Hawthorne School Partnership

Another new Mission Outreach ministry is our partnership with Hawthorne School. Hawthorne has a large number of low-income students and it is a dual language school offering classes in English and Spanish. A lot of our Burmese refugee families also attend there.

We are having an ongoing collection of new or gently used coats and boots. With the pandemic, many low-income families have had hours reduced or have lost jobs so we hope to meet this need that the Hawthorne staff identified. The first barrel has already been delivered. Thank you to Ascension Knit Wits and families who have contributed already to help the children stay warm on these cold days.

We also had a Thrivent grant to provide lunch for the staff at Hawthorne recognizing how challenging this past year has been. We wanted to say thank you to the staff in a tangible way and to start to build our relationship with them.

Lastly, we’re collecting money to help provide internet hotspots for families without internet service so the children can continue their schooling while in quarantine. With the increasing number of students in quarantine, the school is struggling to keep up with the cost. It costs $18 per hotspot. If you want to make a donation online or by check, please mark the donation as Hawthorne partnership.

If you are interested in this ministry, contact Sarah Aparicio or Shirley Wehmeier.

Creation Care

One of the new Mission Outreach Ministries for 2021 is Creation Care. This ministry is a way to show that caring for the created world is based on love toward God, who created the earth and everything in it. Creation Care is more than recycling and Styrofoam, it’s about relationships with God, each other, and God’s creation. It’s about how we live with each other and honor God and His gift of creation. We will work with Waukesha’s Green Team and offer suggestions on how to live out Creation Care. Our own environmental educator, Lynn Parkhurst is helping lead this effort.

Do you have a set of Christmas lights that don’t work? Ready to toss out a few old sets you’re not using anymore? Most electronic products like Christmas lights are not bio-degradable and will not decompose into the earth’s soil after being tossed away. If you want to keep your lights from going to a landfill and do your part to look after God’s creation, recycling your lights is a great way to do it!

Recycle old or not-functioning lights

1) Visit https://www.holidayleds.com/free-light-recycling to see how you can send (or drop off) your lights to the Holiday LEDs recycling program in Sussex and receive a coupon for $ off your next LED purchase!

2) Bring them in to Ascension during the month of January and we will do the work for you! A labeled box will be in the doorway of the front entrance of church. Simply drop them off!

More information on this local program can be found at: https://www.holidayleds.com/free-light-recycling. Still have Questions? Email Lynn Parkhurst at weeziewilliams@gmail.com.

 

Blessing Bags

Our first delivery of 25 Blessing Bags was welcomed by the people who pick up meals at the Hope Center. The staff at the Hope Center were so thankful that we thought about the homeless who often are neglected at this time of year. With the winter weather arrival, we will be putting together another 25 bags during January. This year the men who can’t get into the shelter will get a voucher for a night’s stay in a motel so they don’t have to be out in the bitter weather. The Blessing Bags will greatly help them have some of their very basic needs met. As I put together some Blessing Bags, it struck me that homeless people only can “own” what fits in their backpack or bag and have such very limited things they can call their own. It brought tears to my eyes to realize some of us have so much while there are people in our community who have so little. Please put your donations in the marked bin in the Donation Center or contact Shirley Wehmeier if you have questions. shwehmeier@gmail.com.

 

Blessing Box

Thank you to all of you who have been helping us keep the Blessing Box filled. As we have more very cold days, please be aware of putting things in the box that might freeze and containers break. We have people checking the box several times a week so that we can monitor that food is fresh and safe. On very cold days, dry products such as cereal, snacks, most canned goods are a good choice. Plastic or glass may break. Fresh produce or bakery will freeze quickly. We also see a little reduction in use when it is very cold so please keep an eye on the weather.

 

Thank you from the Mission Outreach Committee for continuing to support our various ministries whether it be helping our global partners, Cross in Milwaukee or our community partners. In spite of not meeting in person for worship or having ways to promote our projects other than via social media, newsletters or bulletins, we have proudly kept up with supporting our brothers and sisters locally and globally. Jesus said: “What you have done for the least of these, you have done unto Me.”

(Reprinted from the Jan. 2021 newsletter.)

Thank goodness, “Happy New Year!” Let us all say goodbye to 2020. By faith we certainly trust and walk with God into this new year.

December was a quiet month. Council did not meet in December, but all of council is trying to reach out to all of our Ascension community, calls will continue into January too. We all need to stay connected with each other, to show our love and caring for each other and to pray for all.

Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord: let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; for he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care. Today, if only you would hear his voice. (Psalm 95:1, 6-7)

With our continued prayers to God, we will get to a church, community, state, and world that is free of covid-19.

