On Thursday, February 4, our Outreach Committee and volunteers distributed 120 meals prepared by locally owned restaurant, Gourmet Gang, to guests in the Winter Shelter program. This year, city officials worked with People In Need (PiN) ministries to provide shelter in local hotels due to distancing requirements. While area churches could not hold guests this year as in the past, they have been invited to provide meals during the week for the participants. Eastern Shore Chapel not only provided meals, but assisted in delivering the meals and visiting with some of the clients. If you would like to participate in the next meal delivery, please contact Scott Darnell at [email protected] or text 757-714-4766.

In addition to complimentary cupcakes, Communion Kits and Ashes for Ash Wednesday will be distributed in sealed packaging. You will also receive a Household Lenten Kit which includes the daily devotional “Living Well Through Lent,” an Alleluia Coloring Page, and a “Bless this Mess” Lenten Calendar. Supplies and Instructions for all materials will be included in the kit.

Our Ash Wednesday Service will be available to watch on our YouTube Channel. You can pick up Ashes during the Fat Tuesday Drive-Thru Festival on Tuesday the 16th from 4-6pm. Directions for Imposition of Ashes at home will be given during the YouTube service.

During our Lenten Season, we will be offering opportunities to pick up Communion kits to receive during our Holy Eucharist Rite II service on our YouTube Channel. Beginning on Tuesday, February 16 from 4-6pm, Communion kits for two Sunday services will be available for pick-up at the church. Simply drive by the main office entrance and remain in your car. Please mark your calendars for the next distribution dates, if you would like to receive Communion kits:

“Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.” (I John 4:7-8)

The Great Belonging six-week Book Study with Rev. Cameron Randle

Author Charlotte Donlon has written a book uniquely relevant to our times. In The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other, Donlon acknowledges that loneliness is thought to have reached epidemic proportions. This is especially true in the midst of a world pandemic. Yet Donlon argues that we can, and should, accept loneliness as a normal companion on our life journeys. Her experience as a spiritual director and writer has convinced her that loneliness is an inherent part of the human condition. We ought to encounter it with an attitude of curiosity, she posits.

In this year’s Lenten book study, we will explore five areas of belonging: to ourselves, to others, to art, to places and to God. Within each category, we’ll examine how loneliness can actually point us to a stronger understanding of what it means to belong. In her Foreward to The Great Belonging, author and Episcopal priest Lauren Winner says, “ …loneliness is a right response—an insightful response—to the ways intimacy and distance are insistently threaded together in all our lives.”

Please contact the Parish Book Store at 757-425-0114 to reserve your copy of The Great Belonging. A Zoom link will be emailed each week, providing entry to the online session.

Praise, Hearing God’s voice, Relinquishment, Forgiveness, Listening Prayer, and Lament, are six practices we will discuss and implement during this devotional study. You can register for the study by sending an email to Rev. Melody at [email protected]. Email registration is required as there is a short, 5-minute devotional reading which will be sent via email before each group meeting. Please contact Rev. Melody with any questions. A notebook or journal is recommended for the study.

WESC will gather via ZOOM on Sunday, Feb. 21 at 1 p.m. to meet virtually the newest members of the ESC staff: the Rev. Melody Perdue, associate rector, and Patti Glowatsky, director of family formation. Please plan to join us! RSVP to Susan Buchanan ([email protected]) by Saturday, Feb. 20, and she will send you the ZOOM link.

The American Red Cross is counting on us to give blood Thursday, Feb. 18! Help us reach our goal! We currently have 18 donors registered; our sign-up goal is 29! In order to practice safe social distancing, the Red Cross needs everyone to make an appointment to donate so you won't be turned away at the door. Please schedule online at redcrossblood.org (Enter Sponsor Code ESC). Call 1-800-RED CROSS for more information. As a 'thank you' to your donors for making time to donate at your blood drive, the Red Cross will send them a $5 Amazon Gift Card via email, thanks to our partners at Amazon.

