HYDE PARK PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH March 2019 Church Mouse
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HYDE PARK PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH March 2019 Church Mouse I have a new found love of podcasts and audiobooks. I know I am late to the party, but I have never gotten to commute an hour to work each way at least twice a week. I have come to cherish this time and am fairly certain I will never grow weary of the beautiful drive. Sometimes when I get in my car and start it up, my car thinks it knows what I want and starts playing my audiobook right away. We hopped in the car after school one day last week and my eight year old asked if the book I was listening to was a book for kids or a book for adults. I paused for a moment and thought about this. We had a great discussion about what it means to put labels on things - by age, or gender, etc. I know that sometimes these types of labels are helpful, but it is also good to really consider what they mean and who decided they were “right”. What belongs to whom? And who decides? I worry sometimes that kids feel that worship belongs to the grownups and not to them. This is certainly not true. All are welcome in worship at anytime, but science and experience tells us that sitting still for an hour isn’t in the skill set of all young people. Learning through conversation, in a setting where you can move and wiggle, seems to work better for many young people (and even many adults!). In conversation with others, we have decided to study some of the parables during lent. While we hear the stories read and preached in worship, those young people who choose to go to Sunday school will study the same stories. Afterall, there is no label on the Bible...it belongs to all of us. Parables are simple stories, told by Jesus, used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson. I am excited to see the ways we will learn together...and learn from each other...as we share a common experience in reading these stories which belong to us all. I pray that March is filled with moments of learning, curiosity and surprise! Peace to you all, Emily 1 Monthly Giving Report Volunteer Calendar March 2019 Date Greeter/Usher Refreshments Liturgist Communion 3 Ben & Diego Melissa Ann Setup: Ben/Esther Serve: Melissa/Elsa 10 Ben & Diego Luncheon Thomas 17 Ben & Diego Ben & Esther Karen 24 Ben & Diego Kandy Ben 31 Ben & Diego Ann & Gary Gary *If you are unavailable to serve on the date listed above, please make arrangements with someone to fill in for you. Financial Report January 2019 Income: $3,803.00 Expenses: $1,177.93 Total: $2,625.07 Thank you for your generous contributions as we continue to build for our future. Food Pantry As you give thanks for God’s many blessings, please remember those who are hungry and in need. Your thoughtful donations are greatly appreciated as we provide groceries to our neighbors. Between January 29th & February 19th, 19 people received groceries. “Truly I tell you, ‘Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’” Matthew 25:4 2 SUNDAY MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Ash Hancock HOB Worship George Wednesday Neighborhood Bourianoff’s Association Birthday Pancake Supper Food Pantry 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Daylight Savings Begins Starr Long’s Birthday Luncheon Food Pantry 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 St. Patrick’s Sebastian Day Kyle’s Birthday Luc & Candice Food Pantry Prose’ National Puppy Start of Spring Day ASH Lindsey Anniverary Laffere’s Birthday Shannon & Lee Spilman’s HOB Worship Anniversary 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Session Food Pantry 31 Don’t forget to set your Join us as we celebrate the clocks forward (if they don’t Welcome the first day of beginning of Lent on Ash do so on their own) for Spring as Winter goes Wednesday on MARCH 6TH! Daylight Savings Time on away on MARCH 20TH! MARCH 10TH! 3 In the Spotlight We worship together but there are many things we don’t know about one another. Each month, we will get to know some of our congregants better. Elise Ramirez I began attending Hyde Park Presbyterian as a young girl. Throughout the years, I have many profound memories of the church that include Sunday school, youth group, Christmas plays, Vacation Bible School and community events. In 2014, I met my husband Hank. We got engaged at the Riverwalk in San Antonio in 2016. On April 8, 2017 we married at Hyde Park Presbyterian. We have three sons and currently reside in Georgetown. Preston is fifteen years old and is in the 9th grade. He enjoys singing, listening to music, and hanging out with friends. Luke is twelve years old and is in 7th grade. He enjoys playing the trombone