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itself. For example, in our daily readings we are in the book of Judges and we read that as Israel would worship other gods, God would send an enemy to destroy them and then a judge would bring them back. I believe that history can repeat itself - but not all the time!

Take a look just about 10-15 years ago in our country. Family life and church life were an important part of society for many families. Now-adays families are much busier and the financial recession doesn’t want to recover. We do not live in the same world that we once did. Things have changed.

(continued on page 6)

Dear Children of God of St. James and St. Paul’s,

Grace, mercy, and peace be yours from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ. Over the next few months in the newsletters, be on the lookout for my thoughts about the past, the present, and the future.

After being here for nearly a year now, as I’ve been in the office I have dug through old meeting minutes, looked at old pictures, and found other histori-cal information about St. James and St. Paul’s. I have greatly enjoyed learning about the past of both congregations. At St. Paul’s, I often take time to walk

around the cemetery, which shows a little picture of what St. Paul’s is all about.

If you don’t know, I like to learn about history. For example, Emily and I took a walking tour of one of the towns and walked through some of the old homes and muse-ums in Door County on our honey-moon. In some of those places, there were live actors portraying people of the past in order to have history come alive.

As I have learned about history, I also learned that we can learn from the past. It’s been said, “History will always repeat itself.” This brings to mind the Children of Isra-el: history always seemed to repeat

A L E T T E R F R O M T H E P A S T O R

A N I M P O R T A N T

A N N O U N C E M E N T

S E E K I N G V B S

H E L P !

Please see

Emily Nielsen if you

are interested!

The dates will be

August 8th thru 12th

from 9-noon.

Dear Friends in Christ,

Well now that summer is approach-ing and you are making plans don’t forget to include God in your plans. Come and enjoy the exciting things that are happening around St. James. When you get to church and are looking for things to get involved in look around, there are posted all around and if you have any ques-tions please don’t hesitate to ask or look at your calendar in the newslet-ter.

When I step into church whether it’s on Wednesday night or during the week (with my Grandson of course) I get this spiritual uplift that makes my whole day.

J U N E 2 0 1 1

St. James Lutheran Church St. Paul’s Lutheran Church

River’s Edge Good News

Pastor Michael Nielsen

Office: 1106 S. Main St.

Necedah, WI. 54646

608-565-7252

stjames.luth@tds.net

A L E T T E R F R O M T H E C O U N C I L P R E S I D E N T

Big Jungle Adventure! 8-8 thru 8-12...9am-12pm

This Month I want to say a BIG THANK YOU to the Quilters. These ladies are very pleasant, delightful and hard work-ing women so if you see them please say Thank You for all they do.

Have a nice day and I hope to see you in church.

Yours in Christ,

Brian Jump,

St. James, Congregational President

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Servants

Elder of the Month: Fred Gregar

Trustee of the Month: Dave Hess

Altar Care

St. James: Kathy Nugent and Diane Houy

St. Paul’s: Lois, Sharon and Charlie

June Needs

Tomah VA-Phone Cards and Reading Glasses

Necedah Food Pantry- Any non-perishable item

Please leave your items in the VA Box or the LWML Box

A N N O U N C M E N T S

Upcoming Events

June 2nd-Ladies Aid Gathering 6:30pm

June 6th-Trustee’s Meeting 7pm

June 9th-Last day of public school

June 11th-Elder’s Meeting 9am

June 15th-Council Meeting

Come take an adventure through the

Jungle and learn about Jesus! The fun

begins Monday August 8th and contin-

ues through Friday August 12th

9am-12pm. Registration forms will be

handed out to the children but if you

need one you can contact

Emily Nielsen at 565-7252.

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Birthday’s

1st-Jason Smelcer

7th-Don Lutz

Carson Wilhorn

8th-Lori Coots

9th-Payton Burke

Gabrielle Wilhorn

10th-Brenda Exner

Amanda Negaard

12th-Dale Brobst

13th-Zacharey Mach

14th-Howard Ganther

Bonnie Hess, Hannah Hunkins,

Bea Nordall

15th-Sandy Kriese,

Jackie Thomas

16th-Kyle Jump

17th-Sabrina Blundon

21st-Joni Mach

23rd-Brendon Bartels

24th-Richard Jensen

Cheryl Olson

25th-Peter Steen

26th-Betty Jensen

28th-Joe Snodie

Anniversaries 5th-Gerald and Karin Ganther

19th-Mark and Wendy Horbinski

22nd–Lois and Bill Lazeration

25th-Daryl and Carla Fabian

26th-Fred and Missy Gregar

28th-Tom and DeAnna Winters

S T . J A M E S B I R T H D A Y ’ S A N D A N N I V E R S A R I E S

S T . P A U L ’ S B I R T H D A Y A N D A N N I V E R S A R I E S

Birthdays

1st-Jacob Skibba

2nd-Eleanor Van Meter

6th-Tracey Draper

15th-Doris Ristau

27th-Lowell Pals

Anniversaries

No Anniversaries

VBS “Jungle Adventure”

