. Pledge cards were also included in the mailings:

Sunday, November 6, was designated as Commitment Sunday. But if you have not yet made your commitment you may either mail in your pledge card or dedicate it in the offering plate on any Sunday.

Highland’s financial situation and the budget preparation process are very serious ones that require the time, attention, and prayers of all of us. During the week, as you pass your grandfather clock or look at your digital watch or think, “it’s time to eat,” I ask that you spend some time thinking and praying about Highland Presbyterian Church – and about your stewardship of time, talents, and treasures.

Connie Buck

What’s Ahead at Highland?

Bring a Dish for Dinner!

Thursday, November 17, at 6:30 p.m. is the time set for this month’s Fellowship Dinner in the Great Hall.

Bring “Pot Luck” to share with everyone, but if you can’t bring anything, come anyway. Call Mary Martin if you have questions.

(You may also bring non-perishable food items for the Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank – see below.)

Highland Participates in “Food for Families” & Picnic

Brandi Thompson is coordinating a Food Drive – for all of Highland, not just the children. It is easy to get involved! Just bring non-perishable food items to church whenever you come, up through Sunday, November 20.

Then gather at the church at 9:30 a.m. on Monday, November 21, and we’ll caravan to the Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank, bearing the food, and then continue to the home of Sheldon and Monique Howe for a “Bring Your Own” Picnic for lunch. Monique says the Howes will provide drinks.

Note that this is the Monday of Thanksgiving week, so children should be able to come. The Howes live at 3133 White Shadows Drive, Baton Rouge, 70816. See you all there!

Lagniappe Ladies Meet Again

The Lagniappe Ladies of Highland meet the first Tuesday evening of each month. Besides dinner out at a chosen location, the meeting features devotions, conversation, and perhaps one or another kind of project to be done. Watch for information toward the end of each month, and sign up to come to the next Lagniappe Ladies group!

Treasurer Reports Finances

At the October Session meeting, the Treasurer presented the Financial Report for September:

General Expenses exceeded General Income for September by $5,372.43: General Income was $10,410 while General Expenses were $15,782.43.

General Expenses for the year exceed General Income for the year by $4,588.26.

Payments to note in September include $400 for Operation Hope, $6,534 for the lawn mower, and $2,135.62 for Hurricane Katrina.

The loan balance for September is $138,160.18.

Stewardship Campaign began October 23. A mailing of the “asking budget” being requested for 2006 and pledge cards went out at the end of October in preparation for Commitment Sunday on November 6, 2006.

Connie Buck

Treasurer and Elder-Elect

Bloodmobile Visit Adds Pints

Thanks to all who donated “the gift of life” when the OLOL Bloodmobile visited in September ! We’re planning for the Bloodmobile to visit again in April.

Why do we mention that in November? Because it takes only 8 weeks to be eligible to donate again. Eight weeks from September 11 is November 6. If you donate at OLOL as early as possible in November then you can donate again in January, eight or more weeks before the Bloodmobile visits again in April.

Any member of Highland, or immediate family, can call on the HPC Blood Assurance Account anywhere in the U.S., as long as we keep it active. In addition, our blood donations help the community, and blood supplies are typically lower during holiday periods.

Mission

“The Church exists by mission as a fire exists by burning.”

Katrina Fund Continues

As of October 24, we have received a total of $16,954.95 from members of our congregation, individuals, and churches nationwide. Churches include:

Hope Presbyterian Church, Winter Haven, Florida; University Presbyterian Church, San Antonio, Texas; Worthington Presbyterian Church, Worthington, PA.

Individuals include BA and Brenda Gregory, Florida; Claire McGraw, Florida; Leslie and Laura McMorris, Louisiana; Richard Manix, New York; Charles and Nancy Stewart, Washington, DC.

We have also received school supplies, backpacks, and clothing from Hope Presbyterian Church, Worthington Presbyterian Church, New Wilmington Presbyterian Church, New Wilmington, PA, and other individuals and members of our congregation:

What’s Being Done

1. School supplies, clothing, and a professional 50-person First Aid Kit to Mayfair Elementary (about 170 displaced students). (They had no first aid supplies whatsoever.)

