Greetings in Christ! I’m writing to you this week with one reminder and three big updates.
First, next weekend I will be away for a scheduled retreat and we have not been able to schedule priests to cover all our Masses. What does this mean? Unfortunately, we will again need to have one of our scheduled worship times be Deacon-led services with Holy Communion. My recommendation is that, if your schedule requires you to go to 8 am on Sunday, you should worship at a different Catholic Church for the full experience of Mass. We will only be able to offer a service of the Word and Holy Communion without Mass at that time. Unless Fr. Le or I get sick, this should be the last time this happens this year.
Next are the updates and I’m pretty excited about them all.
First things first: our tractor that we use to mow the lawn officially died. Dad and I tinkered with it, fixing some things over the last few months but in the end, it simply wasn’t savable. I am a big believer in supporting local businesses, so we started our search at Grand Blanc Outdoors. We met with a salesman named Jeff and I don’t think he could have been more helpful. He got a sense of what we needed and guided us into making the right purchase. He respected the fact that we are a non-profit and in the end, gave us a pretty nice discount, as well as some sage advice. I’m so grateful. So, now we have a new tractor that we mow with and the only struggle we’ve had is getting Carrie to let someone else use it! Haha
Speaking of lawn mowing…
We are really blessed to welcome Mark Kaake (cake) to our Parish Family. He is joining our maintenance staff. We have a massive plant with lots of manual work that will always be a challenge, but Mark is excited to take this on. His talents and skills really fit the job well and I am excited for this change.. Please make sure to welcome him and pray that Jesus bless the work of his hands.
We are also making a pretty big geographical change up front at our parish and school. As time moves on, we’ve realized that we need a more unified entrance to the school and parish office. There are some practical issues at work here and some that are more conceptual. I won’t bore you with the details.
The key is this: starting this week, we will be shifting the entrance of our Parish Offices to the main school entrance, which now becomes the Parish Lobby and main entrance where we will greet all guests, visitors, and vendors. Manning the welcome desk will be a new employee, Michelle Hoerig. She will greet people coming to the parish, as well as direct visitors and callers to the appropriate people and places. We’re very excited to welcome her and I ask us all to pray for her and be patient as we work through these changes..
So…lots going on as we creep up on our next school year here at Holy Family. We are an active and growing parish and you should see some new ways of doing things emerge over the next few months or so. Please pray God bless our efforts to be faithful to the mission He has given us!
I thank Jesus that I get to be your priest.
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