If you would like to participate in the Birthday Bags Program again, it would be much appreciated! The children in the Westby & Coon Valley Elementary Schools received a birthday bag last year at the time of their birthday (summer birthdays also received one at some point during the school year). They loved it!
We need all birthday bags to be uniform so that there is no difference in any of the bags. In order to do this, please include ONLY the following items:
Basic Cake Mix, frosting, 2 single servings of applesauce (this is a substitute for the eggs & oil), a pan (please go with a shorter pan so that it will fit into the bags better), a “Happy Birthday” banner, and a plain, basic bag.
PLEASE DO NOT INCLUDE CANDLES OR ANYTHING “EXTRA”.
If you are a member of a group / organization and would like to make a donation toward the cost of purchasing items to put these bags together, you can do that too! Please make your check payable to WCP and write “Birthday Bags” on the memo line. Your generosity is felt and appreciated very much!!!
Created and called by God for a purpose - to tend and care for creation - we are given a promise, to be counted among the stars of God’s family. Within this family, God creates a way for us to survive, that out of death and despair, we are freed into the light of new life. But we forget God’s story. We fall away from the purpose for which we have been created. We grow impatient with God’s plan. So where does that leaves us? With a God, who loves us deeply, knows us by name, hears our prayers, remembers us each day and promises to wait for us through the very end.
Sept. 11, 2016 Creation and Fall Genesis 2:4b-7, 15-17
Created and called by God for a purpose (to “steward,” tend and care for creation), humankind is given the unique gift of “open eyes.” We know our Creator, and we know our place in creation; the tension in this vision of the world is that we must embrace our calling, and resist the temptation to reach above ourselves and our place, thinking that we are “like God.”
Sept. 18, 2016 Abraham’s Descendants Genesis 15:1-6
Abraham’s descendants are created by God’s promise.
Abraham is anxious that he will not live to see God’s promise – that he will make of him a great nation (Genesis 12:1-3). When God reiterates the promise, Abraham believes in God’s promise, he trusts that God’s word is good; this trust is the source of Abraham’s “righteousness” before God.
Sept. 25, 2016 Joseph, the Dreamer
Genesis 37:3-8,17-22, 26-34; 50:15-21
God creates a way for the chosen people to survive by giving Joseph the gift of dreams – seeing a vision for his family’s future. Joseph’s gift causes division in the family, but his forgiveness (a model of both Divine and human forgiveness) “works for good,” out of the bad.
Oct. 2, 2016 Passover and Deliverance Exodus 12:1- 14; 13:1-10
The people of Israel are told to make a “day of remembrance,” in which the story of the Passover, and God’s delivering God’s people from captivity is told and retold. In worship, people remember and tell the story of what God has done for them. We do this in our worship as well; in the Passover and in the Lord’s Supper, we are telling how God creates freedom, and new life, and a nation/church, out of death and despair.
Birthday Bags ... 
