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Rock Climbing

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Psalm 62 and Matthew 7:24-29
Mark Edwards
January 21

Mark Edwards Climbing
Mark on the “Acid Baby” climb in the Aasgard Pass of the Cascade’s Alpine Lakes area in Washington State.

Let’s talk epistemology for a little while. Epistemology is, as many of you know, that branch of philosophy that wonders about how we know the things we know. It is especially concerned with the goal of clarifying how what-we-think-we-know can be shown to be accurate, true, and trustworthy.

For instance, the famous philosopher Rene Descartes writes Rules for the Direction of the Mind in 1628.

Rule 1: The aim of our studies should be to direct the mind with a view to forming true and sound judgements about whatever comes before it.[1]

“True and sound judgements.” Certainly this is a wise and prudential activity. And for those in our community who are about to go through driver’s education, we especially commend this one. May you learn to form “true and sound judgements about whatever comes before…” you and your bumper.

Rule 2: We should attend only to those objects which our minds seem capable of having certain and indubitable cognition.[2]

“Certain and indubitable cognition.” Now that is a bit higher of a bar. We should only aim for that kind of knowledge? Yes. In his comment on this, Descartes notes, “it is better never to study at all than to occupy ourselves with objects which are so difficult that we are unable to distinguish what is true from what is false.”[3] Following this line of reasoning, Descartes concludes, “we ought to concern ourselves only with objects which admit of as much certainty as the demonstrations of arithmetic and geometry.”[4]

Rule 3: We ought to investigate what we can clearly and evidently intuit or deduce with certainty, and not what other people have thought or what we ourselves conjecture.[5]

Now we are getting into the real meat of modern philosophy and Enlightenment thinking: break out from the bonds of oppressive thought structures that have been foisted upon you; be skeptical of what others are telling you; seek certainty for yourself. In the words of Immanual Kant’s famous essay, “What is Enlightenment?”, “Sapere aude! (Think for yourself!)”

“Have the courage to use your own intelligence!” is therefore the motto of the Enlightenment.”[6]  In bold style, Kant charges that “because of laziness and cowardice… it is so comfortable to be a minor! […] Minority is the incapacity to use one’s intelligence without the guidance of another. […] If I have a book which provides meaning for me, a pastor who has a conscience for me, a doctor who will judge my diet for me, then… I do not have any need to think.” Sapere aude! Think for yourself! Have the courage to use your own intelligence!

Three rules for thinking: Seek true and sound judgements, go for total, indubitable certainty, and don’t trust others. What Descartes initiated, and what Kant promulgated, is now the base assumptions of a town like this, in a day like this. Most of us probably think this way, and most of us probably teach others to think this way too.

And yet, sometimes the world is not always so simple and tidy. Sometimes, no matter how much we want it or seek to grasp it, doubt overpowers certainty. Sometimes we must trust others to give us what we can’t secure for ourselves. Sometimes we encounter people, experiences, emotions, questions of faith, that are, well, just a bit more complex, strange, and curious than “arithmetic and geometry.”

Take my friend Martha Beck and the life-flipping experience she has of carrying a child with Down’s syndrome. In Expecting Adam, she documents a life being inverted. The book opens:

John and I disagree about the precise moment we lost control of our lives. He thinks it was the car accident in New Hampshire. I say it was two weeks before that, when Adam was conceived. Either way, it was sometime in September of 1987, which ever since has been known in our family history as the month ‘It All Went to Hell.’[7]

Beck’s book is a wonderful tale of how a life built around Descartes’ rules of rationality and control gets inverted by an unknown God and a very special child.

Let’s talk epistemology and faith for a little while. Martha continues:

By the time I left for Harvard [as a high school graduate], I was an atheist. I had come to agree with Albert Camus that the only significant decision left in a godless universe was whether or not to commit suicide. The decision was pretty close to a toss-up for me. It had weighed so heavily on my mind that I took the next year off from Harvard and read a lot of Western philosophy, from the pre-Socratics to the postmodernists. Then I read the basic texts of several world religions and finished off with a layperson’s tour of theoretical physics. I was looking, in case you haven’t guessed, for the Meaning of Life. I couldn’t find it.

