Announcements: Week of Sunday, October 28th 2018
Aquia's Annual Fruit Sale
Ends Sunday November 11th. Please come out and order fruit for Christmas gifts and just good eating. Besides citrus you can also order a Cheese Spread Variety Pack, Cheese and Sausage Combo, Sweet Potatoes, Apples and Pears, Tropical Fruit and Apples, Fudge and Nuts. All proceeds benefit the mission and ministry of Aquia Church. You can also order by contacting the office at office@aquiachurch.org sue.selz@aquiachurch.org or Jean Golas at bjgolas@yahoo.com
Halloween Night
Aquia’s Table and Aquia’s Pantry will NOT be serving on this Wednesday (Oct. 31), so that everyone might enjoy trick-or-treating in their neighborhoods. Likewise, the Wednesday Evening Bible Study will NOT be meeting on this Wednesday. All three ministries will resume on the following Wednesday, Nov. 7.
UTO
United Thank Offering (UTO) Fall Ingathering is Sunday, November 11th. Look for the blue and white boxes or the envelopes in the pews. "UTO is a ministry of the Episcopal Church Women of the Diocese of Virginia for the mission of the whole church." Your loose change, cash and checks are used in missionary work, training, pension funds, building loans, scholarships and overseas development. UTO is based on the "theological premise that it is good to give thanks to God."
Youth Group: The youth group for teenagers in grades 6-12 will hold its next evening on next Sunday, Nov. 4. Teenagers will meet in the youth room (lower level of the Christian formation and fellowship building), starting at 4:00 p.m., with dinner served by 5:30 p.m., and teens can be picked up at 6:00 p.m. after the great hall and kitchen have been cleaned from the meal. (Parents who wish to remain on campus while waiting for their teenagers are welcomed to do so away from the youth room.) Our plan is to hold our evening meetings on the first and third Sundays (at least through 2018: so Nov. 18, Dec. 2 & 16). Our evening meetings will have a different focus and atmosphere from the youth group’s morning meetings (which take place every Sunday, 9:00 a.m.—9:45 a.m. during the time of Sunday school). In order to reserve your place for dinner, please notify Father Morris (morris@aquiachurch.org) that you will attend, and let him know if you have any food allergies.
Morning Call: Father Morris will continue a new Morning Call series on the Creeds, with focus on the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed, as we explore some of the key beliefs in the Christian faith. This series is an excellent opportunity for you to grow deeper in the faith, whether you are a fairly new Christian or whether you have been attending church for years. Morning Call is our Sunday morning forum for adult formation and discussion, starting at 9:00 a.m. in the great hall of the new building.
Wednesday Bible Studies: Father Rickenbaker continues his survey of the Old and New Testaments on Wednesday mornings, 10:30 a.m. till 12:00 noon, in the conference room downstairs in the new building. Please let him know if you need a copy of the very helpful workbook to use during this series or for reading on your own. Father Morris’s Wednesday evening series on the parables of Jesus will take a one-week break on this Wednesday night (Halloween) but will resume on Wednesday, Nov. 7 (7:00—8:30pm in the conference room downstairs).
Music News
Our Director of Music, Trystan Bennett, and his wife Caitlin will be performing the works of 18th Century Italian composers with Washington’s Camerata at St. George’s Church on Friday, October 26 at 7 PM. This free concert will feature Baroque compositions by composers who lived and played near Venice (including Vivaldi, Monteverdi, Frescabaldi, Marcello, Caldera, and others) and is part of the annual performance of the William Prescott Carter Italian Composers Series, offered at no charge by the Fredericksburg-Este Association.
Trystan will also be playing with other Fredericksburg based organists in the annual “Scary Music for Organ” concert held for free at St George’s Episcopal Church this Saturday, October 27th at 7:00 PM.
Choir Returns! The Adult Choir has resumed rehearsals on Thursdays at 7 PM in the Choir Room and you are welcomed to join. The Aquia Choristers have also resumed rehearsals, now meeting on Sunday mornings for 45 minutes in the choir room immediately following the conclusion of the 10:00 AM service EXCEPT for Sundays when they sing that morning.
We are currently recruiting for all three choirs (the Adult Choir for Sunday mornings, the Aquia Choristers children’s choir, and the Choral Evensong Choir) and are particularly in need of more male voices for our Adult Choir and children for our Choristers. The Aquia Choristers is open to children presently in the 3rd through 8th grade. If you are interested in singing in any of our choirs, we encourage you to get in touch with our Director of Music, Trystan Bennett at musicdirector@aquiachurch.org. We look forward to seeing everyone for another great year!
Matching Challenge Opportunity: Earlier this year, Aquia Church received a matching challenge in the amount of $100,000 for our fundraising toward paying off the construction loan for the Christian Formation and Fellowship Building. Our opportunity is simple: for every dollar contributed toward the new building between the end of the second capital campaign (which concluded on 14 April 2018) and the end of the 2018 calendar year, our gifts will be matched dollar-for-dollar up to $100,000. This generous challenge from an anonymous source provides an excellent chance for us to begin the upcoming third capital campaign next year with a big boost. Gifts of any size will be welcomed and can be counted toward the match, with “New Building” marked on your envelope or on the memo line of your check. For information about transferring gifts of stock or mutual funds in the most tax-advantageous way (whether to avoid capital-gains taxes in cases of appreciated value or in order to sell for a loss), please speak with our treasurer, Chris Arey.