4. Gift cards (14) purchased from School Aids and given to displaced teachers at Mayfair Elementary for classroom and student supplies. All teachers and students at this school are hurricane evacuees. We asked to know what purchases the teachers made with the cards.

5. Donation of $2,683.55 to The Uniforms for Kids Program of the St Vincent dePaul Society. They can purchase uniforms in bulk at a better price.

(The numbers of children change from week to week, or day to day, as more or fewer evacuee children attend a given school.)

Future plans include the continued purchase of clothing, school supplies, and other items needed for school children. We will monitor the needs of the schools we’re working with, and also check into the needs at other area schools. We will also consider the needs of children’s programs at Presbyterian churches that have been directly affected by the hurricanes.

We understand that needs will be ongoing. While there have been immediate outpourings of assistance from many areas, we know that we must continue to address needs in the months ahead, especially in the area of consumable supplies (clothing, school supplies, and health items, etc.).

If you would like to become a part of our efforts, please come to future mission committee meetings, and join us in helping.

We Did Uniforms for Kids Again

After the hurricane, St Vincent de Paul renewed requests to the community for uniforms to give to evacuee students. Highland again volunteered with the Uniforms for Kids Program. Over several weeks we sorted the new stream of donated school uniforms and prepared them for distribution.

Thanks go to Mary Perry, Doris Baugh, Betty Lancaster, Billie Dean, Barbara Payton, Connie Buck, Bonner Stewart, and Rosemary John!

Just before Katrina, we received an e-mail followed by a long distance call from New Orleans: Carlos Camps was at his daughter Miriam’s house in Gretna. We promptly invited him to lunch the next day.

We arrived at the River Walk on time and we all sat down to eat and to talk. He spoke in Spanish, which is easier for him. So I listened and responded and told Gary what he was saying.

He said that he had been called by Matanzas Central, our partner church, to be pastor. I asked him if he was thinking about retirement and he said, “No, Juanita. I feel like a young man with his first sweetheart. It is a wonderful feeling which I could never let go.” (Highlanders should understand that as a young boy he was raised in that church, that the Women’s Federation (Women of the Church) bears the name of his mother. In addition, he was the pastor just before Miguel Perez Coca, the pastor during our mission trips.)

He shared the news that the churches in Matanzas Presbytery have organized baseball teams and now compete with each other. On one of our trips to Cuba, Gary carried baseballs, so maybe we were a part of this.

He also spoke about forming groups to meet in homes and mentioned especially one group in a bad neighborhood of Matanzas. Sometimes this is simply an outreach of the church and other times this results in the formation of a new church. I attended one such meeting with the Rev. Carlos Piedra, pastor of the Versalles Church in Matanzas, and found the Spirit of the Lord present – we spilled out on to the patio because we were too many to fit in the house. It was a memorable experience.

After lunch, we toured New Orleans with my favorite tour guide, Gary. [I realize now that never again will we have such a tour of the city in which we both grew up and which we love so much!]

2006 Mission Yearbook Is Here

There is a small number of 2006 Mission Yearbooks remaining. Please see Jim Rollins if you would like to have one. Learn many things about PC(U.S.A.), and join with others, throughout the year 2006, in prayer for its many servants.

Budget Causes Cleaning Change

One of the cost-saving measures which Session adopted at its October meeting was to end our engagement of Jani-King Cleaning Service. We will now depend on teams of Highland members to clean our buildings inside, much as we depend on our yard-crew volunteers to keep things ship-shape outside.

Teams of men and women are now being organized! (Several of us remember a time a few years ago when we did a similar financial belt-tightening – our church buildings have rarely been so clean!) There are several ways to organize for cleaning – by particular area of buildings, by particular tasks on a regular basis, or by teams doing a complete cleaning and rotating weekly (or some combination of these). One of these ways may fit our current congregation better than another

Please call or e-mail Sherry in the Church Office and let her know what you are willing to help with. What is your cleaning calling?

Discussion Follows Lunch

After our Fifth Sunday Lunch October 30, those interested stayed for discussion of the survey circulated by the Task Force on long-range facility planning, chaired by Mary Martin.

After hearing the comments and new ideas, the Task Force is pursuing a general idea which will include increased classroom space, better fellowship space (especially after church service), better visibility in the community, and other desirables previously discussed by Session.

