Dear Grace Family,
These announcements and prayer requests are being sent out every Thursday to inform us of what is happening in and the needs of our church. If you have an announcement or prayer request that you want to be included in next week’s email, please send it to office@gfccsf.org by Tuesday night.
Grace and peace,
The Session and Staff of GFCC
Announcements for the week of 07/15/24
Join Us for Sunday Worship, July 21 at 10:00 AM
Pastor Nelson Ng’ang’a will be preaching this Sunday.
We welcome Pastor Nelson to our pulpit this Sunday. He will be preaching from Psalm 1:1-3. “Planted by the Streams of Water”
Pastor Nelson is no stranger to our congregation as he has been a part of our congregation since September 2023.
Pastor Nelson is an ordained Presbyterian minister of the East African church. Since 2015, he has been the parish minister of the Presbyterian Church of East Africa Olooseos (Kenya). He followed in the footsteps of his father and father-in-law who are also ministers.
In 2022, Nelson was accepted into the one year Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) residency chaplaincy program at UCSF as an international student on J1-Visa.
By God’s grace, Nelson was led to Grace Fellowship Community Church and he has been worshiping as part of our congregation since his arrival in San Francisco. In addition, his wife, Annet, who many of us have met, also worships with us, via zoom!
The chaplaincy program ends in early September and Nelson will be returning to Kenya immediately.
We get the privilege of hearing Nelson preach on the Psalms and next week, during our Love Feast, he will be sharing about his vision for his ministry in Kenya.
We welcome back our Colombia team members - Clare Crawford, Kathy Lee and Jensa Woo.
We look forward to hearing from you about what God has shown you in your travels to Colombia and to the INFEMIT Forum!
Pastor Al will be staying behind in Colombia for INFEMIT board meetings. He will be back in the office on July 23.
Love Feast, Sunday, July 28
Join us for an informal lunch and a time of hearing from Pastor Nelson about “Bridge,” his vision for his ministry in Kenya.
This Is Us Quilt
Irene and team have begun the work of putting the crumbs together for our church’s This is Us quilt. We look forward to seeing the final piece of art!
Quilt 1
Quilt 2
Update from Devanand (Dave) Bhagwan
Pastor Al recently mentioned Dr. Dave Bhagwan in his sermon on hospitality. Robert Chiang and Caroline Kennedy had breakfast with him as he was traveling from Thailand back to Canada after a conference.
His ministry is:
Outreach to Punjabi Sikhs and Hindus
Here is an excerpt from a recent email:
Rani (Dave’s wife), Deepak (Dave’s son) and I will fly to New York on July 25 to work with a church primarily consisting of Guyanese members. This church, Faith Center, is located within two blocks of a Sikh temple, and numerous Punjabis (Sikhs and Hindus) pass by the church daily.
Faith Center desires to reach these individuals but needs to learn more about Punjabi culture and language. They have heard of our ministry to H1ndus and S1khs and would like to learn how to connect with this group. We would appreciate your prayers for us and the outreach in NYC.
Ministry Partners Update
Mid-Sabbatical Update from Brenden and Samantha Gutierrez-Graczak
“We are a bit over halfway through our sabbatical, and we have been so grateful for this space to connect with God, one another, and our city! Here are some highlights….”
Continue reading on the link below:
Mid-Sabbatical Update
Rise University Prep Work Day and BBQ, Saturday, August 10
We’re so excited to invite you and your congregation to our 2nd annual Bless the School Year Work Day & BBQ on Saturday, August 10th from 10am-2pm. During this special day, alongside many of our community partners and supporters we’ll be getting the campus ready for the new school year. Beginning at 10am, we will be sharing in work projects such as cleaning, organizing and even creating encouragement cards for students and staff. At 12pm noon we will fellowship together over a free BBQ lunch. To close out at 1pm we'll break off in groups to pray for the school and surrounding neighborhood.
It’ll be a great, fun opportunity to join in community and support our amazing Rise students and staff.
Registration link and flier can be found below. We hope you are able to join us!
Love and blessings,
Matthew Tejuco