I did come out of that year with a new life philosophy, a kind of skeptical relativism […] I respected my family and friends’ religious beliefs, in a detached, social-sciency sort of way, while secretly believing that faith in God was not only the opiate of the masses but the refuge of people too craven to accept the fact of their own mortality. In short, I belonged to the same religion as everyone else I knew at Harvard.

…just then Adam landed a solid kick to my kidneys, and I was struck all over again by amazement at what was happening to me.

Over the course of two or three days, I gradually revised my own conception of reality. I did not come to any firm conclusions… Until that point, I had followed good old Baconian logic of refusing to believe anything until it was proven true. Now I decided that I was willing to believe anything, absolutely anything I heard, saw, or felt, until it was proven false. If this doesn’t sound like a major life transition to you, it’s because you’ve never done it. With this single decision, I expanded my reality from a string of solid facts, as narrow, strong, and cold as a razor’s edge, to a wild chaos of possibility.[8]

A wild chaos of possibility? Sounds like the Biblical God might be involved.

The problem with trying to live according to a world that fully fits within our understanding, and which plays according to our rules, is that we will always be shaken.

The world, our families, life, The New York Times will always confront us with things we cannot control, situations we do not understand, and emotions that overwhelm. If we lean on our understanding, how long before we are simply knocked over?

As we read in Psalm 62:

How long will you assail a person, will you batter your victim, all of you,
as you would a leaning wall, a tottering fence?

Can I withstand the assaults the world will throw at me? If I try, will I ever be shaken? How long might I fend off the fears, anxieties, depressions, and angers that assail and consume so many?

Can you withstand all the assaults the world will throw at you? If you try, will you ever be shaken? How long might you fend off the fears, anxieties, depressions, and angers that assail and consume so many?

I will admit that it doesn’t take a whole lot to shake me up. Some bad news in a single email often does it.

I will admit that it doesn’t take a whole lot to make me anxious. Sometimes 26 characters about “My nuclear button is bigger and more deadly than your nuclear button” tend to do it.

I will admit that it is not infrequent that the news is just so sad and depressing: news about what’s happening in Myanmar with the Rohingya, a cross sampling of America’s cultural woes and challenges as found in the headlines of NJ.com, or just recalling our friend David Bryant, who is going in for his 43rd year of prison for a crime that it looks like he did not commit. These can be so depressing.

As we read in Psalm 62:

For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation.
[God] alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall never be shaken.

How could we ever really say that?

Perhaps through experiences like Ann Lamott’s. Maybe you know her book, Traveling Mercies, a wonderful tale.

I thought about my life and my brilliant hilarious progressive friends. I thought about what everyone would think of me if I became a Christian, and it seemed an utterly impossible thing that simply could not be allowed to happen. I turned to the wall and said out loud, “I would rather die.”

…This experience spooked me badly, but I thought it was just an apparition, born of fear and self-loathing and booze and loss of blood. But then everywhere I went, I had the feeling that a little cat was following me, wanting me to reach down and pick it up, wanting me to open the door and let it in. But I knew what would happen: you let a cat in one time, give it a little milk, and then it stays forever. So I tried to keep one step ahead of it, slamming my houseboat door when I entered or left.

And one week later when I went back to church, I was so hungover that I couldn’t stand up for the songs, and this time I stayed for the sermon, which I just thought was so ridiculous, like someone trying to convince me of the existence of extraterrestrials, but the last song was so deep and raw and pure that I could not escape. It was as if the people were singing in between the notes, weeping and joyful at the same time, and I felt like their voices or something was rocking me in its bosom, holding me like a scared kid, and I opened up to that feeling and it washed over me.

I began to cry and left before the benediction, and I raced home and felt the little cat running along at my heels, and I walked down the dock past dozens of potted flowers, under a sky as blue as one of God’s own dreams, and I opened the door to my houseboat, and I stood there a minute, and then I hung my head and said, […] “I quit.” I took a long deep breath and said out loud, “All right. You can come in.”

So this was my beautiful moment of conversion.[9]

Will we open the doors of our hearts and minds to the peace that passes all understanding? Will we find certainty, safety, a wild chaos of loving possibility in Christ? Or will we try to prop ourselves up and keep our walls from falling over?

Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise person who built a house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. [Matthew 7:24-25]

As we read in Psalm 62:

For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation.
[God] alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall never be shaken.

Who is this God? Who is that “he”?

Now this sermon was entitled “Rock Climbing” and since I’m preaching, I’d better say something about it. I used to do a lot of rock climbing. Big mountains, airy walls, splitter cracks, tiny crimpers. It’s bit hard to talk about why I love(d) climbing so much, I’m not sure I fully understand it myself.

But here’s one reason:  you could be absolutely up there, nothing but beauty, air, death, and fear all around you. And yet, you could be gripped, jammed, crimped, or frictioned onto some absolutely solid rock and not have a fear or care in the world. That total paradox — of being in such a wild, dangerous, and threatening place, and yet being so calm, confident, and content because the rock you were on was so obviously solid and strong and reassuring — was, well, a bit addictive. You just always wanted more. Don’t you wish you could go through life that way?

As we read in Psalm 62:

For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation.
[God] alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall never be shaken.
Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us.

If you are looking to never be shaken, if you want a fortress, if you think this place needs salvation, if you just wish your soul would wait in silence, if you just wish you had something totally solid and indubitable and certain to cling to, then you need a rock.

Let’s put epistemology and faith and verification together for a moment: David Bryant. Forty-three years and counting in jail for a crime that by all reason, rationality, evidence, and logic he did not commit. And yet he writes:

I am fine, my heart is holding up under all of this Difficulties, But God has seen a Way, And all is Good, so He say’s, Wait Patiently!, And So we Do… I have Faith and Belief.. With No Questions, what more needs to be said. Just the Fact![10]

Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise [David Bryant] who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock… Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded. [Matthew 7:24-25, 28]

For God alone my soul waits in silence; from Christ comes my salvation.
Jesus alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall never be shaken. [Psalm 62]

I invite you all to “climb on.”

[1] Rene Descartes, The Philosophical Writings of Descartes: Volume 1. Trans. by Cottingham, Stoothoff, & Murdoch. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 9.

[2] Descartes, 10.

[3] Descartes, 10.

[4] Descartes, 12-13.

[5] Descartes, 13.

[6] Immanual Kant, What is Enlightenment? in Basic Writings of Kant. Ed. by Allen Wood. (New York: The Modern Library), p.135

[7] Martha Beck, Expecting Adam: A True Story of Birth, Rebirth, and Everyday Magic. (New York: Berkeley Books, 1999), 9.

[8] Martha Beck, 169-170.

[9] Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith. (New York: Anchor Books, 1999), 50.

[10] David Bryant, personal letter of Monday, March 13, 2017. See: http://centurion.org/cases/bryant-david/

© 2018 Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.

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Share Your Bread with the Hungry

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GRANDMOTHER OVERCOMES CHALLENGES TO FARM THE LAND
THAT FEEDS THE CHILDREN IN HER CARE

[ezcol_1half]Najjuma, a 56-year-old widow in Uganda, grows enough food on eight acres to feed the three children and eight orphaned grandchildren in her care. Without the crops that spring from this soil she carefully tends, Najjuma has no means to support these children.

However, while Najjuma was providing the nurture her children and grandchildren needed, her in-laws ordered her to leave the land her husband had inherited.

Fortunately,  Najjuma learned that laws were in place to protect widows like her. Your One Great Hour of Sharing Gifts empowered Naijuma to exercise her lawful  right to remain on the property.

Thanks to training programs held by Action for Rural Women’s Empowerment (ARUWE), a partner of the Presbyterian Hunger Program, Najjuma knew the law was on her side. She successfully appealed for help through local land governance structures.  Yet too often widows aren’t aware of their rights, says Sylvia Nalubega, program officer for ARUWE.[/ezcol_1half] [ezcol_1half_end]“When widows  do not know their entitlement to their property or if the husband doesn’t leave a will, many times they are evicted and have nowhere to go,” Sylvia says. One Great Hour of Sharing gifts helped Naijuma avoid this fate.

“Najjuma depends on the land for her livelihood,” says Agnes Mirembe,  programs manager for ARUWE. “It is everything to her. Her income is tied to the land.”

