Don't forget to bring your collected food for the Great Turkey Trot this Sunday.  Missed church last Sunday and don't know what to bring?  Use this link to get the information you need!  

There will be four collection areas in the Parish Hall based on zip code: (1) Olde Towne, 2) Wider Portsmouth, 3) Chesapeake and 4)  the Outliers of Suffolk/ Norfolk/ Virginia Beach/Newport News) for you to place the items you collect for our Thanksgiving baskets.   Which zip code will be the Great Turkey trot winner, collecting the greatest amount of Thanksgiving fixin's??

In addition to food collection, we will need people to pack the boxes; people to decorate the boxes; and people to deliver the boxes the week of Thanksgiving to Oasis.  If you are able to help with any of these needs, please contact the Parish Office by phone (399-4967) or email. 

St. John's Creation Atrium has a beautiful mottled goldfish (silver, black & gold) that has outgrown the fish tank and is looking for a new home.  We are also looking for a person or persons who will team with Barrie Harper to clean the Creation Atrium Aquarium each month (contracting this service would be quite expensive).  Please contact Barrie if you can help with either of these needs.

As part of the Parish Garden Work Session on 11/9, we will be installing several garden paths along with the new memorial benches. If you have any pavers or stones left over from your latest landscape project, would you consider donating them? We don't need many for our new paths but we do need enough so that both paths will match and will blend well with our current garden hardscape. Contact Linda Buchanan (443-852-1782) if you think you have something that might work. More information later in October on other ways you will be able to help in the garden! 

2014 Budget Funding requests are due to our Treasurer, Millie Wilkerson, by 10/27. 

Study on Prayer begins this week.  Beginning October 20th at 12:00 there will be a DVD series by Steve Sampson entitled, "Hearing the Voice of God" as we focus on prayer. This is a 4-session series meeting every other Sunday beginning at noon.  Anyone interested may attend.  Each session will last 45 minutes to an hour.  Suzanne Erickson will be facilitating these sessions.

Oasis Social Ministry's Soup Cook-Off and Auction, 10/20 @ 5pm.  Oasis Social Ministry's Soup Cook-Off and Auction is a celebration of food and community, featuring a soup tasting competition, entertainment, and auction.  It will be held in the Moroccan Room above Brutti's (467 Court Street in Portsmouth).   Soup chefs from across the community compete to win the coveted Golden Ladle Award. Guests are invited to "put your money where your mouth is" by voting for favorite soups with dollars, while at the same time celebrity judges select their favorites. We also have beautiful items and baskets to bid on generously donated from the local community. Tickets are available at Oasis. Please call 397-6060 for more details.

Portsmouth's Great Pumpkin Lighting begins soon!   Bring a carved pumpkin to display on the steps and in the courtyard of the Portsmouth Art & Cultural Center -PACC (400 High Street in Olde Towne Portsmouth).  Pumpkins will be lit at dusk on 10/25 & 26 for the Olde Towne Ghost Walk and Safe Trick-or-Treat Pumpkin drop off: Thursday, 10/24 (4-7 pm) and Friday, 10/25 (10-3 pm).  Call 393-8543 for more information.

Introduction to Centering Prayer, 10/26.  Have you heard about centering prayer and wondered if it was for you?  Here is an opportunity to learn about this form of contemplative prayer.  Hosted by St. Therese Roman Catholic Church in Chesapeake from 10am - 3pm including lunch.  Cost is $40.  To register contact Nancy Hess  (email or 468-9256).  Register by October 21.

Flower Guild Meeting, 10/27.  St. John's Flower Guild will have a team meeting after the 11am Eucharist on Sunday, 10/27, in the conference room on the second floor over the parish hall. We will review how we've done after our first two months of arranging and begin planning for Advent/Christmas. Anyone - women AND men, who would like to join the Flower Guild are welcome to attend.  If you're not sure - come anyway to see what it's all about!  Contact Linda Buchanan (443-852-1782) if you have any questions.

The unveiling of an historical highway marker to honor Archdeacon James Solomon Russell  (1837-1935), a priest who was born into slavery and later founded St. Paul's College, will be held the afternoon of October 26.  If you plan to attend, please be present at Trinity Episcopal Church in South Hill by 1pm.  Need more information?  Contact by email or 434.594.4437.

Parish Garden Work Session, 11/09 from 9am-noon. More specifics will be published as we get closer to the date but we'll have jobs for everyone - young and old, gardeners and non-gardeners, earn that badge for your service organization, just get out in the fresh autumn air! Watch for sign-up sheets in the parish hall in the next few weeks - be the first to sign up to grab the job that you want! Hot cider and pumpkin donuts - what more could you want! Contact Linda Buchanan (443-852-1782) if you have any questions.

Sunday, 11/10 is our congregation's Consecration Sunday.  Please plan now to attend two important events on that day: morning worship at 8, 9 or 11 and a brunch following each worship celebration (a catered meal, not a potluck.) 

Detour to Church?  The westbound lanes of Interstate 264 through the Downtown Tunnel West (from Norfolk to Portsmouth) are closed on weekends, except holiday weekends, through the Spring of 2014.  

The Parishioner Corner of our Website has news you can use.  Here you can access the latest parish directory, parish handbook, access worship ministry schedules, and read approved minutes of vestry discussions and actions as well parish financial reports.  Need or don't remember the password?  Click here.  

For Evelyn & Eric Stallings who are expecting a daughter

Departed

Guy (brother of Cheryl Woodland); Samuel (14th President of Davidson College)