Rev. Donna Vuilleumier joins us the first week in June. Donna holds a Master of Divinity degree from Andover Newton Theological School, and served for two years as a student minister at the Congregational Church of Harvard (MA). She was ordained in the UCC, and previously served at The Eliot Church of Natick MA and Grace Church in Framingham MA.

We are also pleased that the Trustees agreed to having a two week overlap with Rev. Carolyn Keilig. We feel that working for several weeks with Carolyn will help Donna become acclimated to things Carolyn has put in place.

We appreciate our time with Carolyn and thank her for her service among us, allowing us to take the time to search and find Donna. We thank our church family for the faith they have showed to us as your search committee.

We are welcoming our Family Promise families for the week of June 2-9. We are expecting a total of nine: three moms and six children, but the program is fluid and could change as families find housing and new families join the program. Once again, all meals for the week have been signed up for. At the time of this writing, we are still looking for a few people to do overnights. Thanks to everyone who has volunteered. You are all awesome! If you would like to know more about the program or would like to get involved, contact Barbara Daley or Fran Charron.

We are also pleased to say that we were the solution for one family who was part of the program. Our third floor apartment at the Dubben House has become the affordable housing needed by a mom and her two children.

The Stewardship Committee is taking up a special second collection on Sunday, June 23, 2019. Our hope is everyone will participate in this effort to help raise money to offset the church’s 2019 budget. Our goal is to have everyone give whatever their usual weekly contribution is to this extra collection. So if you usually give $10 a week, on June 23 you would give $20: your usual offering plus the special offering. But if that’s not possible, we would appreciate whatever you are able to contribute.

Through your efforts we can continue to support Smith Church and its many programs, and we thank you for your continued support. We also ask that you make out a second check for this collection to make it easier to separate it from the weekly collection.

The June gathering of the Prayer Shawl will be on Wednesday morning, the 19th. As usual, we will meet at my house from 10:00ish to 12:00ish. It is always an enjoyable morning with lively conversation, coffee, tea and goodies and some knitting. It is open to all and always fun when new people join us. Knitting is optional, but if you would like to, yarn, needles and directions are all provided. And, if you would like to have a shawl blessed for someone, just let me know. If you have questions or need directions to my house, call me, Judy Hatfield, at 464-3458.

We have revitalized the Growth and Evangelism Committee, better known as G&E. Our first two endeavors have concluded. On May 10th we sponsored a pot luck supper. Although we had planned to also do paper bag skits, we abandoned that idea when people were happy just to enjoy a good meal and visit.

Our second endeavor was a book study of Kate Braestrup’s book, “Here If You Need Me.” We met four consecutive Monday nights to discuss some of the ideas presented. This is a true story of a woman who became the first chaplain for search and rescue missions in Maine after losing her husband, a Maine State Trooper. The story is told with humor, faith and sadness. Our town library has a copy of the book. We found it well worth the read. Thanks to Pastor Carolyn for leading the discussions which prompted much sharing.