A Message from Father Joshua

531 West College Avenue, Jonesboro, AR 72401 February 2019 The Missive

Greetings everyone, It has felt like one major event after another since I arrived last July. We have just put to bed (my first) annual meeting and the 53rd Annual Pancake Day breakfast. Now we begin to look forward to the Spring and the great feast of Easter. Easter is like Christmas on steroids. We spend a longer time preparing and many more times afterwards celebrating the reign of Christ’s resurrection. One way we will prepare for Easter is in our confirmation/baptism classes. Confirmation is an odd rite that we observe usually during the Bishop’s annual visit (usually on the second Sunday of Easter). It’s an odd rite because there isn’t exactly an agreed upon theology for what exactly it accomplishes. It is equal parts an adult profession of faith for those baptized as children or infants, it is also the chance to receive new members who have been confirmed or baptized in other Christian traditions, and finally it is the chance to formally enter the Episcopacy of the Church, as Bishop Benfield will lay his hands on each new confirmand (thus connecting each person into the long line of bishops and disciples that extends all the way back to the Apostles themselves). Our confirmation classes are meant as a introduction to the Episcopal Church as a whole. We’ll briefly explore the many threads that hold the church together: history, liturgy, theology, the architecture of the church, and many other topics. These classes are meant for new members but, in my experience, they’ve also been meaningful to old members looking for a “faith refresher.” At any rate, all are welcome. If you’re interested in being confirmed or received or baptized into the church--or just looking to join in on the classes--please send a message to my email in the next few days so we can find a time to meet that works for everybody. Joy and peace to you all! Joshua

Priest

Father Joshua Daniel josua.daniel@stmarksjonesboro.org

Choir Director

Rhonda Dauer music@stmarksjonesboro.org

Church Administrator Dana Moses

secretary@stmarksjonesboro.org

Bookkeeper

Rhonda Dauer bookkeeper@stmarksjonesboro.org

Children’s Ed. Director Rose Mary Latanich

rosemarylatanich@gmail.com

EYC Director Stephanie Matthews sepmatthews@gmail.com

Nursery Attendance

Betty Donnell,

Stephanie Matthews,

and Keisha Dunavin

Men’s Club President

Perry Moses

ECW Co-Chairs

Becky Carr and

Donna Gilbert

Head of Two Saints Kitchen

Marya Langford mlangford@ricetec.com

Baby Shower /Potluck

Let us all Welcome Baby Daniel with a Baby Shower/Church Potluck Celebration

Sunday, February 3, 2019

Following the late service- in the Parish Hall

Please join us for a church wide potluck and baby shower to help Fr. Joshua and Jenna celebrate the

coming of their baby girl.

There is a potluck sign up sheet in the Narthex, a cake will be provided for the shower.

If you would like to contribute to a larger gift of a needed infant car seat, you may give a gift card or you

may give a monetary gift to Stephanie Matthews or the church office (you may use the drop box, just

put what it is for). FYI: Jenna will be using cloth diapers, disposables are not needed. The Daniels are

registered at

Target.com and Babylist.com (the specific link for that is:

