St. Mark's News & Events for June 17, 2007

Greetings as we begin another week!

I’m sorry for the lack of an article these past two weeks since I was playing in my first real golf tournament in over 25 years. One week I missed because I was at the tournament and the next week I missed writing because I was still in shock over the outcome! It is a long exciting story of sin and redemption, death to life, hopelessness to joy. I guess I didn’t realize that the elements of ordinary life plays out even on a golf course. Starting out the first day was not that exciting since we split our matches and headed into Sunday trying to just stay alive. On the second day though, it seems the Angels were smiling down upon us (it must have been that prayer for victory at dinner on Saturday night) when we begin to knock off all the teams that we played leading to a showdown with the first place team in our flight. On the last hole I missed a 15 foot putt and ran it past the cup another 5 feet and was faced with a down hill curler. If I missed that putt coming back, we would have lost; sinking it would give us victory. Well, after saying an Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be, I closed my eyes and drained it for victory! My partner, Dr. Tom Frankforth was jumping in the air pumping his fists and just about tackled me to the ground. Thus we were 4th flight winners but the story gets even more miraculous as we then had to move on to the next round. I will save that one for next week, so stay tuned!

I would like to give you some information regarding the efforts of our Steering Committee as we get more educated regarding guidelines for Churches as we plan for our new Church. On a side note, we have also accepted a proposal from a new Fundraising Company called Community Counseling Service (CCS) that will help us to raise funds as we get closer to our start date. After some prayer and discussion, we have decided to kick-off the new Capital Campaign in the fall of 2008. This will give us some extra time to get a schematic done of our new church after input from our congregation. In the next few weeks Alberto Portela, our design consultant, will be offering workshops after the Masses to help us make informed decisions. So lots of exciting things are happening and we look forward to sharing more news with you as we proceed.

Well, that is all for now. Continue to enjoy the gift that God has given us in each other.

Peace, Fr. David