In addition to benefitting from ARUWE’s legal aid clinics,  Naijuma also learned more efficient farming techniques from this group. She planted two acres of corn and beans that serve as demonstration plots  for her neighbors. She freely shares how she was able to increase crop yields and take better care of her children and grandchildren.

Yet Najjuma  could have been without a place to plant even a single seed, a plight that would have spelled disaster for her family. Your One Great Hour gifts helped  keep this from happening.

In Uganda and around the world, Presbyterians are being faithful to the biblical mandate to care for people who live on the  margins. [/ezcol_1half_end]

Through your One Great Hour of Sharing gifts, Christ’s concern for “the least of these” is being expressed and lives are being transformed.

Let us pray:
Gracious God, We pray for the widows in Africa who struggle to provide for their families. We give thanks that you walk with them in their quest for  justice, and we hear your call to come alongside people who live on the margins. May we be faithful to your summons. Amen.

This Minute for Mission is available to download/ print for your convenience (presbyterianmission.org/oghs/resources)

Loose the Bonds of Injustice

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THE FRONT PORCH CAFÉ SERVES AS AN ENTRY WAY
TO HOPE AND TRANSFORMATION

[ezcol_1half]The Front Porch Café in Akron, Ohio, serves up healthy portions of food and friendship for people needing a new start in life.

At the Front Porch,  individuals recovering from addiction or re-entering society after spending time in prison can eat a good meal, grow and learn alongside others who  share their struggles, and receive guidance on housing and employment opportunities.

When Diretha joined the Front Porch community five years  ago, she had been sober and drug-free for a year, but a decade of unemployment threatened the sustainability of her success. She volunteered at the café and attended its support groups. The staff helped her develop a resume and interviewing skills.

These efforts helped Diretha land a job at a  catering company, where she has worked for four years. She continues to live a life free from alcohol and drug abuse.

Your One Great Hour of Sharing  gifts contributed to Diretha’s transformation. The Presbyterian Committee on the Self-Development of People (SDOP) made a grant that helped  renovate and equip the building that houses the café after Eastminster Presbytery’s Committee selected the project for funding. SDOP partners with  economically poor people in projects they present, control, own, and are the direct beneficiaries.

[/ezcol_1half] [ezcol_1half_end]The Front Porch Café is part of South Street Ministries, which serves youth and adults in one of Akron’s poorest and  most racially diverse neighborhoods. “We get people from the church, the recovery world, and the neighborhood who come in just for a place to gather,” says Joe Tucker, the ministries’ executive director. By purchasing one of the Front Porch’s reasonably priced meals, neighborhood patrons support its witness to hope.

“We give people a lot of hope and redirection,” Joe says. “We tell people, ‘Hey look, half of our staff are in recovery or in  re-entry themselves—we know what it’s like. What you are wanting to do is absolutely doable. We believe in Christ, and we will pray with you.’ The consistent reminder of hope is probably the deepest area we have.”

Diretha continues to attend a support group at the Front Porch and its weekly  worship service. “If I hadn’t gotten involved with the Front Porch, there is a chance I would have started using again and been in prison or even died,”  Diretha says. [/ezcol_1half_end]

Your One Great Hour of Sharing gifts help people move themselves from the depths of despair toward vistas of hope. Please give generously.

Let us pray:
Transforming God, we pray for people who struggle with addiction. We give thanks for ministries like the Front Porch Café that help people overcome  his challenge and begin new lives. May we join them in bearing witness to Christ’s desire that all people experience freedom and hope. Amen.

This Minute for Mission is available to download/ print for your convenience (presbyterianmission.org/oghs/resources)

Restore Streets to Live in

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PRESBYTERIAN DISASTER ASSISTANCE RESPONDS QUICKLY
TO HURRICANE RAVAGED PUERTO RICO

[ezcol_1half]Even before Hurricane Maria made landfall in September, Edwin González-Castillo and other Presbyterian leaders in Puerto Rico  received promises of help from Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA).

Edwin, the stated clerk of the Presbytery of San Juan, says PDA lived up to its word quickly. Days after the storm hit, the first wave of PDA grants  arrived and immediately pressing community needs were being met.

