Dear friends at UCG,

May is finally here and so is our interim minister, Rev. Dr. Donna Schaper! I’m excited to start the month off with welcoming her and her husband, Warren.  We will then say goodbye to Rev. Talia as she goes on her summer sabbatical towards the end of May.  We continue to work on improving our campus and as this newsletter gets out to everyone, I have hope the new bathrooms on the west side will be complete by the second or third Sunday of this month! Seminar B is getting close to reopening as well and I won’t spoil what the Campus Keepers have in store for introducing the new seminar rooms. What I can say is that lots of thought, discussions, dedication, thoughtfulness of reuse/repurpose, and love has gone into these projects. If you feel called to help Campus Keepers in their mission to continue to repair, rebuild, and renew our campus, please contact Erick Smith or myself.

Thank you to everyone for your patience as we work on our campus and for being flexible in limited spaces. I want to give a big shoutout to our childcare staff for handling the bathroom breaks across the courtyard. I can barely herd one toddler and cannot imagine the expert shepherding that happens every Sunday.

As we head into summer, I look forward to working alongside Rev. Donna and the summer planning committee. We will have yet another full and fun summer with our campus busy hosting summer camps, rentals, ongoing small groups, and other ways to stay connected, cool, and together, however known.

Take care,

Shanna Swiers