HELP for ECHO

IMPORTANT NOTICE!!! The month of May is St. Mark’s food drive for ECHO! Bring a filled bag with items as instructed on the bags you can find in the Narthex!

Click HERE to find out about ECHO’s latest needs—this information is also in the April 28th E-Messenger.

Click HERE to see how Target shoppers can help raise funds for ECHO …

Click HERE to find out what to do for a “Food Donation Option When You Can’t Come to ECHO”

Click HERE for their latest THANK YOU message to St. Mark’s.

ECHO desperately needs your help to help fill the shelves of their Food Pantry … Need info on donating? Call 703-569-7972 or go to https://www.echo-inc.org/needed-right-now for their current needs.

Need help? Call 703-569-9160 … To find out what ECHO has to offer its clients, click HERE for English and HERE for Spanish.

Donation Hours
M, Tu, W, Th, F - 9:30 AM to 12:30 PM
Tu, W, Th - 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM

St. Mark’s Women—You Are Invited!

Wednesday, May 1, 2024
5:30 PM - 7:30 PM
Fellowship Hall

All St. Mark's ladies and guests are invited to our Women of the ELCA semi-annual salad/dessert supper Combined Circle meeting Wednesday, May 1st. Guest speaker will be Pastor Saul Cardona, who will talk about his past and upcoming mission trips to Honduras. This is also an opportunity to support this ministry, along with our May project of providing summer items for the children in Wise, VA. Suggested donations include: summertime sports equipment and kids clothes, toiletries, suitcases/duffle bags, socks, shoes in good condition, and gift cards. (No winter clothing, please.) If you can't attend the meeting, a collection bin for these items has been placed outside the church office. We hope you can join us!

Opening prayer will be promptly at 5:30 PM, since Pastor Saul has another obligation. Come and enjoy an evening with us as we share food and fellowship!

Redeem your Points—
Pull Tabs from Soda Cans

Cindy Hausch-Booth will collect pull tabs for Ronald McDonald House, now that the Coca-Cola®️ lid program has ended. Please bring your can tabs to the narthex.

The pop tabs are recycled. A check for the tabs is sent to RMHCDC. That money supports programs to help ease the hardship of childhood illness on children and their families.

Thank you for helping RMHCDC by “Pulling for the House!” Your pop tabs make a difference!

Don’t Let Your Giant Reward Points Expire!

Do you know you can use your points for other products besides gas? Right now you can get a dozen eggs for 200 points. If you don’t need them, or only need a half dozen, please consider donating them to Food For Others. Just mark the container as FFO and leave in the kitchen refrigerator. Thank you!

Funerals and Memorials Info

St. Mark’s website now have a separate informational webpage for upcoming funerals and memorials. See it at https://www.stmarks-elca.org/funerals-memorials-info.

🎶🎶  Calling All Interested
Singers AND RINGERS  🎶🎶

EVERY THURSDAY …

Bell Choir rehearses at 6:45 PM to 8:00 PM

Chancel Choir rehearses 8-9:30pm in Sanctuary

Karen Randall, Choral Director,
Music@stmarks-elca.org

Alice Real, Handbell Director,
Handbell@stmarks-elca.org

Second Quarter Benevolence: CAROLINE FURNACE AND MAR-LU-RIDGE

Contributions from you to St. Mark’s benevolence fund for the 2nd quarter of 2024 will be directed to local Lutheran campsites, Caroline Furnace and Mar-Lu-Ridge.

See also “the latest info” on our Q2 benevolence on our Quarterly Benevolence webpage.

Save the Date!
Community Health Fair—August 17

St. Mark’s continues to focus our attention on loving our neighbors. Our annual community health fair, supported by Fairfax County, will be held on Saturday, August 17, 2024, 10:00 AM - 2:00 PM. 

Community Meals Are Back!