In the presbytery, funds were distributed among each of the 15 congregations,  and the presbytery matched PDA’s initial funding for community assistance. Desperately needed items such as food, water, diapers and medical  supplies were swiftly in the hands of hurricane survivors. “We were able to help families who had lost almost everything,” Edwin says. Maria’s 150  mph winds destroyed homes, infrastructure and vegetation across the island and resulted in the death or injury to many. In addition, Maria left  millions without electricity or drinkable water.

Your generosity helped PDA respond immediately after three major hurricanes pounded the United  States and/or the Caribbean, a devastating earthquake shook Central Mexico, and raging wildfires wreaked havoc across the Pacific Northwest. One  Great Hour of Sharing gifts enabled PDA to mount responses that were timely, nimble and effective.

[/ezcol_1half] [ezcol_1half_end]In Puerto Rico, Presbyterians never doubted that  PDA would respond fast, and they know that PDA will remain for the long haul, Edwin says. “The help PDA brings is long-term, and we are grateful  that when other groups leave Puerto Rico we will still have PDA giving us a hand.”

Puerto Rican Presbyterians appreciate the prayer support and encouraging words they have received from across the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). When people from the  mainland ask them about providing tangible help, Edwin says Puerto Rican Presbyterian leaders have a standard reply: “We tell everybody the best  way to help us is through PDA.”

The hurricane response has elevated Presbyterian visibility in Puerto Rican communities, and Edwin expects that  denomination’s name recognition will continue to grow as the recovery efforts continue.

“In many places here, Presbyterians are not very well known,  but through things like this, when we attend disasters and when our communities get the kind of help PDA is helping to provide, the Presbyterian  name becomes familiar and people see that our church is here to help,” Edwin says.

Your gifts to One Great Hour of Sharing enable our church to bear this kind of caring witness in Puerto Rico and around the world. Please give generously.[/ezcol_1half_end]

Let us pray:
Gracious God, we pray for the survivors of disasters. Comfort them as they struggle with unspeakable grief and the monumental task of rebuilding  their lives. Help us to extend neighborly love to them wherever they live. Amen.

This Minute for Mission is available to download/ print for your convenience (presbyterianmission.org/oghs/resources)

This is Church

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Have you ever taught a child to fold their fingers inside their hands and say the rhyme, “here is the church, here is the steeple, open the doors and see all the people?” The wiggling fingers teach children, and adults, too, that the church is not the building — the steeples, windows, or structure, but people gathering to worship God.

There’s something else in the children’s rhyme. As the child breaks open their hands to reveal the people,” they move their fingers back and forth, often as fast as they can. This simple move reminds us that the church is the energy and actions that share the love of Christ.

  • When a disaster strikes, people give, volunteer, and pray so that those impacted receive help and hope, this is church.
  • When poverty and violence cause hunger and people join together to respond to the need and address its root causes, this is church.
  • When injustice falls on those who are vulnerable and people join hands with one another and lift their voices against the interests of power, this is church.

The church is the Holy Spirit’s transforming power emanating into the world sharing the compassion, justice, love, and peace of Christ. Presbyterians join the movement of the Spirit into every corner of the Earth — and in this season, through our church-wide One Great Hour of Sharing.

  • We share— and church happens with women who were once trafficked for domestic labor and now own their own cooperative business.
  • We share— and church happens with people through land rights training and improvements to farming methods.
  • We share— and church happens with those whose homes have been washed away by flood, as the arms of comfort wrap around them, and hands pick up shovels to assist.

The church is happening right now, all around us — because we share Christ’s love.

Let us pray:
God of Compassion, move your church into the world with imagination and love. May the gifts we give and the kindness we offer be shared with the most vulnerable of your children. Amen.

This Minute for Mission is available to download/ print for your convenience (presbyterianmission.org/oghs/resources)

Gifts at Work

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YOUR GIVING REPAIRS THE BREACHES
THAT SEPARATE PEOPLE FROM LIVES OF WHOLENESS.

[ezcol_1half]When the forces of chaos and calamity rip the fabric of human life, your One Great Hour of Sharing gifts are there to sew it back together.

Your generosity fulfills a vision rooted in the biblical witness and beautifully stated in Isaiah 58:12. The prophet writes: “You shall be called the  repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.”