www.babylist.com/baby-jenna-and-joshua-daniel

53rd Annual Pancake Day

The catechetical year has been passing quickly. It will not be long before we will be partici-pating in activities that will prepare us for the season of Lent. We are excited about all our ministries at St. Mark’s. Christian Education and Liturgy of the Word for Children are two ministries where our youngest parishioners have the opportunity to build faith, have fun, and develop relationships. This is an exciting time to for our Christian Education Program. Fr. Joshua has invited our Christian Education students along with the youth group to take part in the Wednesday evening 6:15pm Healing Eucharist service. Hopefully, the third Wednesdays of each month, our youth will take part in the readings, serve as acolytes or in whatever capacity Fr. Joshua would like the kids to serve. What a wonderful way for the children to experience and learn about God love through the liturgy. I encourage parents to attend the Healing Eucharist with their child and let this be the year that Christian Education becomes a prior-ity in you home. Have you noticed the printing (20+C+M+B+19) above the entryways at St. Mark’s? Epiphany also known as Twelfth Night or Three Kings Day marks the occasion of a time-honored Christian tradition of “chalking the doors.” The letters represent the ini-tials of the Magi (Caspar, Malchior, and Balthazar) who came to visit baby Jesus. The “+” signs represent the cross, and the “20" at the beginning and the “19" at the end mark the year. Most often this chalking ceremony can be done at any church, home or dwelling. Christian Ed students participated in a special chalking ceremony where we asked God’s blessing throughout the year to all who enter the doors at St. Mark’s. Practice traditions like the chalking of the door’s help children to learn to live their faith more concretely and serve as an outward sign of dedication to our Lord. Christian Education sessions for children kindergarten through sixth grade meets on Wednesday evenings from 6:00 to 7:30pm. Children four years old through six grades can participate in Liturgy of the Word which takes place during the 10:00am Sunday Eucharist services. Please remember our ministries for children in your prayers and thank you for your encour-agement and support. Contact Fr. Joshua or Rose Mary Latanich (870-935-0236 or rosemarylatanich@gmail.com) if you would be interested in volunteering or would like more information about the ministries offered for children at St. Mark’s.

Christian Ed

EYC is busy preparing for WinterStar. It is our spring Diocesan Youth Retreat at Camp Mitchell. It costs $120 per child. We're preparing a few fundraisers this month to help send us to Camp. The first will be our famous Parent's Night Out. EYC will host PNO on Feb 16th from 5-9. This will give Parents an oppurtunity to go on a date for Valentine's Day while kids are safely having fun with us. We take kids of all ages and will seperate into age groups. We will have age appropriate activites planned. We will eat pizza and cookies. Cost is $20 for 1st child and $10 for siblings. The second fundraiser planned is a dinner hosted by EYC. On Thursday February 21st we will cook and serve a BBQ dinner. EYC will cook and serve. We have BBQ sandwiches, beans, fries and chicken strips for kids. (if desired) While we would love to have to you eat here and let us serve you and clean up after you, We will also send home a family take out meal if you prefer. Both of these are great oppurtunities to support the youth group at St. Marks. We really ap-preciate it. If you are interested and need more info please feel free to call or text me at 870-340-5559.

Winterstar 2019 Winterstar, the diocese’s annual spring retreat for youth in the 6th–12th grades, will be

held Friday, March 8–Sunday, March 10 at Camp Mithcell.

The weekend begins with registration on Friday at 7 p.m. and

ends Sunday at 11 a.m. There will be games, music, worship

services, hiking, sports, hammocking and even more camp

goodness. Register now on the EYC page.

EYC

Men’s Club

The 53rd Annual Men’s Club Pancake Day was held on January 26 and early indications are that it was our best one yet! Hundreds of people were served fresh hot pancakes, bacon, sausage, coffee, juice, and milk. While we don’t have an accurate headcount at the moment, we believe it is was well over 400 people. Our Two Saint’s clients were served by Men’s Club also, and a big “Thank You!” to Two Saint’s Team 9 for coming in and cleaning up. We even got a little TV exposure thanks to KAIT coming out and doing a short piece on us. This is the 2nd time St. Mark’s has been featured on the news in the past month, the other time in December when they did a story on Two Saint’s. Men’s Club will have our meeting this month on Thursday February 21 at 6:00 pm. All men of St. Mark’s are invited and encouraged to bring a friend. If you are a Men’s Club member take a minute to invite someone in our church who might enjoy being a part of our group, or reach out to someone who hasn’t attended in a while. We will announce our February Meeting agen-da and menu at a later date, but we always have something good to eat and enjoy each other’s company while we take care of Men’s Club business. Keep your eyes and ears open for a possible special announcement for March! Perry Moses, Men’s Club President

ECW

The ECW would like to thank Laura Thompson for serving a Co-Chair of our group for three years. Laura, thank you for your commitment and time spent keeping ECW going! Our next Women’s club will be meeting Saturday February 9th, at 9:30. We will be discussing Springtime events, and organizing a group to see the Delta Symphony’s production of Carmina Burana! You can read about this impressive production here: https://www.deltasymphonyorchestra.org/ . Any women interested in joining us are welcome!

