Message from Reverend Rita

Well, dear friends, I’ve spent a good first week unpacking and acclimating. After celebrating our wedding anniversary together, my husband has returned to Buffalo, and so I grow used to a long-distance relationship. Not trusting my sense of direction, the GPS has taken me on many different routes between my new home and the Fellowship. I’m getting used to that, too. The roads I take down the hills into the center of Mankato and back up to my apartment remind me of rivulets seeking the larger river below. This was never so true as when I drove into that rain storm on Monday evening!

I look forward to serving as Worship Associate the next two Sundays before offering my first sermon of the year on August 26. It will be good to be “carrying the canoe” together once again. Our new church year begins September 9 with Ingathering and Water Communion. All water is connected. What comes out of my tap, what flows down streets in a storm, once filled the rice paddies outside Chennai, Tamil Nadu in southeastern India. Let us all bring a bit of water on September 9, water representing our hopes and dreams for our individual lives mingled in active and vibrant community.

All this “newness” for me, and for you. The Board holds its Annual Retreat on Saturday, August 18. It’s a time for setting the course of our Fellowship, for pointing our canoe in a sound direction. Contact Board President Tony Filipovitch if you would like to attend.

Blessings and best wishes, Rev. Rita