We are off to a GREAT start for the new school year! We have added 5 new Sixth Graders plus a couple of others in higher grades. Our newly remodeled youth room looks FANTASTIC! We need to run a few weeks so that it feels ‘lived in,’ however that will come soon enough. We can’t express enough how much we appreciate what the church has done. Special thanks go to Kevin Mudd and Ron Hyde, as we know that they directed and completed most of the remodeling. We hope to give a special ‘Thank You’ to the church in the near future.

Youth still takes place every Sunday @ 6:00 PM. Van-Pick-Up usually begins around 5:00 PM. This month we will also begin holding an after school youth meeting for 6th Graders every week with Pastor Jerry & Pastor David facilitating the class. As our group as grown, we have discovered that with the group consisting of 6th graders through seniors in high school, there is a wide discrepancy for instruction and discussion. 6th graders will be involved in all youth ministry activities, but will be separated for instruction & discussion. We believe this will help in our spiritual growth and maturation for all the students. After we finish the series, ”Spread the Word,” our youth meeting topic will be “The Ten Commandments.”

We are working through Romans in our High School Bible Study on Sunday mornings @ 10:00 AM. Ron Hyde is working with the Middle School boys and Maggie Hyde is working with the Middle School girls. We hope to have Van-Pick Up on Sunday mornings so more can attend and the van would run between 9:00 AM and 10:00 AM. If anyone would be interested in riding with Pastor Jerry, please contact him.

Our 2012-2013 Medical Release and Permission Forms have been mailed this month. Students should have these forms completed to ride in the van plus attend all youth ministry activities. The forms run from September 1, 2012 to August 31, 2013. Once they are completed they are good for the year. PLEASE help us by completing these forms ASAP.

This month we plan on participating in the October 20 Potluck and Hay Ride @ Peg & Chuck Hyatt’s home. On October 28, @ 2:30 PM we will go to Grandma’s Pumpkin Patch then return to church for supper & our youth meeting. We will be having a Bake Potato Bar on Sunday, November 11th to help raise funds for the Michigan CHOG Winter Retreat in December. On November 18, our youth meeting that day will be a service project, packing Thanksgiving Baskets for families at the Aldersgate Methodist Church in town. Our next BIG event will be Winter Retreat on December 28-30, 2012. This event is for all students’ grades 6-12 and costs $105. Registration is in early December. We will be doing fundraisers in preparation.

The MUM sale was very successful. We will be working at Olive’s this month to help our accounts. We are also having a ‘Mt. Haley’ apparel sale (hats, T’s, sweatshirts, windbreakers) this month and will be having a Scripts Sale (gift cards) also. We hope to do well with our Potato Bar and we will need students to work that to help their youth accounts. Every student has a “Youth Account” where we do fundraising to help them pay their way to events. Our two main events of the year are Winter Retreat @ Spring Hill in December and State Youth Convention in May. We will also working with high school students to earn funds to go to the International Youth Convention in Nashville, TN in the summer of 2014.

We THANK everyone who has participated in our Youth Prayer Partner ministry. The good news is that we need to recruit more prayer partners because we have more kids to pray for. If you are interested in praying for our youth and would like to become a ‘Prayer Partner,’ please contact Pastor Jerry.

Your prayers, support and encouragement are greatly appreciated and we look forward to sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with your student this year through study, fellowship and relationship. Thank you for sharing your son or daughter.

Love God, Love People!

Pastor Jerry