A huge thank-you to everyone who contributed to our backpack project for local children and youth in foster care, and to all those who helped pack the backpacks last Sunday after church.

St. Michael’s popular twice-monthly Saturday community lunches were victims of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Burrito Love ministry, which provides a burrito lunch on the last Saturday of the month, has filled some of the gap created by the loss of those lunches. St. Michael’s is going to build on the success of the Burrito Love ministry by offering regular sack lunches. 

The Pride Parade is almost here! June 19 is the date, and we will be walking with Trinity Cathedral and other Episcopal churches. We are in the line-up at #48 and are massing on NW Everett, between NW Park and 8th Avenue. Look for the Trinity banner and plan to be there by 11:30 (or whenever you can, after church).

Following this Sunday’s 10:00 am service, the Advocacy Action Committee will have letters for you to sign asking our local members of Congress to support the creation of a Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School policies in the United States (H.R. 5444/S. 2907). This commission will be dedicated to addressing the legacy of violence and abuse perpetrated by boarding schools in this country, including some run by the Episcopal Church, that removed Indigenous children from their families and forced them to participate in the boarding school system.

On Sunday, May 29, the St. Michael’s Reckoning with Racism (RwR) group (formed in 2020) and clergy invite you to join us in a liturgy to experience our baptismal covenant more deeply and better understand our responsibility as Episcopalians to see and dismantle the systems that perpetuate racism. We look forward to sharing this experience with you.

The Advocacy Action Committee will gather signatures on a pair of gun control petitions this Sunday, May 15, from 10:00 until 10:50 am in the Gallery. The petitions would place IP17 (safer owners and less lethal ammunition) and IP 18 (stops proliferation of assault weapons), on the November ballot.

On February 9, a bipartisan group of senators introduced S3623, the Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization Act (VAWA) of 2022. The bill, which would authorize VAWA through 2027, preserves advances made in previous reauthorization bills and includes several additional improvements to the current law.

One Lenten practice at St. Michael’s has been to seek a deeper understanding how we can more fully live into our commitment to “Seek justice. Love Mercy. And Walk Humbly with God.” With that in mind, the Immigrant Welcoming Congregation (IWC) team would like to invite you, whether you speak English or Spanish, to participate in a Lenten book study group that will explore what it means to be “undocumented” in this country.

The Treasury Transparency Bill (HB 4115), which is currently making its way through the legislature, would ensure the Oregon Treasury makes its investments and climate-risk analyses transparent to the public. This would make it possible for citizens to know where their money is being invested as well as how these investments put local communities at risk.