and his favorite subject is Science. Aiden is eleven years old and is in 5th grade. He enjoys playing soccer, reading comics and video games. Hank works at First National Bank Texas as a Financial Analyst and Enterprise Risk Manager. Our family pets include a dog named Merlin who we rescued in August of 2017 and a spotted leopard gecko named Marty. I am a Licensed Vocational Nurse. I’ve worked for thirteen years at Baylor Scott and White. Currently, I work in Family Medicine and Pediatrics. Additionally, I work as a clinical coach/ preceptor. At present, I am pursing my Registered Nursing Degree at Galen College. My expected date of graduation is December 20. Starr Long Starr McAuley Long has been making video games for over 25 years here in Austin and (briefly) in Los Angeles. He is married to Eugenie Bagur Long and they have one daughter, Anaïs Elisabeth Long. They live in Hyde Park in a beautiful 1923 Craftsman. Starr likes to travel with his family to places like Mexico and Europe, with Barcelona being a family favorite. He also likes playing video games, reading science fiction and fantasy, watching movies (a favorite date night), listening to music (live shows and recorded), collecting watches (he has over 100!), being a DJ in his latest video game, giving talks (conferences, schools, etc.), and scuba diving. Starr was born in 1970 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the only child of Zelda Klein Long (1948–2013) and Max "Cary" Long (1943–2003), who ran an antique store, Goudeau Antiques. He graduated in 1988 from Baton Rouge Magnet High School, and then attended Louisiana State University, earning a degree in Theatre in 1992. He did some part- time work building sets for local theaters such as Baton Rouge Opera, and then moved with some friends to Austin, Texas, where he continued at venues such as Live Oak Theatre. Because of the low pay in the theater business though, he began looking for other opportunities. On a whim, in September 1992 he responded to an ad looking for paid game testers, and to his surprise found himself suddenly hired by Richard Garriott's well-known game company Origin Systems (which shortly thereafter was acquired by Electronic Arts). At Origin, Long worked in Quality Assurance, documenting bugs on games such as Ultima VII, Wing Commander III, and ShadowCaster. 4 In the Spotlight He was soon promoted to QA Lead on games such as BioForge, then in 1995 to associate producer on Ultima IX, and to director of the first online version of the Ultima series, Ultima Online, where Long's online persona was known as Lord Blackthorn. The game was released in 1997, and though not the first graphical MMO, gained considerable attention as part of the popular Ultima series, attracting 250,000 players. It went on to win several awards, including being the first inductee to the GDC Online Awards Hall of Fame, and was listed by TIME magazine as one of the 100 greatest video games of all time. In 2000, Long and the Garriott brothers left Origin, and formed a new company, Destination Games. In 2001 it was acquired by Korea-based NCsoft, with the company's first game Tabula Rasa released in late 2007. That same year Starr was reunited with an old schoolmate from high school, Eugenie Bagur. They re-met through mutual friends in the game industry via Eugenie's sister Michelle Bagur. They instantly fell in love and got engaged. In 2008, Starr and Eugenie were married. That same year Starr was named one of the Top 20 Most Influential People in the Massively Multiplayer Online Industry by Beckett Massive Online Gamer Magazine. Later that year Richard and Starr parted ways for a time, with Garriott forming a new company, Portalarium, and Long moving his family to Los Angeles, where he was hired by The Walt Disney Company as an executive producer. When Eugenie and Starr arrived at their new home in Los Angeles they discovered they were pregnant with Anaïs! During the next several years, Long oversaw the creation of several social games and mobile apps for Disney and its subdivision Disney Interactive, such as the Disney Connected Learning Platform, the Disney Parent App for Facebook, several educational mini-games and a mobile version for Club Penguin, and several educational games for iPhones and iPads. Educators collaborating on the projects included Stanford University's Roy Pea and professors from the University of Georgia such as John Olive and Linda Labbo. Some games created were original concepts such as Pufflescape, Jelly Bean Counter, and Bits & Bolts, while others leveraged existing Disney properties, such as Cinderella Shapes & Patterns, Toy Story Letters & Letter Sounds, Fairies Art Studio, Ariel Numbers and Counting, Cars Numbers and Counting, and Disney Fairies Fashion Boutique.