As summer starts, we want to remind you that St. James is still open! We continue to have worship ser-

vices all summer – and while there is no weekly Sunday School, we are offering a “Jungle Adventure” Va-

cation Bible School August 8-12 this summer!

VBS will be from 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM each day that week. Kids of all ages will sing songs, have a snack,

learn about a Bible story, make a craft and play outside! VBS is open to kids in Preschool (age three by

September 1, 2010) through completed sixth grade.

In this newsletter, you will find a registration form for VBS. VBS is completely FREE, but we kindly ask

that you pre-register your child so that we can provide a quality program. The deadline for registration is

July 24, 2011. Once you have completed the registration form, simply return it to the church office or di-

rectly to Emily Nielsen, VBS director.

As VBS approaches, we continue to seek volunteers. Confirmation students may volunteer and receive cred-

it for a service project! High school students are also welcome to help us out. We also need adults to serve

in various capacities. At this point, we are looking for helpers for the various areas – no experience is

necessary! We will provide a short training before VBS. If you are willing to volunteer, please pick up a vol-

unteer form or contact Emily Nielsen (565-7925).

VBS is about two months away – are you ready for a fun jungle adventure with Jesus?!

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L A D I E S A I D

Attention all Ladies of St. James and St. Paul’s !

We are very excited to invite you all to our upcoming monthly Gatherings. On June 2nd at 6:30pm, we will be planting flowers around the sign in front of the church and July 7th at 6pm for our Picnic by the Lake. Pastor Mike will be our grill master that even-ing. So please join us for the fun and fellowship. More details will be available in the bulletins so

please be on the look out.

Our Mother Daughter Tea was a great success. We had 13 in attendance and fun was had by all. (Please

see photo’s on right.)

God’s Blessings

Deb Belmonte

Q U I L T E R S C O R N E R

We are still in need of some extra hands for putting together

our quilts. So if anyone can spare a little extra time it would be greatly ap-

preciated! Summer is upon us, and though a lot of events are coming to an

end ex. Preschool, public school, Sunday school, and vacations are being

planned. The quilters keep charging on trying to beat our record number of

quilts made last year. We have 5 more months before they need to ship so

please help us out if you are able. Also, if anyone has any extra boxes the

size of copy paper or apple boxes we could definatly use them for shipping

the quilts.

Have a safe, happy, healthy and blessed summer!

St. James Quilters

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May is here and gone! We finally got some good weather to go outside. We had a great time outside. The sand gets in our shoes but we don’t care. We did lots of art creations. We used thread spools and wooden balls to paint with and we glued noodles on paper to express our talents. Lots of messy fun. I hope you strolled down the hall to visit our art exhibit. It’s fun to try different things to make art. I hope the children use their imaginations in the future to create beautiful expressions of their talents.

Graduation day was May 27th. We had seven gradu-ates. Angelina McNally, Blake Smith, Caleb Tully, Em-ma Negaard, Isabella Emanuel, Jazmyn Murphy and Lily Belmonte. As Jesus said “Let the little children come to me.” we are doing our best to bring these lit-tle children to Him. We hope that next season we will have lots more little children to bring to Jesus. I ask you to get the word out and help bring those children to Jesus. A graduation picture will be posted in the Fellowship Hall and in next month’s Newsletter.

P

R

E

S

C

H

O

O

L

O U R M I S S I O N

“To share God’s love in Jesus Christ with those around us as we continue to experience and

grow in His goodness and mercy.”

I am asking everyone to work with me in building the youth group; it’s not a one man job! I am again looking for youth that are

ready to work alongside some adults to build YOUR youth group. Several opportunities are coming up for YOU this summer.

Here’s a list with dates:

Sunday June 12 – Miniature Golf with Good Shepherd Youth (Tomah, WI) @ Pine View Recreation Center in Fort McCoy

leaving St. James @ 2 PM. Pastor Mike will be grill master after our friendly competition. Sign-up deadline is June 9.

(Jr/Sr. High Youth)

Friday June 17 – District Day at the Dells. Special prices at Noah’s Ark…see the Youth Board for more details. Sign up

deadline is June 3.

