Dear Church Family and Friends,

We’ll be busy at First Presbyterian Church!

On Wednesday, March 17, we will celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with a pot luck dinner and a program presented by Mary Beth Lysobey, the Moderator of the Arkansas Presbytery Presbyterian Women. She will present a PowerPoint program on her trip to the Czech Republic, Hungary and the Ukraine. She will share her mission experiences of being a guest in a home in each of the three countries and will tell about Christians’ struggles during and after Communism. The title of her presentation is “Joined and Knit Together in Love.” Dinner is at 5:30 p.m. and the program will begin immediately following the meal.

Our second annual Kite Flying Festival will take place again at our church on March 27 and 28. On Saturday, the children of our community will be invited to come to our fellowship hall to construct a kite. Then on Sunday they will be invited back to sail their kite. We are hoping to have a nice crowd for both events. If you would like to help, we will need adults to supervise the children; and, of course, as always, we will be serving cookies!

March 28 is also Palm Sunday and the beginning of Holy Week. On Sunday, we will have a procession with the palms and communion will be served. Moving into Holy Week, a Maundy Thursday service will be held on April 1 and communion will also be served at that service.

Please remember that April 4 is Easter Sunday this year and the One Great Hour of Sharing offering will be taken up during the service. A large portion of the offering is used to assist the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance program. As you know, it will take a long time for the people of Haiti to recover from the devastating effects of the earthquake that hit in mid January and the PDA is doing a wonderful job of responding to that need.

It’s not too early to begin thinking about our exciting new adventure with Ferncliff Camp! “Be A Hero” is the theme of the church day camp that will be held at our church on July 5 — 9. Three college age counselors will be coming from Ferncliff to conduct the camp, but we will need lots of folks help to assist in the endeavor. There is a job for everyone!! Cookies and snacks to prepare, meals for the counselors, housing, and help with the children are just a few of our needs for the week.

I have mentioned just a few of the special events taking place in our church. Our monthly meetings, Bible Studies and women’s and men’s gatherings are continuing to build steam, so don’t miss out on the many opportunities to share, serve, learn and grow.

Looking forward to seeing you at church!

Your Pastor,

Nancy Taylor

March 2010 Page 3

CHURCH GROWTH

February 15, 2010

Those present at the meeting were Tom Rucker, Lillian Euers, Joyce Johnson, Frank Root, Pastor Nancy, Gary Adler, Bud Hough and Kay Kunkel

We are moving up to the Rookie League! We decided that we would like to try a new league to promote the church. This league is all boys that we will be in. We will know in a couple of weeks which team will be ours and what the colors will be, etc... We will keep you posted when we know more, so stay tuned!

Things are moving closer to having an advertizing center. We hope to have one central committee to coordinate all the news of the church. This will allow us to be in the newspaper more often. Each group will let the coordinator know their news and he/she will be responsible to get the news to the appropriate place. This will facilitate our getting more coverage. We will be getting the pictures of the elders up in fellowship hall, possibly next month. Be sure to keep an eye out to see where they are going!

The kite flying will be March 27 and 28 this year. We will need the cookie machine to be working like they did last year. We will be making the kites on March 27th and will be flying them on March 28th We had such a good time last year and hopefully more kids will hear about it. The times will be 2-4 on both days.

Our church is having a Vacation Bible School Christian Education is going to handle it. Be sure to be willing to help if it is needed. Frank Root is the one to contact if you want more information.

Don’t forget we will be having Treat in a Trunk this Halloween. We will let you know the date for our church.

We are working on something BIG!! Electronics! We are looking into the feasibility of having the Sunday school and maybe even the sermon live via telephone. We think that this will really benefit out shut-ins and those that can’t attend church. We are moving up in the ‘cyber’ world and reaching out to the ones that need us. More on this later as we find out more.

There have been several people that have expressed interest in getting a church shirt. Please let me, Kay, know if you are interested. For those that don’t know about the shirts, they are white polo knit shirts with the First Presbyterian Church of Mountain Home, Ar. Embroidered on them.

Kay Kunkel

THANK YOU

I would like to thank everyone who helped me in so many ways while my hand and arm was in a cast due to a slip on the Icy driveway which resulted in a fractured wrist.

Janet Newman took over the first service at the organ while Charlotte Cherry played her flute for the prelude and offertory. Janet also played a piano solo for a prelude and Charlotte again played an offertory. Wayne Faust played a clarinet solo for an offertory.

Thanks, ladles, in the choir room for getting me into my robe. And thanks to the choir for putting up with a minimal amount of notes being played with my right hand. By the time you read this, I’m hoping to get this cast off. Thanks to Pastor Nancy and everyone else for their prayers.

Sincerely, Marilyn Seel (organ Grinder — a nickname affectionately given to me by Phil Mammel).

March 2010 Page 5

EVANGELISM & OUTREACH CORNER

It has come to my attention often times you, Gods’ particular people, give generously from the heart when asked. Then as time goes by, you wonder where your money went, what is it doing, how much money was actually donated by the church on your behalf? I was going to explain some of this in the E & 0 Minute for Mission, but this quickly became too lengthy for a one-hour worship service. So, I am going to include an update in the Redbud. Last year First Presbyterian Church gave $500.00 to the Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship, which is:

* Committed to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, seeking the Empowerment of the Holy Spirit, rooted in Scripture and Prayer, devoted to faithful stewardship of life and possessions, boldly proclaiming the gospel to every people, serving the Presbyterian Church (USA),uplifting the congregation’s faithfulness to God’s mission calling, focusing on the congregation as a wellspring for mission initiative, calling forth People Movements to Jesus among unreached people groups, advocating the indigenous expressions of the body of Christ in all people groups, supporting the planting of indigenous churches committed to God’s Mission, advocating a partnership approach to mission and committed to the unity of the global church in mission.

Thank You, in Christ

Gary Adler

The special couple of the month of March is Beverly and Ed Preble.

Beverly was born in Iowa and grew up on a farm. She moved to the Denver, Colorado area in the early 60’s and worked as a secretary for several years and following that she managed a health food store. Since retiring to Mountain Home she has joined the Audubon society and the welcome Club. She enjoys travel, hiking and crossword puzzles.

Ed was born in St. Louis, Missouri and grew up as a “military brat” and lived in Nebraska, Utah, Arlington, Virginia and the Philippines. He served in the U. S. Army from 1952 to 1954. After getting out of the service he became an airplane mechanic, working for united Airlines in Seattle, Denver and Phoenix. He retired in 1989 after nearly 30 years. Ed has enjoyed boating and water skiing over the years. He loves music and is an avid ‘listener” as well as playing a horn and presently singing in our church choir.

Beverly and Ed lived in Colorado for several years, spent five years in Prescott, Arizona, and moved to Mountain Home in 1992. While living in Arizona they did a lot of hiking in Arizona and southern Utah from which they have many wonderful memories. They have four children and four grandchildren all living in Colorado. Beverly and Ed are recent new members of our church and we all welcome them.

The Department of Human Services of Baxter County

To All church members, we wish to thank all of you for the wonderful Christmas

Gifts. Our foster children had a great Christmas because of people like you.

Have a great year in 2010.

Thank you again!

Kathleen M. Maple, Nancy Allen, John Morin, Pat Blades, Shanna Rencher

In Sympathy:

The congregation extends sympathy to the family of Mrs. Verda Brenner, who died Wednesday, February 3, 2010. She lived in Blue Springs, Missouri with her family. She celebrated her 101th birthday on Monday, January 25th, 2010. Cards may be sent to Mr. and Mrs. Will Triplet ‘Charlene) at 184 Shoreline Drive, Mountain Home, AR.