We are pleased to announce that Mario Kee will be joining our staff team for youth ministry this summer. Mario has just completed his first year of graduate school at Eastern Michigan University, where he is completing a Masters in Music Performance. He is a graduate of Austin Peay University. During his time there, he completed a summer youth ministry internship at Emmanuel UMC in Memphis, TN, and also led a youth Bible study at Fellowship UMC for two years. Mario arrives in town this Friday and will begin his internship on Sunday, May 20, along with our other summer interns, Katherine Morgan and Shelby Hart Price. Welcome, Mario!

June 10 will be the next day Harvest celebrates baptisms. Whether you are the parent of a young child desiring to have them baptized, a youth, or an adult who desires to make a first-time profession of faith and be baptized, the invitation is open for you on this Sunday. Anyone interested may contact Carin in the church office at 907-7333 or cdoddroe@harvest-umc.org to schedule an appointment with one of the pastors.

Come and see and hear the students of Harvest Music Academy perform on Wednesday night, May 30 at 7:00 pm. You’ll enjoy a night of great music as you tap your feet to familiar tunes. Refreshments will follow the performance.

Harvest will be hosting a blood drive on Sunday, May 6 from 9:30 am until 12:30 pm.  Please sign up at Hospitality Hub 1 or just show up at the blood mobile to donate. Your donation may save up to 3 lives.  You will also receive a free blood pressure screening and cholesterol screening.

You are invited to join us on Monday, May 7, at 7:00 pm for a specially called charge conference. The sole purpose of this conference will be to confirm Dora Thomas as a candidate for ordained ministry. Dora, who grew up at Saint Paul’s UMC in Tallahassee and was an active youth during Catherine and Steve’s time there in the early 90’s, has been attending Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta for the last two years. During that time, she has discerned that her calling is to return to Florida to serve as a pastor in our Conference. Harvest will become her home church during the time of her candidacy. Come and join us as a sign of our support for her calling.  

In less than two months a team of eight people from Harvest will be travelling to East Angola. The Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church has a partnership with the East Angola Conference and Harvest has a history of strong support for the partnership. This year’s team will focus on improving housing conditions for future mission teams, water supply issues, and building relationships with the orphans and boarding school students at Quessua.  As the team prepares to travel we ask for your support in one or both of these ways:

• Please pray. Please pray that we will touch lives in Angola, that our lives will be touched, and please pray for safe travels.

Please consider making a financial contribution to the trip. Travel expenses to and from Angola are covered but we still need help with expenses on the ground and with project expenses. Any excess funds not used for projects will be used for on-going orphanage support.

Is your high school graduation year 2011 or earlier?
And is your age 25 or younger?
Then you are invited to the Young Adult SEED Group that is now meeting weekly every Thursday from 5:30 to 6:30 pm here at the Harvest facilities. It will be like a weekly reunion! Please come.

If you’re new to Harvest and would like to know more, a great place to start is at a Sweet Talk. Pastors Catherine and Steve Price invite you to join them for dessert and coffee at their home on Wednesday, May 16 at 7:00 pm. You’ll have a chance to meet some other people who are new to Harvest and to ask any questions you might have about the church. To make your reservation, contact Carin at the church office at 907-7333 or cdoddroe@harvest-umc.org.

The Pack-A-Sack mission of Harvest at Samoset Elementary School is growing and is now providing 90 children with bags of food for weekends when school lunches are not available. Pack-A-Sack volunteer servants and anyone interested in learning more about this ministry are invited to come to Harvest from 6:30 to 8:00 pm on Wednesday, May 16. The Pack-A-Sack team will be reviewing the past year and discussing future goals for this ministry which focuses on feeding chronically hungry children.

Harvest volunteer servants involved in this ministry take turns helping:

• Shop for food and pack the 90 sacks that are delivered each week. This is a great thing for a family to do together!
• Deliver the sacks and other items (food pantry, socks, underwear, school uniforms).
• prepare large bags of food and nutritional information for families over extended school break periods (Thanksgiving, Christmas, Spring Break, Easter, Summer Break)
• Write articles for the Harvest newsletters/bulletin and other media
• write grant proposals
• Receive, sort and shelve food given on the 3 PAS food collection Sundays during the year
• Put up the PAS bulletin board display 3 times a year
• Take photographs so everyone can see this ministry in action
• Grow this ministry into the future!

Please join the Pack-A-Sack team on May 16 to learn more about this important ministry.

 “The day hunger disappears, the world will see the greatest spiritual explosion humanity has ever seen.” Pearl Bailey

On May 19 and 20, Harvest will participate in the United Methodist Church’s Change the World movement. Change the World 2012 is a global United Methodist Church grass roots movement to support building community locally. Community-by-community around the world, Change the World weekend encourages all people, from the United States to Zimbabwe, to gather to perform simple projects in their community to improve lives.

On Saturday, May 19, Harvest will Change the World by serving Samoset Elementary School, mulching, painting, and assisting with several maintenance requests. Harvest will also serve with Habitat for Humanity’s Brush With Kindness program, helping repair and paint peoples’ homes. On Sunday, May 20, Harvest will also collect food for Oneco United Methodist’s Food Bank. Look for sign up sheets at Hospitality Hub 1. For questions or to register, email Sarah Campbell at scampbell@harvest-umc.org. Come out and Change the World!