Friday July 15-Sunday July 17 – OAFC weekend at Prince of Peace in West Salem, WI. You may ask “What is OAFC?”

OAFC stands for Ongoing Ambassadors for Christ. It is a great way to meet different youth who are on fire for the Lord.

An OAFC weekend is surrounded with God’s Word, Worship, Witness, and last of all fun, fellowship, and food. Ask

Pastor Mike for more details!

August 8-12 – VBS from 9AM – Noon. Youth help is needed…Jr. Highers if you work all 5 days you get two of your re-

quired servant hours done even before Confirmation begins!

TBD – Youth Gathering preliminary meeting for 2013. Fundraising NEEDS to happen. Be on the lookout to the bulletin

board, newsletter, and bulletins and Facebook for more information.

Y O U T H G R O U P

C O N F I R M A T I O N The formal Confirmation Year is over, but it is not over when it comes to Church and your attendance here.

Confirmation is a two year process - the beginning of the rest of your life of learning God’s Word. Confirma-

tion class will kick off again in September after Rally Day. Be on the lookout for continued Confirmation up-

dates and special dates. Parents of next year’s 7th and 8th graders, put this date on your calendars: Confirma-

tion Retreat at Camp LuWiSoMo is October 26-28.

God’s Blessings to you all and we will be sharing more exciting stories in September. Until then, have a wonderful summer. Enjoy all the beautiful creations and miracles that God has given us. We just need to stop, take a deep breath, look and

listen. It is amazing all the fantastic things you can see and hear.

Have a great summer!

Sandy, Angelina, Blake, Caleb, Emma, Jazmyn

Isabella and Lily

6

In my time since I’ve been here, I have heard this phrase over and over again… “We want to go back to where we once were…active youth group, growing con-gregation, financially stable, and the like.” We all want that and I believe we can achieve that again. It will take time, hard work, long days, sleepless nights, finances, and even your help. It’s going to take an effort from each and every member at St. James and St. Paul’s!

There’s one more important thing that I have learned about the past. The past is the past; it’s never going to come again, and it’s never going to repeat itself in the exact same way. There are different people involved in a different time in history. Changes have taken place - some for the better, some for the worse. We can defi-nitely look at the past and take ideas from the past, but the past is still the past. My dear family of God, it’s time to look at the present, and to look towards the future, while not giving up on the past.

In His Faithful Service,

Pastor Mike

L E T T E R F R O M T H E P A S T O R

( C O N T . F R O M P A G E 1 )

Bible Readings for June:

Week 22 May 30 – Judges 17:1-18:31 (We Remember our Soldiers Who have Fought for our Freedom) May 31 – Judges 19:1-20:48 June 1 – Judges 21:1-25 June 2 – Ruth 1:1-2:23 June 3 – Ruth 3:1-4:22 June 4 – 1 Samuel 1:1-28 June 5 – Come to the Lord’s House and Worship Him

Week 23 June 6 – 1 Samuel 2:1-36 June 7 – 1 Samuel 3:1-21 June 8 – 1 Samuel 4:1-22 June 9 – 1 Samuel 5:1-7:2 June 10 – 1 Samuel 7:3-17 June 11 – 1 Samuel 8:1-22 June 12 – Come to the Lord’s House and Worship Him

Week 24 June 13 – 1 Samuel 9:1-10:27 June 14 – 1 Samuel 11:1-15

June 15 – 1 Samuel 12:1-25 June 16 – 1 Samuel 13:1-23 June 17 – 1 Samuel 14:1-52 June 18 – 1 Samuel 15:1-35 June 19 – Come to the Lord’s House and Worship Him

Week 25 June 20 – 1 Samuel 16:1-23 June 21 – 1 Samuel 17:1-58 June 22 – 1 Samuel 18:1-19:24 June 23 – 1 Samuel 20:1-21:15 June 24 – 1 Samuel 22:1-23 June 25 – 1 Samuel 23:1-29 June 26 – Come to the Lord’s House and Worship Him

Week 26 June 27 – 1 Samuel 24:1-22 June 28 – 1 Samuel 25:1-44 June 29 – 1 Samuel 26:1-25 June 30 – 1 Samuel 27:1-29:11 July 1 – 1 Samuel 30:1-31 July 2 – 1 Samuel 31:1-13 July 3 – Come to the Lord’s House and Worship Him

Mark Your Calendars!!!!

VBS

August 8-12

9am-12pm

Registration Forms Available

Contact Emily Nielsen 565-7925