thankful for if we will just take the time to stop and look for it.

I Thessalonians 5:16-18: “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

On the journey with you,

Pastor Jim Perkin

That started me thinking. In this time as we walk through this COVID-19 journey it can really feel like a lot has been lost. The end of a school year. The end of a senior year. Sports, theater, time with friends and family, church… the list goes on and on. We have a lot of loss we can rightfully grieve. And I don’t want to say to you not to grieve those things. They are important and it is sad to lose them.

But I also want to ask you. What have you found? Are you finding time to be thankful? Believe it or not there are still plenty of things to be thankful for. For me? One of the things I’m thankful for is family time. My kids are both teenagers and Landon will be a senior next year. And they are very busy. Between their schedules and my church meetings, Bible studies, and such we can easily go weeks without spending quality time together.

Certainly, I grieve the lost time with my friends and extended and church family, but alongside that I realize the gift I’ve been given to spend lots of time with Landon, Sadie, and Mary Lynn. Time I would have lost with them had everything been normal. So, in the midst of grieving lost things I am choosing to be thankful for what I have found. I had to lose something in order to find something else that is important. And for that I’m thankful.

We have a lot to grieve in this time. But we also have a lot to be

Lost and FoundMy daughter, Sadie, has started something new this

year. In January she began writing something she is thankful for every day on a slip of paper and she is making a chain which is growing around the top of her room. Every day she finds some reason to be thankful.

What’s Inside

YEAR 28 VOLUME 6 POTEAU, OKLAHOMA SERVing gOd 126 YEARS

The United Methodist NewsPASTOR TO PEOPLE

• REV. JIM PERKIN •

Sunday School9:30 A.M.

Morning Worship10:30 A.M.

Prayer List ................................... 2Card of Thanks ........................... 2Birth Announcement .................. 3Education Building Remodel ..... 3Youth and Young Adults ............ 3Preschool .................................... 3Children’s Ministry ..................... 3Missions Report .......................... 3Church Re-Opening Update ...... 4Special Music .............................. 4Birthdays, Anniversaries ........... 4

FIRST

Office Hours:Monday – Thursday

8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

JUNE 2020

MORNING WORSHIP

You can watch the morning worship service live on our Facebook page at 10:30. Or you can watch it and past ser-vices anytime at www.poteaufumc.com

Prayer RoomAvailable

The prayer room at our church is open even while the rest of the church is closed. Con-tact the church office to schedule your time. Only one person at a time is allowed in. The prayer room is located off the sanctuary, behind the or-gan. Please come to the church office and we will show you where to go to enter.

PAGE 2 JUNE 2020

THE UNITED METHODIST NEWSPublished by the Communications Committee

Carol Baker, EditorFIRST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH

109 S. Harper, Poteau, OK 74953Telephone 918-647-2217

e-mail: adminassistant@poteaufumc.comwebsite: www.poteaufumc.com

Sunday School 9:30 a.m. • Morning Worship 10:30 a.m.Bishop Rev. Jimmy NunnDistrict Superintendent Rev. Larry BaumanSenior Pastor Rev. Jim PerkinDirector of Music Ministries Mary Lynn PerkinDirector of Youth and Young Adults Rev. Amy SuttonDirector of Children’s Ministries Suzanne KluttsAdministrative Assistant Melissa WardLead Nursery Attendant Jayla CraigOrganist/Pianist Bill KingFacility Manager Phil Smith

District web page: www.gbgm-umc.org/mc-dist/

Prayer List (As of May 27, 2020)To add or remove a name call 918-647-2217.Nursing Home/Homebound: Health: Diana Adams, Laton Allison, Astarte

