Whatever things are
think on these things
Vol. 58, No. 5 March 6, 2009
Congregational
Budget Meeting
Article IV. Section 4 of the church bylaws reads as
follows:
A Meeting of the members shall be held on a
convenient date and time during the spring of
each year prior to the annual meeting as de-
termined by the Board of Directors, at which
time the members shall adopt a goal budget
and transact such other business as may prop-
erly be brought before the meeting.
On Sunday, March 29, at 11:30 a.m. in the Ta-
malpais Hall the Board of Directors shall present a
proposed budget for 2009-2010 to the congregation.
(The church’s fiscal year is from July 1 through June
30.) The proposed budget will be reviewed and
adopted by the directors at their meeting on March
24th in preparation for the congregational meeting.
A copy of the budget shall be sent to members via
email or by post to those who do not have access to
email as soon as possible after their meeting. It is
hoped that all members will have a copy of the pro-
posed budget to review prior to the meeting on Sun-
day.
On Sunday, Sue Blanchard, church treasurer, shall
present the proposed budget and explain key items.
Following her presentation, the meeting will be open
for questions, comments, and possible amendments
from the members. A majority vote from the mem-
bers will adopt the goal budget for 2009-2010. The
Stewardship Campaign will commence under the
leadership of Jamie Clever after Easter in April.
Light refreshments (finger food) will be served to
help stave off hunger during the meeting. Child care
will be available in the nursery for small children.
Barbara Strader Editor
Ways to Observe Lent
Traditionally Lent has been a time of self-
examination, prayer, almsgiving, and fasting. It
can also be understood as a time to repent (turn
around), to reorient our thoughts, to renew and rec-
reate our lives in ways that bring health and whole-
ness to our bodies, minds, and spirits, and to con-
template and practice ways of bringing health and
wholeness to the wider world.
The Community Church will honor this period of
renewal in the following ways. (You are invited to
participate however and whenever you can.)
Sunday Mornings:
8:30 a.m. Choir rehearses music for Lent and
Easter, Sanctuary
9:00 a.m. Class meditates on and discusses read-
ings from the Gospel of Mark, Foster Room
10:00 a.m. Worship during Lent includes a
prayer of confession, silence, & words of assur-
ance; a story for the children, a contemporary read-
ing to compliment the Gospel reading
Thursday Evenings (Mar. 5, Mar. 19, Apr. 2):
“Ways to Observe Lent” continued on page 5.
In This Issue
Building Bridges of Understanding 2
One Great Hour of Sharing 2
Cartons and Sacks 2
March Birthdays 2
Hope for African Children Ministries 3
Board Report 5
In Memoriam Pat Stephenson 5
Calendar of Events 6
2009 Lenten Almsgiving Calendar Insert
 Building Bridges of
Understanding
WHAT: Learn about Native American Spirituality
WHEN: Saturday, March 14, 2009, 8:00 am - 4:00
pm. Start either at 8 a.m. for a drumming and
meditation ceremony or at 8:40a.m. for registration
for the program which lasts from 9a.m. to 4p.m.
WHERE: Dominican Sisters Conference Hall, 1540
Grand Avenue, San Rafael. $30; scholarships avail-
able.
One Great Hour
One Great Hour of Sharing (OGHS) is the relief,
refugee and development fund of the United
Church of Christ. It is one of the Special Mission
Offerings received by the United Church of Christ
and is a part of Our Churches Wider Mission
(OCWM). One Great Hour of Sharing is a Lenten
Offering. Donations will be received this year dur-
ing worship on Sunday, March 22, 2009. Gifts
may also be mailed to the church office. Please
note “OGHS” on the memo line on your check.