Again, my thanks and all my love to our pastors, staff, wing leaders, leg leaders, and to all of our faith community of Ascension. I am especially grateful for the church council, who with God and all their help, have made this wonderful even in the midst of so much upheaval and challenge in the life of the world, the church, and in our own lives. For this I am forever thankful. I am so proud to say I am a member of Ascension.

Please continue to give – your time, your prayer, and your financial support to Ascension, to keep our church moving forward with all it does in and around our community and throughout the world.

God’s love and mine,

Karen Simington, Council President
(Reprinted from the Jan. 2021 newsletter)

The kindergarten students received their bibles.
The third grade students received their bibles.
The first communion candidates from last spring have been communed.
The confirmation students have been confirmed.
The Word of God has been preached.
The sacraments have been shared.
The dead have been buried.
The engaged have been married.
Worship of our God continues virtually and in-person.
The world continues to turn.
Life goes on.

It is November 1st in the year of our Lord 2020. And somehow dear friends we have survived. In the midst of polarizing politics that lead us to believe we must choose one side or the other, we have survived. In the hearing of painful stories of isolation and desperation, we have survived. In the moments of remembering what was and hoping for what will be, we have kept our sanity, even as we have been asked to help others keep theirs. We have lived through quarantines and rearranged schedules. As one mom emailed Pastor Tony and me, “Thank you for making special accommodations.” To which Pastor Tony and I replied, “Everything is a special accommodation right now.”

So the question I keep hearing is: What’s next?

Well, I have a few answers. We are currently planning to host outdoor worship on Nov. 1st and Nov. 8th at 9:30 a.m. – though Mother Nature has had a mind of her own in late October. And beginning Nov. 2, we will host an indoor worship service every Monday in November at 6 p.m. Thirty minutes with communion, sermon, and music and a hard cap of 60 in attendance. Then again, on Tuesdays in November at 12 p.m. noon, we will host another worship service of 30 minutes with communion, sermon, and music and a hard cap of 60 in attendance. We wanted to offer something more consistent than an every-other-Wednesday experience. You will need to pre-register and if we hit the cap and you walk-in – we will politely and graciously invite you to return home. Ben, Vicki, Pastor Tony and I have been talking, planning, and praying about how to move forward after outdoor worship has ended for the winter. Of course, we will continue our virtual worship service every Sunday morning at 8am. We believe it is a responsible, balanced, and faithful approach as we do our best to tend both the needs of our community and the health and safety of those who would choose to attend and those who are unable to attend. I know it is difficult to be away from Sunday worship with singing – many of us miss the opportunity to worship God as we did before the pandemic began. I know there are other churches who are offering full worship with singing outside the ELCA fold – I can only offer to you who are hungry for that experience – I am hungry too. I am also conscious of loving my neighbor in a way that both provides and protects to the best of my ability as Lead Pastor at Ascension. Believe me, it is a continuous topic of conversation in the hallways and offices and meetings we attend.

And in the effort of full transparency – December will not look much different from November. We have planned an outside Christmas Eve experience with candlelight and the Christmas Story and the singing of Silent Night (distanced at 10 feet apart) but that will be the entirety of what Christmas Eve will look like for an in-person worship experience. There will be virtual experiences for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day but we simply cannot provide a safe way to offer Christmas Eve worship at three services in a sanctuary that does not exchange the air quickly enough in-between the services.

So what’s next?

A vaccine, I pray. Every day that is my prayer. I miss your voices lifted together in song in praise of our God. I miss the beauty of your smiles and the joy of children running up for Children’s Time during worship. I miss hearing about your lives – celebrations with family members and gatherings that renew your spirits. I miss people asking me to turn off the ceiling fans before worship begins. I miss running around before worship getting the acolytes dressed and ready to serve. Most especially, I miss you – my sisters and brothers in Christ. The Monday and Tuesday worship services and a few more outdoor worship services are a gift as you choose to attend as you are able – yet, we can all agree, it is simply not the same. Like I said, my prayer is for a vaccine. My other prayer is for patience and for a vision of hope to see the coming light at the end of the tunnel. Dear friends the light is coming. The light that will shine at the end of this pandemic. The light that shines in the eyes of seeing friends and family again for the first time. The light that shines from a manger filled with hay in the stable at Bethlehem. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. God’s promise is that the light still shines.

We have an annual meeting scheduled for Nov. 8. Even if we cancel outdoor worship for weather, we will meet in the sanctuary for the annual meeting to vote on a slate of council members and a 2021 budget. As I write this letter to you, the council has approved a proposed budget with a 4% decrease for 2021. We plan to advertise for a new Director of Youth Ministries in the winter months of the new year – but will invite a chosen candidate to begin June 1st – unless the pandemic comes to an end sooner.