Around the world, One Great Hour of Sharing ministries bridge the divides that tear apart the  lives of individuals and communities.

In Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory that was devastated by Hurricane Maria last year, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance promised help to the island’s  Presbyterian leaders even before the storm made landfall. Days after Maria hit, the first wave of PDA grants arrived and immediately pressing  community needs were being met. Desperately needed items such as food, water, diapers and medical supplies were in the hands of hurricane  survivors swiftly. Your gifts to One Great Hour of Sharing made it possible for PDA to act promptly in Puerto Rico, Texas, Florida and other places  when disasters struck in rapid succession last year. In addition, PDA will continue working in these communities long after other groups leave. [Read more here.]

In Akron, Ohio, Diretha’s recovery from drug addiction was threatened by more than a decade of unemployment. She says her decision to join the Front Porch Café community helped her get a job and remain drug-free. [/ezcol_1half] [ezcol_1half_end]The Front Porch consists of individuals who struggle with drug addiction or who seek to re-enter society after spending time in prison. At the Front Porch, they can eat a good meal, learn and grow among others who have  experienced similar struggles, and receive guidance on employment opportunities. A Self-Development of People grant, made possible by One Great Hour of Sharing gifts, helped renovate and equip the building that houses the café.“If I hadn’t gotten involved with the Front Porch, there is a chance I would have started using again and been in prison or even died,” Diretha says. Your gifts to One Great Hour of Sharing gifts contribute to positive change that lasts. [Read more here.]

In Uganda, Najjuma, a 56-year-old widow, depends on eight acres of farmland to feed three children and eight grandchildren left orphaned by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. However, her in-laws ordered her to leave the land her late husband had inherited. Thanks to training programs held by Action for Rural Women’s Empowerment (ARUWE), a partner of the Presbyterian Hunger Program, Najjuma knew the law was on her side. She successfully appealed for help through local land-governance structures. Your One Great Hour of Sharing gifts helped Najjuma continue to farm the land and improve farming techniques in order to feed her children and grandchildren. [Read more here.][/ezcol_1half_end]

In places far and near, your One Great Hour of Sharing gifts repair breaches that pierce the wholeness that God wants for everyone. Please give generously.

Let us pray:
Holy God, we pray for those who are separated from the fullness of life that you desire for all people. Strengthened by your love and mercy, may we bridge the gaps of injustice that keep people from experiencing lives of wholeness and fulfillment. Amen.

This Minute for Mission is available to download/ print for your convenience (presbyterianmission.org/oghs/resources)

 

Beyond Malibu 2018 – Sea Kayaking Trip – Required Forms

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Sunday, April 22 – Final Payments and All Completed Forms Due

On Sunday, April 22, between services (10:15-11:00 am) and after the 2nd service (12:00-1:30 pm), we will host a final payment & forms event in the 2nd Floor Office Suite (above the kitchen).

Linda Gilmore will also be here that day to notarize documents. Please bring photo ID if you are the person who will be signing the documents and also do NOT sign documents that need to be notarized until you are in her presence.

If you or your child cannot make the April 22 event – please contact Lauren Yeh to make arrangements for a different day.

Items to handle before April 22:

What to bring with you:

  1. NPC Assumption of Risk & Release from Liability (Notarized)
    1. NPC Release and Waiver Kayak Trip- Teens(pdf)
    2. NPC Release and Waiver Kayak Trip- Adults (pdf)
  2. Beyond Malibu – Health Form (above)
  3. Consent to receive treatment in Canada: Consent for Treatment in Canada(pdf)
  4. Parental Consent to Cross in to Canada: Border Crossing – Parental Permission(pdf)
  5. Flight Itinerary including confirmation or booking number.
  6. Passport valid through February 2019 (we will make a copy of the photo/signature pages)
  7. Final Payment (contact Lauren Yeh if you are unsure of the amount due)

 

Beyond Malibu 2018 – Mountain Trip – Required Forms

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Sunday, April 22 – Final Payments and All Completed Forms Due

On Sunday, April 22, between services (10:15-11:00 am) and after the 2nd service (12:00-1:30 pm), we will host a final payment & forms event in the 2nd Floor Office Suite (above the kitchen).