The intellectually and emotionally informative an- Cartons and Sacks

nual Interfaith Building Bridges Program focuses
on Native American Spirituality this year. Native Please save egg cartons and paper grocery sacks for
American men and women will speak on these top- the Marin Food Bank. Bring them to the church on
ics: Mandan Cosmology, Spiritual Art/Language, Sunday and put them in the designated spot in the
Pomo Reciprocity, White Buffalo Calf Women. Choir Room. Shirley Harris will deliver them
The closing ceremony will be led by a Yosemite when we accumulate enough to make the trip
Valley Tribe Elder who will play the flute. Com- worthwhile.
munity Church of Mill Valley has been represented
by Betsy Bikle at the planning for this series. Intro-
ductions will be made by people of the following
faiths: Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Sufi Mus-
March Birthdays
March 1 Jane Kloh
lim. Attendees will be able to purchase lunch in the
March 3 Dora Ford
Dominican cafeteria. For information or registra-
Matt Phillips
tion phone (415) 472-6959, mail $30 check to IAS,
March 4 Camilla Burraston
110 Carlos Drive, Suite F, San Rafael CA 94903,
March 11 John Schmiedel
or go to www.ias.org.. Join other lively, inquiring
March 18 Jack Bartlett
minds in Marin! To carpool, call Betsy 388-4649.
March 22 Genevieve Yancey

The Community Church of Mill Valley

United Church of Christ
An Open & Affirming Congregation
8 Olive Street, Mill Valley , CA 94941
Phone 415/388-5540
Fax 415/388-1678
e-mail CCMVUCC@comcast.net
www.millvalleyucc.org
Pastor: Pam Shortridge Sunday Morning:
Minister Emeritus: Jack Bartlett 9:00 a.m. “The Unexpected Word” Class, Foster Room
Parish Associate of Mission: Dora Ford 10:00 a.m. Worship Service, Sanctuary
Minister in Covenant: Jacquie Hoffman Nursery Care for Infants & Toddlers, Nursery
Seminarian In-Care: Arn Lou Mutia Program for Children in Preschool through Third
Seminarian In-Care: James Christie Grade, Children gather in the Chapel
Director of Music: Esther Archer 11:15 a.m. Coffee Hour in the Tamalpais Hall
Executive Editor: Barbara Strader
Facility Operations Manager: Aaron Young Of Good Report is published on the second and fourth Monday of each
month. Deadline for submissions is the previous Monday at noon.
2
2
 Hope for African Children Ministries
Uganda
Monthly Organization Report
February 2009
In February Keneth traveled with his friend Geoffrey
to work with the kids, to distribute scholastic materi-
als to the children, to organize a board meeting and a
guardian meeting, to make home visits, and to work
on registering the new organization. They gave out
exercise books, geometrical sets, pens, pencils, eras-
ers and long rulers. More than 30 children benefited
from this project and can now go to school. In addi-
tion, they were able to pay tuition fees for 5 chil-
dren, which Keneth says “is really a good start for
this project.” In his February report Keneth thanked
everyone for their support, he wrote: “Without you,
we couldn’t do this but with our partnership, we can
do this and even more of this. Thank you so much
and may the Lord bless.”
Now Enoch can go to
school. He is one of
the beneficiaries of the
scholastic
materials and is very
excited about getting
exercise books and
pencils to go to school.
A board meeting was organized to discuss the way
forward for this children’s organization. Part of
what they discussed with the entire membership was
the annual work plan and individual roles in the pro-
ject. They also discussed ways in which the entire
community could be helped. They recruited two
local authorities to serve on the growing Board of
Elders.
The Board organized a Guardian meeting to discuss
several items concerning the project, to remind the
Guardians about their role in the project, and to en-
courage them to work hand-in-hand with the organi-
zation. The idea was to include the Guardians and
get them behind the project because they play an
important role as the people with whom the orphans
stay. Through home visits they were able to analyze
the children’s daily home life, see how they sleep,
eat, and are treated in families where the guardians
are responsible for them.
After working hard on different paper work, arrang-
ing many consultations, and many travels, their hard
work paid off when they successfully registered the
organization as a Community Based Organization.
This means they can now work legally, serve com-
munities and receive funds from different people
who want to help out. The organization was regis-
tered in Rakai District Headquarters which they
found was a bit more organized than the Masaka
Headquarters. One problem they found was that
their project is located at the border of Masaka and
Rakai Districts, but it did not make much difference
because most of the villages they we work with are
in the Rakai District.

