The Presbytery of Northumberland
Pennsylvania
The Montoursville Presbyterian youth worship with Shallotte Presbyterians on the beach.
The Presbytery of Northumberland is home to 5,340 members of 45 churches, including Montoursville Presbyterian Church with an active membership of 265. For the past eight years, its pastor, the Rev. G. Oliver Wagner, has planned mission trips for the youth. The focus has been on helping those in need of food, housing, and spiritual comfort. In State College and Pittsburgh, and in Washington, DC, the youth worked in soup kitchens and food banks; in Morgantown, West Virginia, they served under the auspices of “The Shack” and in North Carolina and Maine, they worked on hurricane relief and Habitat for Humanity projects.
In 2007 the senior high youth trip went to North Carolina where twenty-four young people and adults were housed at Shallotte Presbyterian Church. For one week they worked at a food bank and a thrift store and did some painting for the host church.
Their most ambitious work was on a Habitat for Humanity home. With guidance from the men who accompanied the youth, a great deal was accomplished on a home for a family with a son with disabilities. On Sunday, the final day of the trip, the group participated in Church on Ocean Isle Beach. Shallotte Presbyterian has conducted Sunday service by the ocean for forty-two years.
In 2007 school youth went to Krislund Camp and Conference Center. That group spent several days in August helping to close up the camp for the fall.
Presbytery Staff
Rev. Dr. William K. Knudsen, executive presbyter
Elder Robert L. Shandry, stated clerk
Elder Peter J. Wallace, treasurer
Patty Beggs, administrative assistant
CLP David Marcello, moderator
Rev. Stephen Shirk, vice-moderator
Elder Jean Bell, permanent clerk
Elder Dorothy Wilkins, assistant permanent clerk
PC(USA) General Assembly Staff
Andrew Bartlett, GAC
Elder Beth Basham, GAC
Give us guidance, dear Lord, as we think about ways that we can make our world a better place. Help us to recognize injustice and the need to help right that wrong. Open our eyes so that we might see the unloved and show them kindness. Most of all, lead us to do these things with humility. We ask these things in your powerful name. Amen.
Ps. 42, 146 Ps. 102, 133
Isa. 40:25–31
Eph. 1:15–23; Mark 1:14–28
|