Godly Play is providing home play kits to enhance the Sunday class experience. Our first one is The Circle of the Church Year.

The Pantry served 392 households on Saturday. Each household receives six different bags of perishable and non-perishable food, plus a bag of potatoes, milk or juice, and eggs. If we prepare enough bags to serve 450 households that means the volunteers are packing 2,700 bags every week! That’s a lot of labor. All those bags take up a lot of space, and many of the packed bags are perishable, so we are especially grateful to the Foodbank and the Virginia Beach Pandemic Relief Partnership for the grant that enabled us to more than double our cold storage space.

The video below was made by the Foodbank to highlight how the capacity-building grant awarded to Eastern Shore Chapel will help us serve more of our neighbors in need. The video was filmed in the beginning stages of our construction. The new walk-in freezer and refrigeration units are now operational and have already made a huge difference to our ministry. Thanks be to God.

I received this this week from a friend who's son is incarcerated. It is copied here with his permission.

The Parish Book Store has Lenten resources for you! Among our titles are Living the Way of Love: a 40-Day Devotional and The Great Belonging, the book for Fr. Cameron’s book study. You can call us (757-425-0114) or email us ([email protected]) to make an appointment to peruse our resources. A volunteer is in the store every Tuesday and Thursday morning from 9 to 11, but someone will meet you any day convenient to your schedule. You can also order from bookshop.org/shop/parishbookstore and have the book shipped directly to your home. Lots of options…NO excuses!

Parish Day School has opened registration for our current families and church parishioners. This early registration will run from February 1 through February 12 and will be completed online through our ProCare system. We begin registration for our new families on Tuesday, February 23 at 8am. More information is located on our website at www.parishdayschool.org. Please contact [email protected] or call 757-491-6130 if you are interested in registering a student for preschool. 

This month our fruit of the spirit is love. Our students are talking about love and learning about Valentines. Teachers are planning curriculum that allows the students to build on their developmental milestones. Today students stamped hearts using paint and began decorating their Valentine bags. Classrooms are reading stories such as The Story of Valentine’s Day by Nancy Skarmeds and Happy Valentine’s Day, Little Critter by Mercer Mayer. We are looking forward to our Valentine exchanges coming up this week!

Each morning (except Sunday) a group gathers on ZOOM to practice Daily Morning Prayer. It is lay led, each day with a different leader. Since March 25 we have had 221 services with over 800 attendees. Average attendance is 3.6 souls. Attendance has improved in December, average is 4.5 souls! Join us for a Holy Spirit filled thirty minutes – a glorious way to start your day. The service starts promptly at 7:30 am and is completed by 8:00. Click here or go to ZOOM.US and enter meeting number 562 715 368; passcode John1513. If you are more inclined, Evening Prayer is available also. ZOOM meeting number 869 9363 5805 password Ex1414. The service starts at 7:00 pm.

Join friends and teachers, by Zoom, as they meet and discuss lessons from this year’s curriculum – Feasting on the Word. Confirmation classes for students in the Senior High Class meet on the first and third Sundays of the month during the regular Sunday School hour at 9:10 a.m. Classes on the second and fourth Sundays include Lectionary based topics. To discuss formation needs or other questions, please contact Patti Glowatsky ([email protected]), Director of Family Formation:

If you would like a prayer card sent to your deployed service member please contact Bill Hunter at [email protected] or 757-402-6384. Please let Bill know if deployed military members have returned so that he can welcome them back and remove them from the deployed military prayer list. Sponsors should contact Bill with contact info for formerly deployed members.

From CRU Military Ministry -- PRAY for the U.S. military couples who will attend the Vertical Marriage Date Nights at Fort Leavenworth (KS) which begin this week (February 12) and followed by Date Nights on March 5, April 9, and May 7. Vertical Marriage Date Nights help guide each couple toward building a vibrant relationship at every level including communication, conflict, intimacy, and romance as they reconnect with God together to transform their marriage.

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