Baker, Lisa Barnes, Silas Blanchard, Steven Blaylock, Caren Bogart, Cindy Brody, Jeff Bur-ton, John Carbrey, Sandy Carbrey, Jack Car-ey, Peggy Carey, James Carter, Perry Carter, Al Chapa, Pam Cox, Ben Curtis, Jim Davis, Deb-bie Drake, Mendy Emmerling, Cliff England, Pam DeCamp Ernst, Delana Luman Ester, Mary Fol-som, Dolores Fuller, Brooke Gardezi, Bipriano Gonzalez, Lawrence Gresham, Connie Hancock, Peggy Holstead, Allen and Jane Ann Inge, Don-na Jackson, Kay Jeffrey, Lorene Johnson, Teri Johnson, Makali Kemp, Jane Kilgore, Colton Knight, Vicki LaGrand, Lloyd Lee, Arlene LeMas-ter, Ty Mackey, Terry Manlove, Candy Martin, Robert Martin, Bob McAlevy, Keith Miller, Ellie Martin, Mason Mitchell, Patricia Ogden, Janna Owens, Kevin Payne, Jean Potts, Jeremy Quarry, Joe Renfro, Lucy Richmond, Jim Shore, Marilyn Smith, Blake Standridge, Earl Steinmetz, Katie Strider, Raegan Thomas, Rachel Curtis Tjaden, Jennifer Turner, Darren Ward, Barbara Wheeler, Britain Wilson, Keith Wright, Lori Yarberry, Ann Young.

Bereavement: Military and Law Enforcement: Robert and

Danielle Brennand, Robert M. Brennand, Jr., Bailey Hahn, Zack Hall, Kyle Kinman, Kodee Le-Master, Blake Wilson, and all our military and law enforcement men and women.

Poteau F.U.M.C. Report for April 2020Average Attendance (Online) for April: 1552020 Budget Requirements: $380,000.00

Needed through April $125,450.00Year to Date Received: $94,628.20

April Received: $25,554,00April Expenditures: $28,77260

Drive ThroughWorship Bulletin

Pickup

Come by the covered entrance on Thurs-days from 11 to noon and get your Sunday worship bulletin, Up-per Room, newslet-ter, children’s activity sheets and check out a hymnal for home use if you wish while wor-ship is online. Stay in your car and they will be brought to you.

Pastor Jim and Suzanne Klutts as well as others are on hand to be your Car Hop with the items of your choosing.

Children’s Director Suzanne Klutts always has a craft project for the children each Thursday at the drive through.

Card of ThanksI want to thank our church family for all your

prayers text and calls during my time of diagnosis, surgery and recovery.

A special thank you to Pastor Jim for sending us out with a special in-home prayer prior to our medical trip to California.

I also want to send a special thanks to the prayer shawl ministry for the beautiful shawl. It went with me to California to the hospital and to rehab. I received numerous compliments from staff at both Stanford hospital and rehab on how beautiful the shawl was. It brought me peace knowing the love and the prayers involved in creating the shawl.

Thank you all so much. I miss and love our church family and hope to see all again soon.

Lisa Barnes

JUNE 2020 PAGE 3

Youth group is for all youth 6th – 12th grades on Sunday at 4 p.m. for Middle School and 5 p.m. for High School.

Birth Announcement

Youth and Young AdultsBy Pastor Amy Sutton

• Young Adults •

• Youth •

Education Building RemodelOur Poteau FUMC Education Building is get-

ting a makeover!The project is in full swing and is expected to

be completed this summer. The interior of the education building is getting a full makeover from top to bottom. All of the cinderblock walls are getting drywalled and new paint. There will be a new drop ceiling and lighting and new floor-ing throughout the entire building as well as ad-dressing some safety concerns on the stairwell. Right now its a big old mess but it will be beauti-ful when finished! It will be very exciting this fall when we are able to hopefully resume our pre-school and children/youth activities in what will feel like a brand new building!

We will keep you updated on the progress.

ByTracey Gilliam,

Preschool Director

Contact Ms. Tracey, at 1-918-839-7424 to enroll in preschool for the coming school year.

• Children’s Ministry •By Suzanne Klutts

Since there isn’t any news to report from the children’s department, I have a summer activity for our kids. We all know how important prayer is in the life of a Christian, so why not make a “Prayer Jar.” This is how it works: Find a can, jar, or vase to decorate, BE CREATIVE! The idea of the jar is to write your prayer on a slip of paper, pray about it and put it in the jar. At the end of the summer, go back and read your prayers and see how God has worked in your life.

