Race with Grace, Then Feed Your Face! November 26, 2015

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GraceMed Health Clinic is hosting its 5th annual ‘Say Grace’ Thanksgiving Day 5K Race on Thursday, November 26 at 9:30am. Enjoy all your holiday indulgences GUILT FREE by joining us on Thanksgiving morning for a 5K run, walk, or stroll with your family through one of Wichita’s most historic neighborhoods.

Last year’s event raised nearly $50,000 for GraceMed Health Clinic. To register, visit either GoRun Wichita locations or click below.

[button url=”http://gracemed.org/saygracerace/registration/” target=”_blank” size=”small” style=”orange” icon=”” popup=”” title=””]Register >[/button]

Click on Join a Team and enter Race with Grace.

Several team trophies are up for grabs:

  • The best dressed gang of turkeys
  • The most participants
  • The fastest team
  • The best team name.

Come join us for a fun morning! Contact Christy Vavra or Bill Hetrick for questions, or contact the Grace office, 684-5215.

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Worship, Installation, Lunch: Sunday, November 22, 2015

Sunday, November 22, is a special day at Grace. There is one worship service at 10:30 am in the sanctuary. During the service Catherine Neelly Burton will be installed as the senior pastor by a commission from the Presbytery of Southern Kansas. Up to this point, Catherine has been the designated senior pastor.

In addition we are joined in worship by sisters and brothers from the Presbyterian churches in Chase, Kansas, and Caldwell, Kansas. Scott Randle, an elder in our congregation, preaches once a month at the churches in Chase and Caldwell. We are excited about the ways God is using Scott and look forward to worshiping with people from these communities. Both the Chase and Caldwell churches are small with around 20 people in worship each week.

Following worship, everyone is invited to lunch in the Great Room. This is the Sunday before Thanksgiving, and every year we gather for lunch on this day. Lunch is $8 for adults and $3 for children 11 and under with a family cap of $19.

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Bus Tickets and Morning Worship: November 13

Each month Grace distributes bus tickets to people in our community. This happens on the 15th of the month (or the Friday before the 15th if it falls on a weekend.) Volunteers and those receiving tickets begin to gather around 7 am in the Grace alcove. Guests are greeted with smiles, coffee, water, and a place to sit. Tickets are distributed at 8:30 am, and a brief worship service follows. Everyone is invited to stay for worship, which includes communion. The worship service lasts about 15 minutes.

We can always use volunteers to help with set-up, clean-up, and ticket distribution. Want to help? Contact Kirk Anderson, kirk@mygpc.org or 684-5215.

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Holiday Joy Meal with the Wichita Refugee Community: December 5

Written by Cheryl Lyda

It is 9 pm, and I’m at the new Eisenhower Airport waiting for an arrival. While I have often waited for the arrival of a flight in order to welcome friends and family, this is a different sort of welcome. I am here, along with Edgar a caseworker from IRC, a refugee resettlement organization in Wichita. We are waiting to welcome a family of four from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). They are the last arrivals off the plane and easy to spot with their traditional clothing and their two little girls, ages one and two. The mother and father seem very unsure and nervous, not to mention just plain tired. The two year old clings to mom’s skirts, while the one year is peacefully sleeping on mom’s chest with a large scarf wrapped around them both.

After loading their luggage in our cars, Edgar and I drive them to their apartment we had prepared the day before. A warm meal of chicken and rice is waiting, but first an orientation to American ovens, stove, smoke detectors, microwaves, etc. is given. Fortunately, Edgar speaks their native tongue. When we leave them alone in their new home I am overwhelmed by what they have to learn, adjust to and how alone they must feel. A few days later I saw the family again at the IRC office where I do volunteer work. They greeted me with warm hugs and even the two year old smiled shyly and waved at me. I’m in awe of their resilience but that is probably a lesson well learned after years in a refugee camp.

This is only one of many stories of some of the newest members of the Wichita community. As I get to know more of these families and learn their stories, I am amazed at what they have overcome and how determined they are to make a fresh start in the United States. On December 5, at 1:30 pm, Grace, along with Lorraine Avenue Mennonite Church, is providing a holiday meal in our Great Room for the families IRC serves. If you would like to be involved, please check the bulletin board to sign up to help or to provide a dessert or salad. If you’d like to learn more about IRC or the Wichita refugee community I’d love to chat with you.

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Advent Family Night

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Please bring your family to the Great Room on November 15 from 4:30-6:00 pm, to create a bundle of Jesse Tree ornaments.

Jesse Trees are a very old Christmas Tradition and first started in medieval times. They are used to help tell the story of the Bible from creation to the Christmas Story.

The name comes from Jesse who was the Father of King David. One prophecy in the bible, in the book of Isaiah, says:

1 A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. 
2 The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him– the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD– 
3 and he will delight in the fear of the LORD. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; 
4 but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. 
Isaiah 11:1-4 (NIV)

A branch is a sign of new life and new beginnings. Jesus was a decedent of King David, and Christians believe that Jesus is this new branch. Each day in December you read a selected passage of Scripture, and someone in your family finds the ornament with the matching symbol. You hang that ornament on your Jesse tree (usually a branch or jar full of sticks) until each ornament is found and hung on the tree.  You make 25 ornaments and receive a children’s book narrating the story of the Jesse Tree.

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