St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Fredericksburg

Funnel Cake Fun

St. Paul's in Fredericksburg's LYF purchased a funnel cake machine several years ago as a fund raising tool to help fund the groups travels to the National Youth Gathering. The BIG event for the season is Fredericksburg's Dairy Days Celebration which is held early in June each year. The group has also taken the machine to area festivals and made funnel cakes for their events as well. The volunteers worked all day Wednesday, with the busiest time beginning around 5 pm. At around that time, the line lengthened, and never really went away until after 11 pm. During that time, the workers were pouring a new funnel cake at a speed of just about one every 45-60 seconds. That is a lot of funnel cakes! Several people came back to the stand later, commenting that "these are the BEST funnel cakes I have EVER tasted! Whatever you guys do...you do it RIGHT!"

Parish Nursing

The LCMS parish nurse district representatives met at Concordia University, Mequon, WI, May 27 & 28. The theme was Looking Back to Look Forward.

There were 21 of the 35 district reps in attendance (see photo) as well as 3 diaconal nurses from Finland. From synod those in attendance were: Rev. John Fale; our soon to be former director, Carol Broemmer; and soon to be new director of LCMS Health Ministries, Maggie Karner.

Looking back, 20 years ago a volunteer parish nurse coordinator was named- Dr. Marcia Schnorr. Dr. Schnorr is now salaried. There were 6 known parish nurses at that time. Now there are over 1,000 parish nurses in the LCMS. Most all districts now have a district representative. There was no form of communication in the beginning, now we have a list serve and a newsletter. Currently the “typical” LCMS parish nurse is a female, 58 years old, and is married. She has served 6.5 years in a congregation in the Midwest and averages almost 20 hours a week. A possible “looking forward” idea is that a Lutheran parish nurse association be formed.

The 16th Annual Concordia Conference for Parish Nurse and Congregational Health Ministries was held following our district rep meeting. Be Well, Serve Well was the title of this conference. We heard an excellent keynote speaker, Dr. Mary Moller speaking on Wellness: Choice not Cliché. The keynote was followed by many excellent breakout sessions.

My function as district rep is to promote, support and educate others about parish nursing and health ministries. As the Iowa District East rep I have identified 17 parish nurses in our district. This past year the number has decreased unfortunately due to some retiring. Please contact me if you know of anyone interested in health ministries or parish nursing.

Ronda Anderson RN

Bethany Lutheran Church, Cedar Rapids

Immanuel Lutheran Church and St. Paul Lutheran Church in Readlyn

The installation of Rev. Roger Sterle on June 1st.

Grace Lutheran Church in DeWitt

Early in the year, the Sunday School teachers at Grace Lutheran, DeWitt agreed to adopt Cows for Kenya as their money raising project for the year. An inquiry was sent to LCMS and they provided us with the information necessary. A cow for Kenya would cost $300. The challenge then was to see how many cows for Kenya the Sunday School could send.

A poster was made and when enough money was collected a cow was attached heading in the direction of Kenya. A box was placed in each class room and the children were encouraged to fill the boxes. The adult Sunday School helped with donations.

One Sunday, the children were honored with a visit from "Marybelle" the geurnsey cow. Cupcakes with little candies in the shape of cows were served by Marybelle.

At the last Sunday, enough money was raised to purchase four cows for Kenya. The fourth cow was placed on the poster and everyone rejoiced and "mooed".