The next Missions Committee meeting will be in June. Anyone interested is invited to join us to help plan our Back to School Bash.

I took a picture of my jar and would love to see yours. Email your pictures to kluttssuzanne@gmail.com and have fun with this activity! We’ll print your prayer jar pictures in the next newsletter.

“Give your burdens to the Lord, and He will take care of you.” Psalm 55:22

Callie, Kenzie, and Hudson, along with their parents, Jennifer and Dustin Phillips announce the birth of Brynlie Kate, on May 1, 2020. She weighed 8 pounds 13 ounces and was 21” long.

The Senior Service for graduates will be June 14 during the 10:30 service.

We will still meet every week on ZOOM at 5 p.m. I hope all of you will attend and the link to join our ZOOM meeting is in our group me.

I look forward to the day we can get back to-gether soon. I miss all of you and your smiling faces.

When all our restrictions are over we will have a big Young Adult cook out and game night!

We will resume our Bible Study once quaran-tine is over. Hope you are all well and finding the beauty in all of this right now.

2 R.L. Sockey, Jr. 3 Michael Preston, Versile Johnson II 6 Donna Johnston, Lindsay Murray 7 Debby Jarrett 8 Suzanne Klutts 9 Clifford England10 Hattie Jo Hancock13 Mary Lynn Perkin, Phyllis Roberts, Stacey

Roberts, Darrell Plummer, Jr.14 Marvin DeSpain16 Nikki Wigginton, Kenny Whitehead, Kyle Holt17 Robin Mason18 Jon Gaston20 Keith Thomas 21 Shanna Johnson, Mary-Catherine Hallmark, Sisnie Brookfield22 Vicki Mason23 Gene Wheat24 Angie Culwell25 Amy Stubbs, Connor Matos26 Victoria Nichols28 Linda Brown, Jesse Barnes30 Patrick Ford

June Anniversaries

June Bir thdays

Help make our birthday and anniversary lists complete. If we do not have your family members’ birthdays and anniversaries, please give the office that information by calling 918-647-2217.

4 Bill and Suzanne King 5 Ron and Marsha Cofer 6 Gene and Dana Wheat 8 Brian and Katie Shore14 Dennis and Missy Alexander15 Buddy and Pat Shelton17 Curtis and Dorothy James18 Ronnie and Becky Bell21 Kevin and Joni Griffith24 Ronnie and Christy Oehlschlager25 Ben and Judy Curtis

If you know someone who would benefit from a prayer shawl, whether a church member or not, call Cindy Brody at 918-385-1542 or the church at 647-2217.

The Upper Room devotionals for May/June can be picked up at the drive through sanctu-ary entrance on Thursdays from 11 to noon.

Upper Room Devotionals

Your church Re-Open team has begun meet-ing and is working on possible Re-Opening strat-egies. Please know they are working hard to de-termine our best path forward. We are taking the cautious approach to re-open and hope to do so in the near future.

Right now we need your help. We have already sent out one survey by email. Thank you to all of you who have completed that 5 question sur-vey. If you have not had a chance please do so soon. We really do want to have your input. There will likely be other questions that come out and surveys needed as we take that data and move forward. Thank you for taking the time to help your Re-Open team.

Please know that online worship will not cease. That form of worship will continue to exist even when we open our doors to in person worship again.

If you have not signed up for Remind texts please take a moment to do so. That is the easi-est way to stay up-to-date on church informa-tion. We will send out updates via email, and when we choose a re-open date and format we will send out a physical letter, but just in case those get lost or don’t make it through we will also send out Remind texts so you know to look for an email or letter.

To sign up for Remind texts, text @fumcpo-teau to the number 81010 or call Pastor Jim or Melissa at the church office and we can help.

Church Re-Open Update

PAGE 4 JUNE 2020

Special Music During Online Worship

Natalie Weaver and Bill King who regularly accompanies.

Three generations provided special music – Elizabeth Ember-ton, Carrie Emberton and Carolyn Sullivan.

Flute Duet with Mary Lynn Perkin andSavannah Fabian. Maggie Wheat

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