Linda Gilmore will also be here that day to notarize documents. Please bring photo ID if you are the person who will be signing the documents and also do NOT sign documents that need to be notarized until you are in her presence.

If you or your child cannot make the April 22 event – please contact Lauren Yeh to make arrangements for a different day.

Items to handle before April 22:

What to bring with you:

  1. NPC Assumption of Risk & Release from Liability (Notarized)
    1. NPC Release and Waiver Mtn Trip- Teens (pdf)
    2. NPC Release and Waiver Mtn Trip- Adults (pdf)
  2. Beyond Malibu – Health Form (above)
  3. Consent to receive treatment in Canada: Consent for Treatment in Canada (pdf)
  4. Parental Consent to Cross in to Canada: Border Crossing – Parental Consent (pdf)
  5. Flight Itinerary including confirmation or booking number.
  6. Passport valid through February 2019 (we will make a copy of the photo/signature pages)
  7. Final Payment (contact Lauren Yeh if you are unsure of the amount due)

 

NorthBay 2018 – Required Forms

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All forms and payments are due by Sunday, June 17. Please bring them to the church office during regular business hours or before worship on a Sunday morning, or mail them to:

Lauren Yeh
Nassau Presbyterian Church
61 Nassau Street
Princeton, NJ 08542

What to turn in:

  1. NPC Assumption of Risk & Release from Liability (Notarized)
    1. NPC Release and Waiver NorthBay – Minors (pdf)
    2. NPC Release and Waiver NorthBay – Adults (pdf)
  2. Young Life Camping Health, Consent & Release (signed by physician & parent) Young Life Form (pdf)
  3. Final Payment (contact Lauren Yeh if you are unsure of the amount due)

Other items to handle:

 

Appalachia Service Project 2018 – Required Forms

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All forms and payments are due by Sunday, June 17. Please bring them to the church office during regular business hours or before worship on a Sunday morning, or mail them to:

Lauren Yeh
Nassau Presbyterian Church
61 Nassau Street
Princeton, NJ 08542

Items to review:

  1. Read all ASP required documents:
    1. ASP Rules & Regulations ASP Expectations
    2. ASP Safety Manual ASP Safety Manual
    3. ASP 3 S’s (Sensitivity, Safety, and Stewardship) ASP 3 S’s
  2. Be prepared to sign the ASP Trip Covenant (the whole group signs the same document, text below) – sign at the June 3 meeting or contact Lauren Yeh
  3. Complete ASP Online Registration
    1. Complete ASP Volunteer Statement but do not sign it, VolRegStatement-Group7074 (pdf)
      (all the details you need for the online registration are on this form)
    2. Go to: http://www.servicenetwork.com/reg/APPSERV/Join.asp
    3. Our Group Number is: 7074
  4. Review the Packing List ASP Individual Packing Youth with Mark’s suggestions

Forms to turn in:

  1. NPC Assumption of Risk & Release from Liability (Notarized)
    1. NPC Release and Wavier ASP Trip – Teens (pdf)
    2. NPC Release and Waiver ASP Trip – Adults (pdf)
  2. ASP Volunteer Statement, above (Notarized)
  3. Medical Insurance Card (copy front and back)
  4. Final Payment (contact Lauren Yeh if you are unsure of the amount due)

ASP Covenant Text:

A covenant is a promise or vow made between two parties. In Genesis, God took Abraham outside one night and showed him the stars in the sky. God promised that Abraham’s descendants would be as many as those stars and that from those descendants would come a Savior. We now know that the promise was kept in the Savior of the world, Jesus Christ.

ASP covenants to our groups that we will do everything we can to facilitate a meaningful  service opportunity. We will provide a center facility and staff; we will fulfill all the details that must come together to make a significant mission  experience for our volunteers. As a part of the faith walk through service, ASP asks volunteers to enter into a covenant with ASP. Volunteers are asked to abide by the “Expectations, Rules, and Regulations” that make communal living and working successful. ASP also asks that volunteers abide by  additional rules that may be given at their particular center.

Have each volunteer read the ASP “Expectations, Rules, and Regulations,” the 3 S’s: Sensitivity, Safety, and Stewardship, and the ASP Safety Manual before signing.