St. Fiacre Flower Festival is Here

Celebrate Spring at tomorrow's St. Fiacre Garden Party and Silent Auction!  The evening begins at 7pm with our finest cuisine and spirits.  The Silent Auction includes several catered dinners, boating cruises, decorator items, plus so much more.  Tell your friends, neighbors, and co-workers.  Remember, your generosity benefits the mission of St. John's.  Purchase Garden Party tickets online for $30 each here.  Please print and bring the copy of your ticket confirmation for admission.

On Saturday and/or Sunday, fill your garden with flowing baskets, herbs, annuals, and perennials.  Bring your pet for a blessing on Saturday from 10-11am.    Shop vendors for gifts and garden ornaments.  Enjoy coffee, cupcakes, bagels, sandwiches, cold drinks, and frozen yogurt.   Garden projects for children on Saturday and face painting on Sunday.  In short, there is much to see and do.  Bring your friends, neighbors, and co-workers!

Parishioner Nancy Derderian Clements, who joined St. John's in 1985, was grateful for last week's sermon about the Christian Armenians.  Both her parents were not only Armenian but they lost their respective families in the genocide a century ago.  Her mother's three grown brothers and father were killed by the Ottoman Turks.  Nancy's mother, at age 9, was separated from her mother in the chaos as they attempted to escape and never saw her again.  Nancy's mother was placed in a refugee camp where she was found by a cousin of her mother's.  This cousin was able to immigrate to the United States and said that he would send for Nancy's mother.  At age 15, Nancy's mother arrived at Ellis Island.

Nancy's father, at age 14, advised his mother that they should leave before the situation got any worse.  She refused to leave the farm so he fled to Paris by himself.  He never saw his mother again.  He worked on his own to earn his passage to America.  Nancy recounts that he told her that he washed his clothes each evening and placed them under the mattress so they would be pressed.  

Steeple to Steeple Tour, 5/9

Have you seen that which is in your "own backyard?"  Come see the architecture, stained glass, and memorabilia of eight houses of worship in Olde Towne Portsmouth.  Hear stories of the Yellow Fever Epidemic; the Jewish people here as early as 1916; the Underground Railroad; the Irish immigrants who built a masterpiece; and the Tories and Loyalists buried in Trinity Parish churchyard.  See great edifices unlike any other with stories of longevity and presence in a community dating back to 1762.  Bring your friends to the Jewel of Hampton Roads for a full Saturday (9am-2:30pm) of Art, Architecture, and Story.  All profits go to the HER Shelter for battered women.  To purchase $21 advance tickets, click here.

St. John's Church is the last venue with tickets still available to hear the Attacca String Quartet!  Join them for a Coffee Concert on Thursday, May 7 @ 10:30am in St. John's worship space.    Tickets are $20 and can be purchased here.

Miscellany

Stewardship of God's Resources for the week of 4/26

Ministry/Worship attendance: Sunday 8am (7), 9am (58), 11am (90), Wednesday 6:30pm (5)

Worship Offering: $4,906

Income needed for ministry expenses each week: $6,977 

Fifth Sunday of Easter, 5/03: Acts 8:26-40 & John 15:1-8