Please keep our six middle school Youth and three chaperones in prayer as they enjoy a camping retreat in the mountains near Asheville this weekend.

June was a fantastic fun-filled month as over 100 children joined us for our regular Summer Camp and/or S'more Fun With God VBS Camp.

We so enjoyed partnering with the church for this adventure and are so thankful to Rene Prager for her leadership and for the many volunteers who made the experience possible.

We are pleased to see our enrollment for the fall continue to grow to pre-Covid numbers. This means we are also looking to fill some teaching positions for two, three or five mornings per week.

All Youth are invited to submit designs for the back of our 2021-2022 Youth t-shirt.

Use your creativity to create a meaningful message and/or artwork for shirts that we will wear for community mission work, trips, and more throughout the year.

Designs are due by Tuesday, July 20th to the church office, attn: René Prager or via e-mail: r.prager@firstpresconcord.org.

For the past 15 years, the Spring House at Memorial Garden has been vacant. That came to an end on July 1 when The Spring Gallery, an art gallery owned and operated by local artists, opened.

The person behind this new business is Bob Thompson, whose wife Kathy is the sister of Brad Barnett of our church family. The other artists who have partnered with Bob in this venture are Malia Bryngelson of Locust, Regina Calton Burchett of Kannapolis, and Linda Griffin of Concord. These four artists work primarily in oils, pastels, and watercolors.

Initially the hours of operation for the gallery will be Wednesday through Saturday from 11:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. or by calling (828) 551-6485 for an appointment. They also plan to be open for special downtown events such as art walks.

The board of Memorial Garden is excited about this addition on its property and feels it is an excellent complement to the garden itself. We welcome the owners of this new gallery and wish them much success!

Our friends in Bayonnais, Haiti continue to struggle daily with gang violence, Covid-related deaths, kidnappings, and food shortages. In a recent email from Actionelle Fleurisma, he noted that food has become more and more needed, and there are days when they cannot feed the children at school. The lunches that Friends Empowering Haiti provide are often the only meal the children receive in a day.

The Friends Empowering Haiti board is doing all it can to raise funds for the food shortage issue but could use your help. Friends Empowering Haiti has a school bus that will be shipped to Haiti the end of this month; it will be filled with solar panels for the Bayonnais school and their community. The bus will be parked at First Presbyterian the week of July 1-8 to help raise awareness of the food crisis. The banner seen above will be on the bus. As you drive by our church, please take note of the bus and pray for our ministry in Bayonnais. To donate money to help feed the children please go to www.friendsempoweringhaiti.org

For more information, please contact Betsy Liles at 704-791-6166 or dinnerbell6@gmail.com

To schedule an appointment click here and enter 28025 or

visit redcrossblood.org and enter: Cabarrus VIP Blood Drive

Visit the NEWS section of the church website for up-to-date information on the re-opening of our Church campus for worship and other activities. We anticipate things to change frequently over the next several weeks and will post all updates for the congregation under that section of the website.