December 2015

Christmas

Bazaars & Fairs

December

5 St. Aidan — Hartford 9 am—2 pm Crafts, cookies, lunch 5 Holy Communion — Lake Geneva 10 am — 4 pm Crafts, candy, cookies by the pound 5 Trinity — Mineral Point 9 am — 3 pm Crafts, bakery, lunch 5 St. Mary — Dousman Advent Breakfast and morning reflection With The Rev. Jason Lavann RSVP 262-965-3924 5 St. Matthew — Kenosha Lessons and Carols, 5—7 pm 6 All Saints’ Cathedral — Milwaukee Lessons and Carols 4 pm 12 St. Mark — Beaver Dam 8 am Annual Cookie Walk 12 St. Paul — Milwaukee Lessons and Carols, 4 pm 12 St. Paul — Watertown Brunch w/ Santa 10 am British Pantomime of Rumpelstiltskin Reserve @ 920-261-9742 12 St. Dunstan — Madison Advent Quiet Day, 1—4:30 pm 13 St. Christopher — River Hills Holiday Concert, 1:30 PM 21 St. Dunstan — Madison The Longest Night — Liturgy in Midst of Darkness, 6 pm

Mary & Martha’s Message

Sunday, December 6 Prelude 3:30 pm — Service 4 pm

All Saints' Cathedral 818 East Juneau Avenue, Milwaukee, WI 53202

All Saints' Cathedral invites all members of the dio-cese and wider community to attend an Advent Service of Lessons and Carols. A festive reception will follow the service.

ALL ARE WELCOME!

IMPORTANT: See UTO Challenge Page 2

16 Days of Activism We are in the midst of the 16 Days of Activism - a long standing program of social justice education, re-flection and discussion. The theme this year is "16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence" - "From Peace in the Home to Peace in the World." The entire set of prayers, readings, poetry and short es-says can be found on the national ECW website, ecwnational.org. Check it out even if you do not consider yourself an activist. The readings are di-verse, thoughtful and useable in your personal and parish settings. Click on Social Justice on the first screen and then on 16 Days 2015 on the drop-down menu. Each day a new one will be added.

Madison Area

Julian Gathering Wednesday December 9,

7:15 - 9:00 PM St. Dunstan's 6205 University Avenue, Madison, WI 53705

St. Julian of Norwich: 14th Century feminist? 14th Century heretic? No, although a reader might at first think so. 14th Century psycholo-gist? Sort of . . . she understood the human heart and, through her sixteen revelations of Jesus, she understood the heart of God. Thom-as Merton called her "the greatest theologian for our time." Come to one of our monthly meet-ings and find out why -- and learn about con-templative prayer. We meet the second Wednesday of each month. We'd love to see you. For more information, contact Susan Fiore, ObJN at slfiore@mac.com or (608) 845-2413.

United Thank Offering Board presents — December challenge

to benefit Episcopal Migration Ministries

The Board of the United Thank Offering (UTO) has presented a challenge to The Episcopal Church to benefit a special grant of $30,000 for Episcopal Migration Ministries. Deemed Advent: Journey from Gratitude to Hope, the UTO board is challeng-ing Episcopalians to support refugee welcome in the United States through its 2015 Ingathering Challenge. "Jesus was part of a refugee family," commented Sandra Squires, President of the United Thank Offer-ing board. "We should be able to relate to the upheaval of today's refugees through our love of him. For Advent and Christmas 2015, Episcopalians are asked to express gratitude with increased prayers of thanksgiving and daily giving to their Blue Boxes in remembrance of Jesus and today's refugees." United Thank Offering will match the first $30,000 given by December 31, 2015 that is marked "EMM-UTO." The challenge, which kicks off immediately, will continue throughout December 2015. TO DONATE Checks or online donations should have UTO-EMM in the memo line/comments section. Mail to: United Thank Offering DFMS - Protestant Episcopal Church US P.O. Box 958983 St. Louis, MO 63195-8983 Donations are also accepted online at https://episcopalchurch.thankyou4caring.org/ (link is exter-nal) just select UTO from the drop down menu and then put EMM in the comments.

Expect Grace

A Syrian refugee

Creating for a Cause Christmas Fair

Middleton Outreach Ministry Saturday — December 5

10am to 5pm and

Sunday — December 6 11 am to 4pm

60 local artists

Brass Arts playing —

Saturday from 12-1:30 pm Sunday 1:30-3:00

Bucky Badger present on Sunday from

1 - 2 pm for pictures

Middleton Outreach Ministry Warehouse 3502 Parmenter St., Middleton WI

E-NEWS reaches over 200 women in the Diocese of Milwaukee and Fond du Lac. Please send information about events coming up in your parish or area that might be of interest to the women of the diocese to Connie Ott, cott@chorus.net To add someone to the mailing list, please send the e-mail address to Connie Ott.

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

St. Mark’s — Beaver Dam We are now only one month out from the biggest event in Beaver Dam! ….Lake Days? No! There won’t be any overpriced beer here….The Dodge County Fair? Nope, even yummier than that!................Give up?... It's almost time for the annual St. Mark's Episcopal Cookie Walk!

When most folks do it, I'm sure it looks just like a bake sale, nothing too out of the ordinary. How-ever, when the insanely talented folks at St. Mark's host a cookie walk, it is just this side of the Divine.

Folks are ravenous for our annual fund raising event! Seriously, we have people who start cueing up at 6:00 AM...the doors don't open until 8!

Last year, I pulled into the parking lot at 5:57AM and there was already a guy sitting on the bench. At first I thought perhaps he needed some food from our little food pantry. Then I realized he was flip-ping through sales flyers just waiting to get to our cookies! That is dedication; it was cold that morning. By the time 8 AM rolled around the narthex was packed. Our lone early-bird was now in good compa-ny.

We need to make sure that we have supply enough to satisfy our faithful patrons. Last year, we sold over 137 pounds of cookies in less than 15 minutes! We need to make sure we have plenty of but-tery yummy goodness to go around.

If you’ve never baked for the sale before, please consider it. If you need help with purchas-ing ingredients, please contact Rev. Gary for scrip cards to cover costs. If you are a loyal baker, please consider adding another batch or two of a favorite cookie. We need bakers! And variety! We will also need folks to work the day of the cookie sale. Look for the sign-up sheets in the narthex for bakers and work-ers on the sale day.

Meredith Harmon and/or Lindsey Cleary will be accepting cookies on December 11th from 11AM until 8PM. If you can’t make it, please call Meredith (608)516-2156 and we’ll arrange to pick up your cookies or schedule a convenient time and place for cookie hand-off.

So now we bake! This whole month (and espe-cially the week before the sale) we need the ovens of

Dodge County fired up!

Looking way ahead —

Wisconsin Conference of Churches February Winter Forum

Author of Nuns on the Bus Sister Simone Campbell

February 26 and 27 Bethlehem Lutheran Church, Portage