We Signed Sale Agreement

We have signed a purchase agreement for our sale of the “Lot Next Door,” after action by our congregation and Session. The buyer has legal time frames to determine certain aspects of the purchase, and so the sale will not be final until after Christmas. The buyer agreed to our full asking price, but 4% will go to the realtor. We expect a small subdivision of homes next door to Highland. (There is another subdivision being built on the same side of Highland Road, but much closer to St. John’s Methodist Church.)

Celebrate Our

November

Wedding

Anniversaries

Highland People

Kimberly Is Back Home

Kimberly Orr traveled from Washington to Washington. She is doing well after her surgery in Seattle and is now home again in D.C.

Rosemary Went to Atlanta

Rosemary John attended the recent Highland Games in Stone Mountain, GA. Her group of 5 bagpipers and 4 drummers took part in the competition as well as the Massed Pipe Bands (over 500 pipers and about 400 drummers!!).

Dale Hair Will Visit

Dale Hair, that new Atlanta resident, will be over in this direction for a conference in November. She plans to attend Highland on November 13.

HPC Hosts PSL Council Oct 11

Thanks to Mary Martin, who organized Highland’s lunch and coffee-break snacks for the Presbytery Council Meeting. Mary Perry, Betty Lancaster, Doris Baugh, and Skippy Thompson also contributed their efforts and expertise.

Presbytery Meets November 19

The one-day meeting on Saturday, Nov 19, at Broadmoor Presbyterian Church, was postponed from early October.

November Birthdays

At the meeting on October 16, the congregation elected 3 members to the Session Class of 2008: Connie Buck, Monique Howe, and Doris M (Skippy) Thompson. After a period of study and preparation the Session will examine them at its meeting of November 15 according to Book of Order G-14.0205. Ordination and Installation is planned for January, 2006.

The congregation also elected 3 members to the Nominating Committee of 2006: Inez Geoghegan, Mary Perry, and Joe Skillen. The new Session will add 2 more members and select the Chair.

Advent Is Coming!

The New Church Year begins on the First Sunday of Advent, which is on November 27 this year. Look for the announcements of our special observances in worship for this season of the Church Year, as we welcome into our hearts Jesus the infant, the man, the Savior, and Lord and King.

Presbyterian congregations and their pastors and staff who have been affected by the hurricanes.

God of compassion, you have given us Jesus Christ, the great physician, who made the broken whole and healed the sick. Touch our wounds, relieve our hurts, and restore us to wholeness of life, through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord.

One of the minor consequences of Katrina was the uncertain mail delivery even in the Baton Rouge area. The Presbyterian Outlook and The Christian Century are now coming in the mail again, a month, six weeks, two months late. These publications, as well as Presbyterians Today and the Presbyterian Sun newspaper, have featured the new, raw experiences of those throughout the hurricane-stricken region, both Presbyterians and people of other denominations. If we take the time to read in The Presbyterian Outlook of October 3, “Heartbreak and hope,” and in The Christian Century of October 4, “Ministry through the storm,” we can share these and feel the anguish of much earlier days.

It was also very moving to hear the matter-of-fact way that some of the members at the PSL Council meeting Oct 11 told of their situations during and after Katrina. All the way from “the water didn’t get into those boxes” to “even the solid wood furniture was ground into toothpicks by the water.”

If you were close to the storm we admire your strength and courage, we are grateful for those of you who provided information for and about others, and we pray for you in your anguish and your hope, that God’s healing will come to you. We hope that in some way we may be helpful to you in rebuilding with the Holy Spirit.

Worship – How Can You Help?

1. What time do you prefer Christmas Eve service (this year on Saturday evening)? For many years it has been at 5:00 p.m. on the assumption that 5:00 is the best time for children –the service is over early enough to have Christmas Eve celebrations at home before bedtime. Call Sherry in the Church Office and record your preference.

2. In January the Worship Committee will ask for specific feedback on wider aspects of your worship experience. Ponder on your experience of worship between now and then, and be ready to help the new Session’s Worship Committee with your feedback or with your participation.

Joe Skillen, Music Director

Mary Martin, Clerk of Session

Monthly Newsletter of Highland Presbyterian Church (225) 766-5775 November, 2005