On the afternoon of Friday, March 16 and the morning of Saturday, March 17, a team from Trinity transformed the lobby and waiting room at the Crossover Clinic. Initiated by Trinity volunteer, Kathy Barksdale, and coordinated with Eleanor Sanchez, Clinic Manager, this fresh coat of paint in aesthetically pleasing colors was a nice improvement for these rooms.
We appreciate the leadership on site from Shaw Blackmon, and we are thankful for the teamwork and kind hearts at Spectrum Paint Stores for their technical expertise and donations. Finally, thanks to the volunteers from this year’s Confirmation class and their mentors who participated in this project, and the Called Up Group. Here is a list of our volunteers:
Are you, or someone you love, no longer able to get to our church building to participate fully in Trinity’s worship services and programs? If so, the Trinity Visitation Team (TVT) program would like to hear from you!
In 2017, two-person teams of Trinity lay visitors made over 157 monthly visits to Trinity’s elderly and homebound members. We brought caring conversation, cards made by Trinity children, prayer, Holy Communion (if requested), the love of God, and the fellowship of our church community. And we were greatly blessed by the opportunity to make these visits. We serve under the guidance of Pastor Drew Willson and in cooperation with the homebound ministry of Pastor Jody McWilliams.
If you would like to request that a lay team visit you or your loved one monthly – or if you are interested in becoming a lay visitor – please contact Carol Wampler at carolwampler@msn.com or 804-784-7177.
Here are some TVT members at one of our semi-annual fellowship and in-service training potlucks:
Well, the weather guys finally pushed out the rain, and we could not have had a more perfect afternoon for the first Fresh Food Fest on May 24.
We want to thank all of our volunteers who helped us with the set up and the cleanup. Additionally, we appreciate our friendly roamers who were around to answer questions and to register guests for the gift card drawing.
Grow RVA secured the food trucks and vendors for us, and their on-site leaders helped to design the layout for the afternoon. Our band for the evening, Suggesting Rhythm, provided a quality set of tunes from the Grateful Dead. Plus, they even brought along some of their fans. The exceptionally gifted Jonathan Austin, entertained all age groups with his magic tricks, juggling skills, and quick sense of humor.
The vendors and food truck owners had a good night, and we hope all of our guests did too. Fresh Food Fest is an opportunity to connect to our community, and we enjoyed meeting lots of our neighbors and new friends too.
We hope you already have us marked on your calendar for Thursday, June 21. And to let you know, we are going to adjust the start time to 5 PM
Thanks again for coming out, we look forward to seeing you again.
Trinity’s High Schoolers went on a Mission Trip to Decatur, Alabama June 22-30. Here are some reflections from their trip.
From Zach Smith, Youth Participant
My trip to Decatur, Alabama was one of the best mission trips I have ever been on. For starters the people that we were staying with were amazing. They were caring and made sure that we had everything we needed all week. The hospitality was wonderful! I was working on a house all week that was in pretty bad shape. The house was very small and basically had no walls, just studs, and insulation. Our job was to remove old insulation, put in new insulation and then put of sheetrock. The people that owned the house were so nice and grateful. The way they were living truly opened my eyes to how lucky I am to be in the living situation that I am. I think most of us take for granted our situation and how lucky we are. I saw God in many places during the week, but the most significant place was with Harrison and Luke. They both don’t go to Trinity, and were new to everyone on the trip except for Jackson who invited them. Being new didn’t stop them from working hard. I had the privilege of working with Harrison and he was amazing! He stepped in and did whatever was needed and I don’t think we would have finished what we did without him. Another place I saw God was in Kevin. Kevin was a father of two girls who go to the church we were staying in. He took off all week from his job just to work on the house with us. He was amazing and taught the group so many things. All week he truly represented what it means to be a disciple. Overall this mission trip was awesome. We met so many great people and did awesome things for the community in Decatur! Hopefully we will be going back in the near future.
-Zach Smith
From Karen Fite, member, Gandys Cove UMC in Falkville, Al
Thank you youth mission team to Decatur, Al. The United Methodist Women of Gandys Cove UMC in Falkville, Al were blessed beyond measure to serve you lunch during your work experience at the Chenoweth home. We are interested in seeing the link to your trip pictures. The Chenoweth family is enjoying the renovations you did to make their home more comfortable. They are attending church. Thanks for showing God’s love to them and to us. We are praying that God will bless you mightily for sharing his love.
-Karen Fite, Gandys Cove UMC
Our Trinity team in front of the new Mattaponi Healing Clinic building located on an Upper Mattaponi property on July 28, Saturday. We are so grateful for the generosity and faithful support of Trinity for this annual trip to the Clinic in the summer. This year we collected 13 assorted boxes of over the counter medicines, vitamins and medical supplies and $1,095 in cash and checks to help pay towards prescription medicines. In the picture with our Trinity team on the left are Dot Daniels, Development Officer and Dianne Garrison (a native American, herself), the Director and VP of the new Board of Directors of MHEC. The MHEC team were very grateful and overwhelmed by the outpouring of our Church’s generosity. They informed our team that Dr. Arora, the co-founder, has recently retired from the Clinic.
We knew planning four outdoor, late afternoon, summertime events was a gamble, but Fresh Food Fest was a gamble worth taking. You might be thinking to yourself why was Fresh Food Fest a gamble worth taking?
Well, here are some insights from Lynn Berry and Jeb and Christine Helms.
Lynn observed: “At the start of the summer I was not looking forward to the long, hot days. No trips planned, just staying put in RVA. Then Fresh Food Fest came along, my did my attitude change! What fun it was! Great bands, a lot of wonderful food, plus a fresh lemonade or limeade to cool you off! My meal was finished off with a delicious homemade dessert. The produce vendor, a local farmer was nice and funny too. I can’t wait until our next event: Reach Out RVA 2.0!”
While Jeb and Christine Helms offered the following: “We had a great time at multiple Fresh Food Fests. Luke and Theo loved watching, listening, and dancing to the music. We spent most of the evening in front of the stage watching the conga, guitar, or fiddle. We quickly made it a tradition to buy a lemonade and dessert and shared those, although Luke drank most of the lemonade and I ate most of the dessert. Aside from the food and music, it was also a nice chance to see people. We used it as an easy meet up with friends that live in the neighborhood, but we don’t see often. We were able to hang out with members of our Sunday school class, and we met new folks as well. We look forward to future food fest nights!”
The Trinity staff appreciates all of the assistance we received from our volunteers who helped with the setup, interacting with our guests, and cleaning up our grounds once the event was over. Nell Smith was our point person for volunteers.
We also appreciate everyone who attended from our congregation and beyond. Guests came from our immediate neighborhood, some attended because of the musicians who performed, and some came from a personal invitation or a social media ad. Kim Johnson helped with our communication template.
Thanks to Grow RVA, who coordinated the vendors and helped to establish a natural traffic flow with the food trucks and the vendors who participated. Working with Grow RVA helped us to learn about staging and interacting with our guests.
Was Fresh Food Fest worth it? Our answer is yes.
And here’s part of our reasoning, we sensed from the people who attended, they enjoyed an opportunity for fellowship in a less traditional environment. But that is just one observation.
We would be curious to know what you thought about Fresh Food Fest too. If you would like to tell us follow this link.
