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Ap

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U p c o m i n g E v e n t s Tenebrae Service Apr 3

7:30 PM

Easter Sunday Apr 6

Women’s Bible Study Apr 11

Memorial Gift Dedications Apr 19

Pillow Case Party May 2

I n t h i s I s s u e : Giving and Sowing: the Zucchini Effect 2

Save the Date for a Pillowcase Party 2

Good Friday Worship 2

Book Group News 2

Blood Drive 3

Women’s Saturday morning Bible Study 3

Easter Grace 3

A Spring Day 4

Camp Fowler Financial Aid Available 3

APRIL – MISSION OF THE MONTH “Whoever brings blessing will be enriched, and one who waters will himself

be watered.” Proverbs 11:25

Warriors on Wheels

Warriors on Wheels has been empowering individuals with disabilities in Albany for twenty-five years. Founded by trainer Ned Norton in 1988, the Warriors program uses a strength and conditioning fitness regimen to enhance life skills and independence for individuals with disabilities. Located at 230 Green Street, the Warriors Gym is a unique, custom-built facility featuring a variety of adaptive fitness equipment that is designed to accommodate individuals in wheelchairs and others for whom the modified design is more effective for their fitness routine than traditional gym

equipment.

Every gym is more than just a collection of fitness equipment, and Warriors on Wheels is no different. Reflecting Ned Norton’s enthusiastic nature, the Warriors Gym provides a supportive community for everyone wishing to improve their life skills and independence.

A note from the Colonie Community Daycare

A BIG Thank you! The children, Carol, and the day care family would like to thank everyone who participated in the Krause’s Candy fundraiser. It was a big success. We hope you all enjoy your “sweet” support. Here’s to a speedy and warm Spring!

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Giving and Sowing: the Zucchini Effect Lou Ann Connelly

Consider the zucchini.

If you haven’t grown any yourself, you’ve certainly been asked by friends who do so to take some off their hands come harvest time. A few seeds planted and tended result in an abundance of fruit.

Gardeners plant seeds relying on God to provide the sunshine, rain, and nutrients in the soil to grow the crop. They are willing to give up the seeds because they know a

harvest is coming. What they plant will come back to them a hundredfold. The more they plant, the more they reap.

That’s a good way to look at Christian giving.

Christian giving entails the same act of faith that gardeners show when sowing zucchini seeds. By faith you know that the treasures you offer to God through the church are not lost money. You can’t think of them as a lost mortgage payment or money that could have gone to buying new tires. That money represents seeds you’re planting that will come back to you in a bountiful harvest for yourself, and to share with others.

As Paul instructs us:

“The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work.” (2 Corinthians 9:6-8)

In the time leading up to Consecration Sunday, May 10, please prayerfully consider your offering of seeds to God. Anything you sow, God promises to bring back to you in abundance.

Save the Date for

a Pillowcase Party Saturday, May 2

10:30 am to 2:00 pm Here at church

You’re invited to a sewing party to construct cheerful pillowcases for veterans, refugees, and needy families in the Capital District, in partnership with Grassroot Givers.

Those who would like to sew are asked to bring their own sewing machine or serger, neutral thread, and scissors or snips. Please label your belongings.

Besides sewing, people are also needed to iron and trim the completed

pillowcases, greet guests, serve lunch, distribute prizes, set-up and clean-up.

It’s free to participate. Pillowcase kits will be provided.

The party includes fun, food, and prizes, and all participants will receive a thank-you gift.

Enjoy a few hours helping; go home knowing you have given someone the gift of caring.

Please sign up on the Volunteer Lists on the back tables. Or contact Lou Ann Connelly at 356-3745, or louannconne@nycap.rr.com, by April 26. Thank you.

Book Group News

April’s Book Group selection is a finalist for the National Book Award, Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See, the “beautiful, stunningly ambitious instant New York Times bestseller about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World

War II.”

Doerr’s two protagonists are children who have been engulfed in the horror of World War II..

