150,000 Meals for Haiti!

Haiti Service Opportunities from Northland Media Design on Vimeo.

Over the course of two Saturdays, more than 900 Northlanders helped pack thousands of meals that will go directly into the hands of hungry Haitians. Find many serving opportunities like this at www.northlandchurch.net/serve

Haiti Disaster Response Team 2: Departing February 13

 

 

Celebrate Recovery to Launch “Men’s Co-Dependency” