The Lion's Roar

Weekly Offerings in Aug
Tuesday        7:00pm Music with Mike
Wednesday  10am Holy Eucharist Rite II in the Sanctuary (signup required)
Thursday      12noon Midday Mindfulness

Saturday       5:00pm Holy Eucharist Rite II in the Garden (signup required)

Sunday         10am Holy Eucharist Rite II in the Sanctuary (signup required)

I hope you are getting the opportunity to enjoy the beautiful weather we have had in the last month.  I often catch a glimpse of many of you out and about around town, on social media or our various online events, but it all does seem a bit surreal sometimes.  As I hope you have probably felt, the pandemic may have kept us apart physically but not spiritually, so I hope you continue to feel connected to our church family circle.  

I know many of you are disappointed that we will be unable to host the Fall rummage sale. Many of you have already donated (or have been keeping donations) since the spring, so we appreciate your patience.  The spring and fall sales are one of our biggest opportunities to come together as a community for the good for the church and its mission, and  the loss of these important fundraising opportunities is a significant hit to our budget for the year.  So we sincerely appreciate remembering St. Marks for any pledges, donations, or any other help you can offer during the summer; every little bit helps.  One area we had some success with was taking certain donations for the rummage sale and selling them in some of the familiar social media marketplaces, so if you have any particular donations you would like to offer please let us know.  

My direct email is geraldmcdonnell1968@gmail.com if I can be of any assistance.  

We are heading down to Keansburg to serve lunch to the clients of the Community Soup Kitchen.  Please visit our needs list if you are able to help make a meatloaf or two.

I hope you all are enjoying the summer even with the mask requirements.  Although vacation plans may be unhinged by the pandemic it is great to be able to be outside and perhaps participate in some social distance barbeques.  Now that we are all familiar with online Church it also makes it easier to participate in the service while on vacation.  It is very quiet around the St. Mark’s building during the week but the garden is still a nice place to relax.  We have been walking from home to St. Mark’s and back and taking a breather on the benches around the fountain. 

We are all disappointed that the Fall Rummage Sale will not occur but believe it is the right move.  We don’t want to endanger our volunteers or customers.  

Hopefully we will be able to use our buildings soon for social gatherings. 

Have a great summer and stay safe.

Sincerely,

Joan Graff

Senior Warden            

Look closely, that is not an elephant stuck in the Rectory chimney but the work in progress of installing a needed liner in the main working chimney. This is part of the focus this year in continuing much needed repairs to an aging heating system in the Rectory. The pinch point in the liner installation was maneuvering a tight bend in the chimney which required making several openings in a bedroom wall.  All was repaired, good as new, just ahead of the Moreys return from their vacation.

In addition to the liner, a number of repair projects were completed by our dedicated group of volunteer handypersons.  In the rectory, work was done on the bathroom replacing the medicine cabinet, cleaning and caulking the tile, and repainting the radiator.  In one bedroom a long broken closet sliding door was replaced with new bifold doors, and work was started on repairing the second floor bannister.  In the church, the breaker panel controlling the lights was relabelled to make it much more clear and repair to one of the rusting external doors to the garden was started.  

We have a long list of small repair projects available to anyone interested in helping out.  Just send an email to jwlyga@gmail.com and I will add your name to our Building Repair Sign up Genius.  Many thanks- this month goes to Norm Graff, Martin Hale, and Roger Conover for taking on repair projects.