Ministry continues. Mission continues. The message of God’s love and light and promise and hope continues. We are the ones that continue that message. We bring words of hope in phone calls and text messages and hand-written letters. We tend neighbors and those in need as we are able. We remind each other that our present moment will not last forever. As the Psalmist writes in Psalm 30, “Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes in the morning.”

Many of us have known that weeping at other moments in this life. For now we all stand together to weep over the loss of life and departure of what we have known in our routines and expected in our living, namely the freedom to do as we choose with our days. That freedom still exists, but certainly, we are learning new ways of living. My prayer is for the light to shine in your life – so that you may reflect that light to others. Deep peace be with you.

See you in church.
Pastor Chris

The Bereavement Coordinator at Luther Manor Hospice started a “We Honor Veterans” program in 2020. They found our Ascension Lutheran Knit Wits on the internet, and noticed that we volunteer our time to knit and crochet a variety of charity items. In July they asked if we could provide their hospice patients who are veterans some kind of red, white, and blue blanket to honor their service to our country. The blanket would be used as a comfort mechanism to the veteran at the end of life. When the veteran dies, the lapghan would be given to his/her family.

So, the Knit Wits started working on this. Donna Savin and Nancy Link got a grant from Thrivent to buy red, white and blue yarn. And we started crocheting and knitting! By August 15 we had created and delivered 21 lapghans and/or prayer shawls. Ladies participating include: Pam Grambow, Linda Elder, Maddie Goetter, Becky Pepper, Elaine Kilgore, Linda Knutson, Toni Anspach, Pat Ludwig, Corrine Newicki, Sandy Poliak, Beth Hoffman, Pat Kruck, Cindy Orth, Diane Pavletich, Premu Advani and Jean Kelso. Not all the Knit Wits are Ascension members, but we all work on our community charity projects.

As of Sept. 16, 2020, 48 lapghans or shawls have been made, and we still have enough red, white and blue yarn for at least another 50. This will be an on-going project to honor our military veterans.

After that first delivery to Luther Manor we received a note from Brittany Penoske, the bereavement Coordinator. She said: “The items you gave me were beautiful! The veterans adored them, and they were very appreciative. We are always admitting new patients, so this next batch of lapghans/shawls will be perfect to have on hand when we get those admissions. Thanks again!”

This has been a fun project. The finished projects have been varied and creative, few of them alike. Most of the lapghans and shawls were made at home. We also enjoyed meeting in the pavilion behind church to work on projects, being together, and still remaining safe during the Covid restrictions. Thanks, Ascension, for allowing us to use this space!

We also wish to thank Thrivent for their grant which directly contributed to the success of this project.

Ascension Knit Wits
Maddie Goetter, coordinator
Susan Koeferl, treasurer

(Reprinted from the November 2020 newsletter.)

I recently preached a sermon about truth telling, and I did this not only because it was the topic of that week’s lectionary text, but more so because speaking truth has been on my mind a lot lately. Partly because of all the dialogue surrounding the current presidential election, partly because of what’s happening around the Covid-19 pandemic, and partly because I think we’ve become far too comfortable with our trivialized interactions.

It has always bothered me that too often the authenticity and depth of our daily interactions stops at surface level. We all know the basic conversation starters, “How are you?” or “What’s new?” The breakdown I think comes in the stock, singular answers, “Good,” “Fine,” or “Nothing” that we offer in return to quickly move us beyond the current “distraction.” And then we follow it with the obligatory, “How about you?” which essentially brings us to the end of this tired cycle of meaninglessness. Now, I don’t think it’s realistic that we will always have time for these more meaningful connections, but I do think in general we’ve become far too content with not engaging one another in more significant ways.

Brothers and sisters, amidst all the challenges that surround us, I would like to invite all of us to consider pausing a few moments to dwell on our daily interactions and consider all the missed opportunities for connection, especially in these days when so many are struggling with disconnection. How might our relationships be different if we afforded ourselves the chance to be more available, more vulnerable, and more connected to each other? God created us to be in relationship with one another, and when we take advantage of these opportunities then we live our lives far more truthful to who we are and who we were created to be.

I believe that God offers every relationship as a gift to remind us of God’s great love for all God’s children. Maybe instead of digging our heels in the sand, hiding our vulnerabilities, or rushing past every opportunity to get to something “better” or something we “must get to,” maybe we could try to stay in these precious moments a little longer rather than letting them pass us by. And maybe we could view “how are you” as more of an invitation rather than a distraction – because these invitations are how God works to both draw us closer to one another and also to God. They are also invitations for truth-telling because they tell us the truth about who God is, how God loves, and how much God loves.

