Each face is a poem written by God that tells the story of our existence.   Each fold expresses sadness, laughter, anxiety, love.   We were all made in God’s image and we tell the story of our being without uttering a single word.  

These wonderful faces are not of famous people but they are well known to all of us.   We shared stories, events, worked together and worshipped together.   Our relationship is secured by our faith in the One God that loves us all more then we can ever know.   He is the bond that strengthens us and holds us all together.   These faces laughed with us and cried with us because they were here in our  lives and at our church services.   How very fortunate for them all for they are, or were, involved in the life of the parish and are counted in the company of God’s sheep whom God knows personally.

John 10:11-15:   “I am the good shepherd.   The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.       But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them.   The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep.   I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own.   As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.”  

For those who are still with us, may God Bless them abundantly and may they be assured that God’s love is consistent and everlasting.   We need only to visit Him in His Church regularly and thank Him always!   For those who have fallen asleep in the Lord, we pray:     With the Saints give rest, O Christ, to the souls of Thy servants, where sickness and sorrow are no more, neither sighing, but life everlasting.   Whither we mortals all shall go, making our funeral dirge the hymn:    Alleluia.     Memory Eternal.   

Join us on July 20th for our 100th Anniversary!    Pictures of parishioners of St. John’s, both those who are still with us and those who have +fallen asleep in the Lord, are in the Photo Gallery.