Keneth reports: “This is such a miracle to work on

It was Ruth’s
happiest day when she
received free exercise
books from the project.
She can also go to
school now.
3
registration of an organization in just two months.
It is very difficult in Uganda because it includes a
lot of paper work if you don’t need to disorganize
your pockets. But I thank God we were able to
work on all this together with the community Elders
and many people that we have been in consultation
with and of course our great sponsors in USA who
made this work successful.” They are registered
under the name: Hope For African Children Min-
istries (HACM) and under the registration number:
6289. They shall be working with AIDS orphans
and vulnerable children with the main objective of
fighting ignorance through education and disease
prevention, developing the children’s talents and
fighting poverty in communities where they live.
One request from the district was to have offices for
the ministry which are accessible and publicly recog-
nized and can be reached by the officials as required
for other CBO’s and NGO’s. The offices should be
located in one of the places of operation and in Kam-
pala as the capital city, but in the immediate future
the HACM office will be where the operation is
based in the Rakai District.
After a week, Keneth traveled back to work with the
community elders and to make a school visit to make
sure the children being helped are attending school,
and that the things they discussed with them were
being put into practice. The school visit went well
and Keneth reports that the kids are utilizing the do-
nated materials and are fully attending school. He
says; “We were so touched by a big number of or-
phans in the schools. Almost 10 percent of the
school enrollments are orphans who lost their par-
ents to AIDS. HACM still has a lot to do with a
community like this.” Some of the children lack the
required school uniforms and most of them don’t
have shoes. Some of the schools that the children
attend have educative sigh words in their compounds
to teach children about HIV and AIDS, early sex and
the benefits from education. They signs say:
“Choose to Abstain” and “AIDS Has No Cure.”
This young girl of age 6
was so
excited to learn she
could go to school. She
covered her books to
keep them clean.
4
Keneth writes: “African time: Time management is
something very important in this world, but in Af-
rica it is . . . difficult to keep time. . . . in school
they put too much emphasis on it, by punishing late-
comers and also writing the sign words on trees in
the school compound like the one opposite.
On duty are Keneth Kiyija and John Michae, one of the
community members, inspecting the children at school
during a visit.
Keneth will be traveling to Eastern Uganda to vol-
unteer with an NGO working with children. Eastern
Uganda is mostly affected by poverty and AIDS
with wars in some parts. He will keep instant com-
munication with the community board members to
know what is happening and will spare some time to
visit the children. He already has found more than
enough board members, but it still doesn’t mean that
the work will be done effectively because they are
all working on a volunteer basis. That means,
Keneth reports, that he must visit the villages to see
how the work is being handled.
Now they are working on finding a way to ship stuff
to Uganda without paying tax. People want to help
the kids by donating shoes, books, pens, pencils,
clothes, etc. John Michael is organizing a meeting
with the former Minister of Finance to see how this
can be done. They are also investigating how things
should be shipped to Uganda. Keneth says, “The
struggle continues.”
“Hope for African Children Ministries” continued on page 5