My friends I hope that you will take the time to listen to this life-giving truth – the truth that God is with us and for us every moment of this journey. And if we allow this to guide our daily lives, then I think we will come to recognize and better experience the abundant blessings God has promised to us.

Pastor Tony

(Reprinted from the November 2020 newsletter)

Last week, I received an email from a colleague – a pastor of another ELCA congregation. The pastor asked what Ascension was planning for Christmas. I replied, “Christmas? We are wondering what we are doing next week.” There is a little bit of sarcasm and a whole lotta truth in my reply to my colleague. Of course, Ascension staff and leadership are already talking about November and December and January. We have had more conversations that I can count around the topics of All Saints Day, the season of Advent, Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day. What a journey we continue to walk. As a person of faith, I have decided that these pandemic days are more marathon than sprint, more pilgrimage than destination. And so here we are.

It is October. And as we move into the fall, I am reminded that for those of us who live in the northern hemisphere, nature is beginning to share with us that the end of another growing season is upon us. Gardens are ending their life cycle, flowers that bloomed in the spring and summer are turning to seed and preparing for winter. Slowly nature is preparing us for death – for the end of another cycle of birth and growth and life as winter slowly begins to creep into the overnight temperatures. The colors of the trees burst with one last breath of vibrant joy before they let go of their leaves and turn inward for their survival. I wonder if you can find similarities in your own lives. The pandemic has been a pilgrimage of faith. Like Jesus pushed into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit, we have found ourselves pushed into a pandemic. Unexpected, unanticipated, unwelcome – we have found ourselves living new lives and learning new ways of literal survival. And so here we are.

Last year at this time, we were welcoming a delegation of visitors from our sister parish of Samaria in Usa River, Tanzania. Pastor Nathan Makenge spent time among us, preached in worship, learned about the Milwaukee Brewers, and celebrated the continued building of relationships between our two faith communities. This year, we have already missed out on the gift of a delegation from El Salvador. We left JOLT Adventure Camp and CRASH Mission Trips in the dust of the category of “TBD due to the pandemic.” Many of you have canceled vacations, celebrations, and anniversaries. We have struggled to find meaningful moments of support and community in the midst of loss and celebration. One of the most striking losses for me has been the loss of communal song. I have missed the words of “Jesus Christ is Risen Today” and “I Know that My Redeemer Lives.” And I was heartbroken to not hear the sounds of voices surround me in a moment of grief, where the words to “Lift High the Cross” and “Now All the Vault of Heaven Resounds” would bring promise of resurrection joy from the hearts and voices of those gathered to my own weary soul. I miss watching all of you walk to the altar for communion. I miss children’s sermons. I miss the smiles that are hidden behind masks. There is so much that I miss as this pilgrimage continues. And yet I have hope.

I have hope that singing “I Love to Tell the Story” sometime in mid-September on the worship recording brought someone a moment of joy. I have hope that the celebration of Pastor Tony’s ordination will carry the community of Ascension long into the pilgrimage ahead. I have hope that our continued wandering through many opportunities and new things, if only once or twice, will inspire and engage and reveal the promise of God’s resurrection hope and joy to weary hearts as this pilgrimage continues. And continue it will. We have a lengthy journey ahead. Politics and elections aside, I believe the science will only discover as it will – through the rigorous methods that have proven the truth of nature time and time again. Yes, we could get lucky – and a miracle may come. We might be so lucky as to enjoy a scientific discovery that surprises everyone just as penicillin entered the world. In the late 1920s, bacteriology professor Alexander Fleming returned to his messy laboratory after a 2-week vacation. He began sorting through petri dishes containing colonies of Staphylococcus. On one of the dishes with colonies, he noticed a mold growing with the zone around it being completely clear. The mold was determined to be Penicillium notatum, which excreted a substance later isolated and used therapeutically as penicillin. We could only hope and pray for such a discovery. Regardless this pandemic will be more pilgrimage for awhile longer. And yet I have hope.

I have hope in your strength. Your emails, your letters, your phone calls, your text messages, your generosity of gifts to the church. There is strength in community – in our worship and in our communion. In our shared faith and our communal care for our neighbor. Yes, we will be on this pilgrimage for awhile still and God will continue to be with us because that is what God promises to us. God promises us to be present when we are in community and when we are alone. God promises us life even in the midst of death. So even as we enter into the fall and end of the season of growth and life, in death we will find promise – the promise of resurrection hope – the promise of new life – the promise of resurrection joy. My friends – the days are surely coming says the Lord…but for now: wash your hands, wear your mask, and add your prayers to my own for the days ahead. You are missed. You are loved. You are not alone.

Thanks be to God!

Pastor Chris

Reprinted from the October 2020 newsletter.