! NEWSLETTER OF THE DEER ISLE - SUNSET CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH UCC

LATE FALL ISSUE 2012

Rev. Amy Vaughn is named our new pastor

Following a “Candidating Sermon” by Amy Vaughn on November 4, the congregation of the Deer Isle-Sunset Congregational Church voted unanimously, on the recommendation of the Search Committee, to ask Amy to be our new pastor, and she has accepted. The Search Committee deserves hearty thanks for its unstinting work, since April 2011, resulting in this happy outcome.

The Vaughn family in Costa Rica in February 2012. From left to right: Orly, Amy, Andy and Isaac. Avital stands in front. Isaac and Orly play on the chess team. Orly plays basketball and softball, and Avital just started Kindergarten. Andy serves as executive director of A.S.O.R., an archeo- logical society with offices at Boston University. Last summer Orly was able to go with her father on a work trip to Israel, Cyprus and Jordan.

For the past three years (2009-2012) Amy Vaughn has worked locally as Director of Healthy Peninsula, a comprehensive community health coalition where she has provided leader-ship for community initiatives including Ready by 21, the Magic Food Bus, and the peninsula -wide Early Childhood Work Group. She has written church curricula for youth and adults, co-authored a church resource book, and written several articles and essays in the area of Christian Education.

Amy lives on Dunham Point Road in Deer Isle with her husband Andy and their three children - Isaac (14), Orly (12), and Avital (5). They are well known to our congregation and regularly attend our church. She knows us and we know her. She has preached in our church in recent years and is an extra-ordinary leader in our community. She plans to continue as Co-Chair of Ready by 21 with Becca Emerson. She will administer the IHAP and will join the Ecumenical Clergy Group here.

Amy has fifteen years of ministerial experience. She served as Associate Pastor for Christian Education and Youth at the First Presbyterian Church in Cranbury NJ from 1994-1997 and as Co-Director of the Princeton Theological Seminary Institute for Youth Ministry from 1997-2009. From 1997-2004 she was also concurrently Parish Associate for the Union Presbyterian Church in St. Peter MN.

Amy is ordained in the Presbyterian Church (USA) as Minister of Word and Sacrament. She received the B.A. degree in 1990 from Williams College magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, and a Master of Divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1993.

“Over the river and through the woodsTo grandmotherʼs housewe go!”

Sarah Wilson - at the right hand end of the large table - leads the Sunday School class in singing at the pre-Thanksgiving Service on the morning of Nov. 18th.

An SS assistant for several previous years, Sarahis now our new SS teacher and she is a busy senior at the Deer Isle-Stonington High School.

Photo of Sunday School singers by Bob Harris

Basic Technology for Seniors October 1, 4 and 5, 1 - 3 pm Three free sessions, open to the community, were held in Fellowship Hall. The response was overwhelming: more than 40 interested participants showed up. The sessions were beautifully organized and most professional. Instructors were Mary Howe, Ellen Dinsmore, Anne Douglass, Judy and Gordon Rittmeyer. Topics covered Monday, Oct. 1 were:1. Review of hardware, including computers, tablets, smart phones, Kindle readers, Wi-Fi routers, cell tower modems and Wi-Fi systems.2. Talk about advantages and disadvantages of each. What they do well, costs, and brief demonstrations projected onto the large white screen in the hall.3. Review of e-mailing, including pictures, text messaging, Facebook, internet use, use of address books and calendars, reminders, notes, alarms, music. etc.Thursday, Oct. 4 - hands-on tutoring on the device of your choice - your own or one owned by one of the instructors Friday, Oct. 5 - hands-on tutoring on the device of your choice with your follow-up questions or problems from what you learned on Thursday.Current plans are to repeat these sessions in early December. More may be offered in January if there is interest. In these sessions they will try to help people with specific problems or questions, with others invited to participate while they wait for their turn.

Scooping out pumpkins Bobbing for apples Wearing a costume! Hallowe’en!