All Saints Day is November 4th: Aquia Church will be remembering all those that have passed away since last years All Saints Day. If you have a loved one that you would like to add to our prayer list for All Saints Day, contact the church office 540-659-4007or email Sue at: sue.selz@aquiachurch.org. Please have those names to us by November 1st.
Baked Potato Bar: Sunday November 18th - Outreach Committee will be having a fully loaded Baked Potato Bar after all three Morning Services, with all the fixings. Eat them at the Great Hall or take them home with you or maybe both! $7.00 with anything your heart’s desire on a baked potato. Thank you to all of you for all of your help in supporting Aquia’s Outreach Committee, so that we can continue to do God’s work in our community.
Shoe Box Time: Outreach's annual shoe box collection for Operation Christmas Child has begun. The mission of Operation Christmas Child is "to demonstrate God's love in a tangible way to needy children around the world, and together with the local church worldwide, to share the Good News of Jesus Christ." Please fill a regular shoe box (wrapped or unwrapped), or a plastic one, or one of the pre-printed boxes we have available, with items such as school supplies, hygiene items, or items such as t-shirts, small toys, caps, sunglasses, hair clips, toy jewelry, watches, or flashlights (with extra batteries). One of the suggestions made is to deflate a soccer ball and put it in your shoe box along with a small inflation kit. Please do not pack used or damaged items; toothpaste; tooth brushes; candy, chocolate or food; liquids or lotions; medications or vitamins; breakable items such as snow globes or glass containers; aerosol cans; or war-related items such as toy guns, knives, or military figures. The boy/girl labels are available in the folders in the Operation Christmas Child box on the picnic table in front of the Church, in the back pew, or in the foyer of the new building. To defray overseas shipping costs, please include a donation of $9 per box either in cash or by check (payable to Samaritan's Purse with "Operation Christmas Child" in the memo line). The donation envelopes are included with the folders. If you do not want to pack a shoe box, but would like to help with shipping costs, please put your check or cash in one of the envelopes provided with the donation folders. Please return your filled shoe box (with the appropriate boy/girl label attached) and/or donation envelope, to the Church by November 11.
Did you know? Can you help? Every Monday evening, at 9:30 P.M., a member of our parish picks up the Day-End Dough-Nation from Panera Bread in Stafford Market Place for Aquia’s Table and Pantry. For over eight years, the restaurant has generously given the Table lots of bread, bagels and cookies to be passed on to those who come to the Great Hall on Wednesday evenings for a delicious hot meal and fellowship. We could use a couple more folks to help in the pick-up rotation. If you could spare an hour once a month, please consider volunteering by contacting Mary Jane Cole maryjane@cfsw.biz.
Expressions of Thanksgiving: As we have done on Mothers’ Day and some other past occasions, we have decided that Thanksgiving week is a great time for an encore! For the Sunday before Thanksgiving (November 18), the flower guild invites individuals, families, Sunday school classes, and ministry groups at Aquia Church to decorate the church windows with expression of thanksgiving. Whether in memory of loved ones, gratitude for God’s grace in our lives, the blessings of friendship, or the countless ways that thankfulness can be expressed, your participation in this event will bless our church family.
To facilitate this, a map of the church with each of the windows that can be decorated will be placed together with a sign-up sheet near the entrance of the church. The numbers assigned to the windows will correspond to the numbers on the sign-up sheet. (For example: to decorate window #1, insert your name and contact information on line #1 on the sign-in sheet.) If you would like to share something about your window, a memory, a poem, or a story, please do so! You can forward it to the church office (sue.selz@aquiachurch.org) or email it to Sheryl Colliver (drreilly11@aol.com or sreilly@tsgusa.com) at least one week before the event in order to allow time for preparing it for your display.
The flower guild will have some seasonal flowers available if you would like to use them, or you can bring your own. You can include pictures and memorabilia, colorful leaves, baskets of apples or gourds, or anything else that you wish to include in your expressions of Thanksgiving. Any arrangements that can remain through our special worship service on Thanksgiving Eve (Wednesday, November 21) will be welcomed. Please contact Betsy Husser (lbhusser@verizon.net) or Sheryl Colliver (e-mail addresses above) if you have any questions.
Diocesan Annual Convention: The 224th Annual Convention of the Diocese of Virginia will meet in Richmond on November 2-3. The lay delegates representing Aquia Church, as appointed by the vestry, are Curt Bradford, Jean Golas, and Mary Nixon. Both of our clergy will attend as well. In addition, Bishop Shannon Johnston has appointed Father Morris to serve as chair of the convention's committee on resolutions. Please keep this important gathering for our diocese in your prayers, not only as we bid farewell to the our retiring diocesan bishop and will likely call a provisional bishop to guide us for the next couple of years, but also as we seek to accomplish God's will for the mission and ministry of this diocese during a time of transition through new leadership.