We resumed our Community Meals, which were halted due to the pandemic, on Sunday, February 4 at 1:30 PM. We started slow with meals only on the first Sunday of the month. We will also not be meeting in the evening as we had been previously but at 1:30 PM immediately following the Spanish service. 

What do we need? To start, (1) we need volunteers; and (2) we need prayers that God will (a) give us strength and wisdom as we recommence this effort, and (b) bless our efforts to satisfy not only physical hunger but real spiritual need.

Flower Committee

The Flower Committee needs new members. If you are interested in joining the flower committee to help “dress” the altar on Sundays, please contact Trudy Stellar. We will be happy to train you. Click HERE for more information!

2024 Flower Deditations: Click HERE for the form to dedicate flowers or one or more Sundays in 2024!

Flower Ministry

On Mondays and Tuesdays the Flower Ministry team delivers small arrangements made from the altar flowers to St. Mark's members who are sick or housebound. We are in need of more volunteers to deliver. Please contact Lance Quesenberry lques48@gmail.com or call 703-401-1500 if you would like to volunteer or would like to ask questions.

April Military Packages Collection: Anytime
Now through the End of April

After a month-long hiatus, we have some information so we can send some packages to our deployed troops. This month, we are partnering with an organization called Love in a Box, which also sends to deployed troops, to Marines. Our main person to contact is Gilbert Fenters, the leader of the team of Marines on the Navy ship USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69), nicknamed the “IKE"; the chaplain with Fenters' team is Lindsay Lyerly. You have probably heard of the IKE in the news lately—they are in the Red Sea and have been working overtime every day, in such a dangerous area … they are part of the attempts to stop the Houthi's attacks on shipping routes. It is a Navy ship, but the individuals we are sending packages to are Marines deployed on the ship.

Thank you so very much for your support. They did not list specific items they would like, but you have learned over the years that they welcome every kind of snack—sometimes those snacks become their meals when they are so busy.

YOU ARE INVITED …

** The Prayer Ministry invites anyone who is interested in committing to a renewed prayer life at St. Mark's to join us on Sundays after the service at 11:00 AM in the Fellowship Hall. Learn more HERE!!!

** Also, the "Watch and Pray" Lunch Bunch is scheduled for Tuesdays at NOON in the Fellowship Hall. Bring a bag lunch and come to share in prayer, food, and fellowship. All are welcome. Contact Ken Anderson for information.

** Everyone is invited to join the on-going Wednesday morning (10:00) “Watch and Pray” meeting via Zoom at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/894781064 (password 5800) 

For questions or more information contact Raelene Long (llong41@verizon.net) or Cherry Moser (clmoser@cox.net).

ESOL Classes at St. Mark's

Classes in the fall began Tuesday, September 12, 2023. Classes are Tuesdays and Thursdays, 7:00 PM-8:30 PM; cost of books is $45. There is a need for ESOL teachers as well as volunteers to provide childcare (perhaps high school students who need community service hours).

For more information, contact Yvette Moy at at ymoy@stmarks-elca.org.

Food For Others is in need of extra food. Please bring non-parishable food to Narthex.
Thank you!

The last several weeks, we have been seeing a big surge in demand for our FFO food distribution on Tuesdays. Our FFO pantry helps to provide protein in our food distribution and to provide food when all the fresh food runs out. The goods donated by the supermarkets are primarily fruits, vegetables, and carbohydrates, not protein. Your monetary contributions will help us purchase many identical canned goods so they can be efficiently stored.

The increase in demand for our FFO distribution is taxing on the teams who receive, organize, and distribute the items. If you can spare a few hours on a Tuesday afternoon at 5:00 PM-6:30 PM, please consider helping one of our four FFO teams. No experience necessary. If you can help, even just one week, it will help us navigate this surge we are experiencing in demand. For further questions, please contact Debbie Brown, Nan Ackerman, or anybody you know who participates in our FFO teams. 

We are again running low on our empty egg carton supply. If you have empty egg cartons, please bring them to church again!

Please place your donations in the box in the narthex.