Photos by Charlo Davis

Photos by Karen Turner

Above is a picture of our Knitting Group, which has been in existence for about four years, and meets in Fellowship Hall on Sunday afternoons. Claudette Kydd, our "Fearless Leader," brought some weekend visitors, a mom and her 10 and 14-year-old daughters who wanted to learn to knit. With lots of help from Claudette, Lola and Eliza I think they made wonderful progress. Anyone who remembers learning to knit will appreciate the looks of total concentration on their faces. Last Sunday was the best turnout ever: Carol Bridges, Claudette Kydd, Eliza Spencer, Lola Marston, Lisa Turner, Davida Kellogg, Babette Cameron, Amy Gimble and I attended along with our three guests.  This year, along with working on our own projects, we are making Prayer Shawls.  We take turns taking the prayer shawl project home and work on it during the week.  When finished, we plan to make them available to the ministers on the island to give to folks who are going through a "rough time”, whatever that might be. New knitters are welcome! - Judy Rittmeyer

On Sept. 23, Marnie Crowell addressed the congregation on the topic “The Healing System.” She began by talking about her and Ken’s experience joining the choir: “ We choir members tolerate each other with a special affection. The ideal choral sound is one harmonious melding with no single voice sticking out... We often sing Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus (Hail True Body) ...the music causes some sympathetic harmonic reaction in me, in my soul. But I have many friends who immediately suggest the words “spirit” or “core” instead. Could we compromise and use the word “system”? “What is the mysterious communication going on between us? It’s a whole system and we could call it soul....a collective noun for ways we humans have interior conversations with ourselves and the wordless ways we humans communicate with one another...We cannot quite say what it is, this soul we recognize, But we know it’s there. We say he or she is a good soul. We talk of finding our soul mate, soul food, soul music, and even the soul of the city, the country. All human, all mysterious.” !! ! You can read Marnieʼs whole sermon at http://sunsetucc.wordpress.com ! ! !

Marne Crowell, choir member, and Win Pusey, choir director, have a soul talk over coffee.

Photo by Judy Rittmeyer

Marnie (in choir robe) having a heart-to-heart soul talk with choir director Win Pusey

Photo by Bob Harris

“A Gathering of Gratitude” of about 80 members and friends filled Fellowship Hall on Thursday night, November 15. The free turkey dinner with all the potluck trimmings was splendid! The Mission and Social Concerns Committee sponsored the treat and introduced Jody Wolford-Tucker, Executive Director of Hospice Volunteers of Hancock County (HVHC). The informative program was embellished by several songs by the Evensong West, an a capella ensemble which is part of Hospice Volunteers of Hancock County and sings for near-end of life patients and their families. The evening’s gathering provided a generous free will offering of $475 to be shared among HVHC, Island Heating Assistance and the Island Food Pantry. - Brad Pusey, chair of this event

Photo collage by Bob Harris

Looking Ahead: Message from the pastor Christmas Pageant Candlelight Service Annual Budget Meeting ! ! ! ! ! ! Annual Congregational Meeting Dates to be announced

GRANDMA’S TURKEY

The turkeys were hers,most sold to customerson grandpa’s egg routein Perth Amboy.She fattened them up,scattering graineven as they bit her fingers.Big white-feathered birdswith chubby breasts.Trusting. Arrogant.After their necks were axedshe held them by hoary legs,dipped them in boiling water,pulled the feathers away,singed pin feathers.I watched, mesmerized,as she pulled outthe innards, slippery eggswaiting for shells to form,half formed eggs,waiting to grow.I forgot these things,as I sat at the festive table,watched grandpa slice whiteor dark on each person’s plate,savored the juicy meat,celery and onion dressing,wiggly cranberry sauce,not listening to the furious gobblesof remaining hens and tomsin the chicken house, outside. norma voorhees sheard

TOWARD CHRISTMAS: DEER ISLEMAINE

After the first snow, the fisherman says,you can hardly find a lobster in the traps.They move deeper out to sea as though

they sensed the low slate skyhonk and chatter of oldsquaw wheelinglike storm clouds, the winter

black and white of bufflehead, eider.Fishermen haul in their lines of trapstack them on docks to dry

then go back to drag for scallopsprowl lights feeling their way homein the hourglass coves of night.

The island is still green --each door and post grown cheerfulwith the bounty of spruce and fir.

Mrs. McGuffie, despite a broken arm,weaves wreaths to sell --rosehip, nut and cone, velvet bow.

Ice builds at the head of Burnt Covesheets of tide sculpting hummocksof granite to rough ivory.

We hear again each small choirpracticing the old carolsof Christ our Savior’s birth.

Snow falls --house, fish shed, fox and gullapples on leafless trees

each boat adrift against its anchor line norma voorhees sheard

The perfect Christmas gift! Send Kellie Coombs, at PO Box 666, Deer Isle ME 04627 Tel. (207) 348-2424, your check for $25 made out to Deer Isle-Sunset Church with“Delicious Deer Isle” on the memo line. She will mail a copy of this veryspecial Sunset Church’s centennial cookbook to the recipient whose nameand mailing address you provide. Act soon and it will arrive in time for Christmas!