October is typically a transition month with regards to the return of our seasonal parishioners. Just this past week I saw no less than ten car carriers unloading the vehicles of these seasonal residents. For those who are now returning, we wish you a spiritual and fun-filled winter season at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church.
Thanks to some healthy late summer rains, the lake at the front of our site is now completely full. So much so that the swale which runs parallel to 111th Avenue North is holding overflow water for the first time in recent memory. What does this mean for us? Barring a severe drought in the next month, we will have a healthy surplus of irrigation water to begin the dry season and will not have to utilize our well to pump water from the aquifer.
Thank you to everyone who submitted your email address (over 30 responded) in response to my request this past weekend. Your email has been added to our database and you will now receive informative updates from the parish. If you have not yet done so, please send your email address to me at [email protected] to be included on the distribution list.
The bathroom renovation is complete in the ballroom of the Parish Life Center. As I mentioned before, all of the labor for this project was performed by our Director of Maintenance (Marcos Burgoa) and his apprentice (Ovidio Moreno.) Attached is a picture of Marcos and Ovidio showing off the finished product in the women’s room. These guys did a tremendous job and the travertine stone is absolutely gorgeous. Next in line are the PLC classroom bathrooms.
The response to our “Lest we Forget” Veteran’s Memorial has been incredible. I have already had several calls to reserve benches and flagpoles. Although we have still not secured the pricing for these accoutrements, reservations will be taken in the order they were received. Two of the three flagpoles have been spoken for as well as two of the six benches. I hope to have firm pricing by next week, which I will publish in the bulletin.
This year, World Mission Sunday will be celebrated in small chapels and great cathedrals, in every parish church in every corner of the earth, on the weekend of October 20-21. World Mission Sunday is an essential experience of worship, catechesis and worldwide sacrifice, “reaffirming the Church’s desire to engage with greater courage and zeal in the missio ad gentes so that the Gospel may reach the very ends of the earth” (Message of Pope Benedict XVI for World Mission Sunday 2012.) We will have a second collection for World Mission Sunday on October 20 and 21.
The fixtures have been ordered for the church lighting project. We optimistically expect to begin work either the first or second week of November. The plan is to bring in a crew of 10 electricians and knock out the project in five business days. As a result, we will most likely celebrate daily Mass in the Seminar Room or Ballroom during this time period. We added several additional fixtures to the original proposal, which will result in an amazing aesthetic when completed. Did you know that the “life” of the bulbs in many of the new fixtures is up to ten years? All of the lighting above the altar will be accessible by a pulley system which will lower the fixtures to a level where we can change without a lift. As previously mentioned, the controls for this new system will be operable by an iPad. We are able to set up to 999 different lighting scenes which may be changed with the simple touch of a “virtual” button. This new lighting system is state of the art and will create a truly amazing atmosphere inside the church. Thanks again to the generous donors who made this new lighting system a reality.
We are only $111,500.00 shy of our goal for the 2012 Catholic Faith appeal with just under three months to go. We are over $20,000.00 ahead of where we were at this same point last year. Considering that we fell short last year by $23,000.00, I am overly optimistic that this year we will meet with success. Thank you in advance for supporting the Catholic Faith Appeal, the most important component of our operating budget.
In His work together,
Scott Schlossberg, MBA
General Manager