Confirmation Classes

If you are considering becoming a confirmed member of St. Mark’s, or if you just want to learn

more about the Episcopal Church, please register for confirmation classes. E-mail Father

Joshua at joshua.daniel@stmarksjonesboro.org by February 17. Classes will be held for 6 consec-

utive weeks . Date and times will be announced after Feb. 17 when registration is complet-

ed to work with schedules.

February 2019

For the month of November, Helping Neighbors Food Pantry (HNFP) served 687 households, and in December we served 775 families. Over the two months the pantry distributed 62,646 pounds of food to individuals and families. Our financial contribution to HNFP in December was $2,333, of which just more than $2,000 came from our Shrimp Boil. Our normal hours of operation are Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, 10:00am to 2:00pm, and the first Tuesday of the Month from 5:00pm to 7:00pm. The Tuesday evening is beginning to take off as a time to help families with their food needs. As always the pantry has a need for canned fruit, canned vegetables, canned meats, peanut butter, and macaroni, or virtually any product with a long shelf life. If you’re interested in volunteering contact me at garylatanich@gmail.com.

Gary Latanich

Helping Neighbors Food Pantry

Two Saints’ Kitchen

February Schedule

Feb 2- Team 10

Feb 9- Team 1

Feb 16- Team 2

Feb 23– Team 3

The cold and wet weather has kept us in for far too long. We are ready for better weather and the opportunity to get outside! This month's big event is Valentine's Day. The children celebrate with special snacks. They really enjoy being "postmen" and delivering Valentine's to their friends and teachers. This year is passing so quickly! soon it will be time for registering for summer and next fall. Peggy

Diocesan News

St. Mark’s Day School

Diocesan Convention 2019 February 15 – 16

Little Rock, Arkansas Friday’s events will all take place at Trinity Cathedral;

Saturday’s at Episcopal Collegiate Lower School

A Classic Valentine’ Concert at St. Luke’s, NLR The Johannes Trio will perform on Tuesday, Feb. 12, 7 p.m., at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in North

Little Rock. They will play Trio No. 1 for Piano, Violin, and Cello by Johannes Brahms and Trio for Vio-

lin, Cello, and Piano by Jean Francaix. A reception with the performers will follow. All Festival of the

Senses performances are free and open to the public.

February Birthdays

February Anniversaries

2/02 Elizabeth Matthews

2/05 Jessica McBride

2/07 Tasha Weeks

2/09 Annette Hope Troutt

2/12 Avery Toombs

2/13 Maggie Guinn

2/17 Aylia Poston

2/17 Sarah Gore

2/17 Mike Cobb

2/17 Becky Wells

2/18 Stephanie Matthews

2/20 Rebecca Penley

2/20 Kay Faulkner

2/20 Christopher Russell

2/21 Edward Gary

2/22 Lindley Bowen

2/23 Julia Cart

2/23 Vickie Russell

2/28 Drake Thompson

2/09 Carroll and Ruth Scroggin

2/13 Randy and Rhinda Kesselring

2/18 Tracy and Carol Neves

Feb 3 Baby Shower/ Potluck for Daniel Family

Feb 9 ECW at 9:30am

Feb 15-16 Diocesan Convention in Little Rock, AR

Feb 18 Vestry Meeting at 7:00pm

Feb 21 Men’s Club at 6:00pm

Feb 24 Daughters of the King at 11:30am

Financial Update

In January, the church received $15,393.06 to the operating account and

spent $16,713.61 for a net loss of $1,320.55. We currently have $46, 651.73 in our operating bank

account. Our renovation loan balance is $136,958.40.