One is a blind French girl on the run from the German occupation, the other a German orphan-turned-resistance tracker. Their struggle with their respective beliefs after meeting on the Brittany coast is the central theme of the novel.

Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-

Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. Ten years in the writing, All the Light We Cannot See is a magnificent, deeply moving novel from a writer “whose sentences never fail to thrill” (Los Angeles Times).

Our April meeting is set for Tuesday, April 21, at 7:00 pm, at the church. Anyone is welcome to attend. Please contact Karen Reynolds if you need more information.

Good Friday Worship

Tenebrae

April 3 7:30 PM

The word Tenebrae is Latin for deepening shadows. It is a solemn and somber

service, recreating the emotional aspects of the Passion story, the sense of the

betrayal, abandonment, and the agony of the events. It is left unfinished, because the story is not completed until Easter

morning. All are welcome to this Good Friday service. Nursery care will be provided for children 2nd grade and

younger.

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The Community Reformed Church of Colonie is again sponsoring a blood drive on Saturday, April 18, from 9AM to 1PM. What a great way to give the gift of life. Be sure to mark your calendar today.

Donors with all blood types are currently needed, particularly those with types O negative, A negative and B negative. If you

are one of these blood types, please consider making a Double Red Cell Donation.

Please contact Barbara Berberich at 417-3954 or 346-7805 or by email barbara.berberich@redcross.org to make an appointment. Walk-ins are also welcome.

Camp Fowler Financial Aid Available

If there are children interested in attending Camp Fowler, there is financial aid available. Please see Joyce Karl or Doris Neese for more information.

Women’s Saturday morning Bible Study

The April and May meeting dates have been changed. April's date is changed to April 11 due to Easter weekend. And the May meeting will be changed to May 14. May is our last meeting until Sept. 5. We will follow our meeting by going to lunch. Place to be determined. All are welcome to join us.

Celebrating our Risen Lord April 5 at 10 AM

Easter Grace

God of love, You

offered Your Son

Jesus Christ to the

world and granted us new life in Him. Thank you for the new life

living in the hearts of all who love Jesus, as well as the new life thriving in the world around us. Help us, this spring and always, to rejoice and seek new life in You as we celebrate Easter in our lives and hearts. Amen.

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701 Sand Creek Rd Colonie, NY 12205-2497 Bruce K. Cornwell, Pastor

Community Reformed Church of Colonie

Editor: Beth Colbert

Layout Designer: Shawn Turner

Articles are due by the 15th of the month and may be submitted to jimandbethcolbert@gmail.com or given to Beth Colbert.

www.coloniereformed.org

www.coloniecommunitydaycarecenter.com

701 Sand Creek Rd Albany, NY 12205-2432 Carol Grasso, Director

Tel: (518) 869-0131

E-mail: cgrasso6@yahoo.com

Colonie Community Day Care Center

Tel: (518) 869-5589

E-mail: CrccChurchOffice@nycap.rr.com

A Spring Day Another spring is coming as it has since time began. The days are getting longer for it's part of nature's plan The winter's cold is gone now, no snow piles can be found. They've served a final purpose by watering the ground. Our world has been renewed as it brightens up our day. Winter snows are now forgotten, and the plows are put away. The springtime is a happy time when life begins anew. Like cleaning up from winter that we must prepare to do. I feel the crispness in the air, walking through the field. As I see the work of nature whose beauty is revealed. The vista that surrounds me is an awesome sight indeed. For that beauty with its grandeur is all I really need. I gaze upon the meadowland around me on each side. And walk upon the footpath from the road I stood beside. Grass has started growing with restful shades of green. Though every now and then, a yellow dandelion is seen. Buttercups join crocuses, blooming all around. They fill the field with beauty, splendor from the ground. The field beside me beckons, it is blooming and alive. I gaze upon the leafy stems where lilacs soon will thrive. The springtime is a special time with colors all aglow. Showing us the beauty that was dormant neath the snow. Enjoy this special season that we've waited for so long. For the birds will soon be chirping, and singing nature's song. William E. Ogren March 3, 2015