Board Report
The Board met at its regular 4th Tuesday monthly
meeting on February 24. We discussed the ongoing
negotiations on the rental of the Annex building to
the Old Firehouse School. Claudia Lowder espe-
cially and Mike Webber are leading the effort.
Update on buildings and grounds issues – we are sad
but must cut down the tree in the playground area by
the annex. Take a look at the tree and note the un-
healthy look of the leaves and the dead branches.
The arborist tells us we cannot nurse it back to
health. Lightening up the look of the narthex is un-
der study. Meanwhile, take a look at the new Nar-
thex nesting tables replacing the less than sturdy
ones. The Facility Operations Manager, Aaron
Young, has done a great job even providing us with
a drawer. We are looking into replacing the all-too-
quickly worn-out-carpet in the Foster Room with
new carpet paid for by the extra money left over
from the chair fund. The church solicited a bid for
solar panels. The annex roof was determined to be
the best site . However, the cost would be about
$100,000. Meanwhile the board is looking over 5
estimates for roof replacements. We are very happy
that Aaron would be able to be very much on hand
during the work. From the physical assets to the
more spiritual assets, we discussed several of the art
pieces in the church.
Long-term sustainability to short-term budget –
Betsy will look into an invitation to join an interfaith
sustainability blog. We discussed the “Virtual Run”
by the UCC Conference to raise money for raising
the very low salaries of the UCC Conference’s staff.
We feel the need to help with this important issue.
On the subject of our very own budget: the board
invites you to the congregational budget meeting on
March 29 after church. After that we will be look-
ing to ourselves to pledge the money for the 2009-
2010 church year.
Pam reported on the most interesting coming Lenten
program. We reflected on the many contributions of
Pat Stephenson to the church.
- Betsy Bikle,
Secretary, Board of Directors
5
“Ways to Observe Lent” continued.
Thursday Evenings (Mar. 5, Mar. 19, Apr. 2):
7:30 p.m. Film Discussion on In God’s Name.
Topics each week to be taken from questions of
faith pondered by 12 religious leaders, Fireside
Room.
Palm Sunday (Apr. 5):
10:00 a.m. Dramatic reading of Jesus’ last
week: from his triumphal entry into Jerusalem to
his death on Calvary.
At Home:
• Follow the Almsgiving Calendar printed in
this newsletter and distributed last Sunday.
• Set aside a specific time each day or at least
once a week for prayer, study, devotional reading,
or meditative walks.
• Prepare meatless meals, reduce consumption
of junk foods, drive less and bike or walk more,
turn off lights, create a compost pile from garden
and food waste, plant seeds . . .
• Spend time with friends and family: play to-
gether, cook together, listen to music . . .
“Hope for African Children Ministries” continued.
In concluding his report, Keneth writes: “Let me
finish with the word of thanks to all our dear
Brothers and Sisters for your continued support
towards the work we are doing to change the lives
of children in African communities. A lot of
thanks from the community people, children, and
Board members goes to you. May the Lord bless
you.”
Yours Faithfully.
Keneth Kiyija
In Memoriam
Pat Stephenson
July 5, 1922– February 17, 2009
The Community Church of Mill Valley NONPROFIT ORG.
United Church of Christ U. S. POSTAGE
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Upcoming Church Events

Sunday DAY LIGHT SAVING TIME begins at 2:00 a.m..
Set clock forward 1 hour before going to sleep on Saturday night.
8:30 a.m. Choir Rehearsal, Sanctuary
9:00 a.m. Bible Class on Gospel of Mark, Foster Room
10:00 a.m. Worship, Sanctuary; Child care in the Nursery
11:15 a.m. Coffee and Conversation, Tamalpais Hall; All are invited.
11:30 a.m. Second Choir Rehearsal, Sanctuary
This Week
Wed. Mar. 11, 11:45 a.m. Men’s Lunch, Moylan’s, Novato
Coming
Mon. Mar. 16, 12 noon Of Good Report Newsletter Deadline
Wed. Mar. 18, 7:30 p.m. Executive Committee Meeting, Pastor’s Office
Thu. Mar. 19, 7:30 p.m. Second Lenten Film Discussion on In God’s Name, Fireside Room
Sun. Mar. 22, 10:00 a.m. Special Offering, One Great Hour of Sharing
Tue. Mar. 24, 7:30 p.m. Board of Directors, Chapel
Sun. Mar. 29, 10:00 a.m. Guest Preacher, David Martin
11:30 a.m. Congregational Budget Meeting, Tamalpais Hall
 2009 Lenten Almsgiving Calendar
(for the whole family)
Almsgiving is one of the Lenten disciplines for transformation. What we give to others comes out of the joy and
thankfulness for what we have and a desire to share with others. This calendar has been created to focus on the needs
of the poor with the proceeds going to the Penny Bucket collection to help poor children. We encourage each family
or individual to participate by putting a bowl or basket on your dining table and use the calendar for daily thought,
discussion and contribution. You may bring your collection each Sunday, or save it and bring it on Easter Sunday.

February 19 5 cents if you wear eyeglasses. 10 cents if you

25 Ash Wednesday
26 Hungry and homeless people are in every country
including ours. 5 cents for each story in today’s
news about hungry, homeless or unemployed people.
27 The exact time of day has little meaning when one is
poor. 3 cents for each clock in your home.
28 Orphans in Uganda cannot go to school because they
cannot buy school supplies. 1 cent for every pencil
in your desk drawer or in your pencil box.
March
1 “I cried because I had no shoes, then I met someone
who had no feet.” 2 cents for every pair of shoes in
your home.
2 The amount of grain needed to feed 100 cattle would
feed 2000 people. Plan a meatless meal this week.
5 cents for each serving of meat eaten today.
3 Many people have no books to read. 5 cents for
every hour of reading or study today.
4 10 cents for every ½ hour of TV watched. Give up
½ hour of TV to help someone.
5 44% of new jobs pay poverty level wages. 25 cents
if your wage is above minimum wage. 5 cents if you
get an allowance.
6 A biblical image of prosperity is “a land of milk and
honey.” Thank God for your prosperity. 5 cents for
each jar of honey and carton of milk in your home.
7 Did you eat out this week? 10 cents for everyone
who ordered.
8 “Give us this day our daily bread.” 10 cents for
every loaf of bread in your home.
9 Ghandi said, “The only way God can appear to a
hungry person is in the form of bread.” Discuss this
and give what you choose to give.
10 The homeless have little access to health care, and
no home to go to when they are sick. 25 cents if you
have been well this month.
11 The world’s resources are limited and enjoyed by
few. 5 cents for every light you left on today.
12 Many people do not have running water in their
homes. 25 cents if you took a bath or shower today.
13 Many poor children do not live to the age of five.
1cent for every year you have lived past the age of 5.
14 5 cents for every sweet you have eaten today.
15 We take our warm clothing for granted. Many peo-
ple living in our streets are cold. 5 cents for every
warm coat in your closet.
16 Less than 1 in 4 children in poor countries go to
school. 1 cent for every year you have been in
school.
17 5 cents for every snack eaten between meals today.
18 We waste much of the world’s resources. 1 cent for
every roll of paper towels in your home.
don’t.
20 Look carefully in your refrigerator. 25 cents for
every item you will eventually throw away.
21 The average food stamp benefit is $1.05 per meal.
Give the cost of one of your meals today.
22 Sleep well last night? 5 cents for each bed in your
home. Many have none.
23 Do you have indoor plumbing? 50 cents if you do.
24 Imagine no privacy. Many families live together in
one room. 5 cents for every room in your house.
25 Are your clothes nice and clean? 20 cents if you
have a washer. 10 cents if you have a dryer.
26 Are you comfortable in your home? 20 cents if you
have a furnace. 25 cents if you have an air condi-
tioner.
27 Give 10 cents for every burner on your stove. 20
cents for a microwave.
28 “People cannot live on bread alone.” 5 cents for
every hug you gave today and 10 cents for every hug
you received.
29 Many babies do not get enough milk to drink. 5
cents for every glass of milk you drank today.
30 Many people cannot leave their homes. 1 cent for
every mile you traveled today.
31 Everyone is beautiful in God’s eyes. 10 cents for
every time you looked in the mirror.
April
1 Families and friends are a blessing. 5 cents for
every person in your household.
2 More than 60% of adults living below the poverty
line are women. 10 cents for every female in your
home.
3 It’s a good day today. Rain or shine, give someone a
special greeting, and give 10 cents.
4 Love is sharing. Box up clothes you no longer wear
and take to a collection center.
5 Palm Sunday. Jesus came to Jerusalem on a donkey,
the best transportation available. Take a walk and
enjoy God’s creation.
6 Make a list of things you couldn’t have done today,
if you had had to walk. 2 cents for each activity.
7 “I was thirsty and you gave me a drink.” 1 cent for
every drink today 25 cents if you put ice in it.
8 Many people have never had their photo taken. 5
cents for every family photo displayed in your home.
9 If you had to work today, give 25 cents and thank
God that you were able to work.
10 Jesus had to carry his cross. Many have to carry all
their belongings wherever they go. 25 cents for
every car or truck in your family.
11 Give 25 cents for every computer in your home.
12 Easter Sunday
Christ is Risen! Alleluia!