Dear Friends,

Don’t forget your gently used or new undies for our homeless guests! Please bring these important items for our sweet friends at Room in the Inn. There will be a suitcase in the Fellowship Hall to collect these items.

Emalie

William Wallace Brown, Jr., who died Oct. 17, 2004, at age 68, was given a permanent resting place in the burial garden at St. John’s Episcopal Church, across from the White House, according to The Washington Post. St. John’s is called the “church of presidents” since nearly every U.S. leader since James Madison has worshiped there.

Mr. Brown was invited into the church by President George H.W. Bush. One day in 1989, Mr. Brown was waiting outside the church, as was his custom, when he spotted the president striding into the worship service.  He called out, “Mr. President!  Will you pray for me?”

William Brown had lived on the streets for fifteen years. His gloves and shoes were riddled with holes, and his coat was threadbare. Yet, he had the temerity to ask the president to pray for him. President Bush did not agree to pray for this homeless man. He made him a better offer.  “Mr. President, will you pray for me?”

President Bush answered, “No. Come inside with us and pray for yourself!”  Mr. Brown accepted the president’s invitation that day, and continued attending the church until his death in 2004.  Members reported that Mr. Brown placed a crumpled dollar bill into the silver collection plate every week.

William was invited into a church by the president. Who invited you to come inside?  Whom will you welcome into God’s house?

Please join us in welcoming our homeless guests to Room In The Inn.  Will you pray for this ministry?  Will you come and see for yourself?

Call Judy or Emalie for more information. 615-403-8455.

Many thanks to our new innkeeper, Joe Gleaves.  He has all the qualities we need in an innkeeper.  He remains cheerful and helpful on very little sleep, and he listens to ridiculous stories with patience and calm.

Join us on the second Friday of the cold weather months as we welcome our homeless guests to Room In the Inn at Andrew Price UMC.  We need cooks, servers, dish washers, inn keepers, lunch makers, coffee makers (people who can make coffee, there is a coffee maker machine there, but it is not fool proof), and gentle listeners. Call Emalie or Judy if you would like more information. 615-403-8455.

Hickory Bend will be welcoming more homeless guests to Room In The Inn this season.  Our first evening is November 26th, the day after Thanksgiving.

We will need many of you to volunteer again, and we would love to have new volunteers!  Will you join us for any of these duties?

• serving supper
• bringing part of the meal
• making beds
• handing out lingerie
• making lunches
• doing laundry
• inkeeping
• making breakfast
• cleaning up

Have you considered spending the night with us?  We always need more inkeepers.  You will spend the night with our ten guests, visiting, playing a game, listening, or just sitting quietly.  The fragile lives of our guests have been torn apart by broken relationships.  Do you have an evening to sit with a homeless guest?  You’ll never forget your conversation. Your friendship is healing and comforting to our guests.

If you have any questions about joining our ministry with Room In The Inn, call Judy at 615-754-4482, or Emalie at 615-403-8455.

The trustees and the Long Range Planning Committee will prioritize the projects that require mostly time and attention.  These projects include: showing movies outdoors, recording the entire worship service for the website, repairing the cold water tap in the men’s restroom, cleaning the trail and garden, inviting more people to Sunday School, cleaning and sprucing up the shelter, building our membership by inviting others, improving our phone system, setting up the ceiling fan, trimming trees to increase visibility, moving the wi-fi, setting up an account with PayPal.

The second category contains projects that we believe can be accomplished with reasonable effort.  The projects in this category, in the order prioritized by the council are:

1.  Moving forward with the Building Entrance
2. Replacing the fellowship hall floor
3.  Replacing the kitchen floor
4.  Paying our apportionments in full
5.  Installing a safety gate

To guide us in our progress completing these major projects, the council has decided to form a building committee.   The top priority identified by the council is our new building entrance!  We have plans for a visible, obvious, accessible, welcoming entrance for our church building!  Jim Adair has agreed to serve as the chair of this new committee.  Many, many thanks, Jim!

For the Pie In the Sky category, in no particular order, we have listed a new building, a new sanctuary, following the original master plan for building and expansion, increasing curb appeal, giving back more, establishing an endowment, adding more staff, establishing a soup kitchen, building a retreat facility, adding a viable child care center with its own wing, adding a large kitchen with an island and two sinks, adding showers and laundry so we could host Room In The Inn, adding a women’s restroom.  These projects are for Long Range Planning to address.

Please let your council members know of your hopes and dreams for HBUMC.  We can work together to make all of these wonderful ideas come to life.

Emalie

Please come to our rescheduled council meeting immediately after worship, on April 18.  Everyone is welcome, and we have many exciting projects in the pipeline.  Your input is very important.  Come and throw in your two cents.

Come help Hickory Bend make Room In The Inn!  We have a few more Room In The Inn events this season.

Come help us make beds, serve supper, pass out lingerie, or play games.

We need to train a few more innkeepers.  Have you considered spending the night with us?  We would like to expand our ministry to an additional week next season.  In order to do this we need a few more innkeepers.  Your primary responsibilities are to . . . well . . . to sleep!  Could you spend one night with our homeless guests?  If Hickory Bend could train a few more inkeepers, we could double the blessings.  If you have any questions about the responsibilities of an inkeeper, call Judy at 615-754-4482, or Emalie at 615-403-8455.

Only two more nights this season:
February 26, 2010
March 26, 2010

Emalie

We are assigned the fourth Friday of the month, so our dates are:

November 27, 2009
December 25, 2009
January 22, 2010
February 26, 2010
March 26, 2010

We have an Undie Sunday planned for November 22nd.  Please begin collecting  new or gently used undies.  We need lots of underwear in the size 5-8 range.  We also needs other items of foundation garments like pajamas, robes, sweatsuits, slippers, and socks.  Pantyhose are very popular.  “They add a lot of warmth, and they keep your pants from freezing to your legs,” said one of our favorite guests.

If you would like to come visit one night, just to check us out, please come.  Call Judy, Ron, or Emalie.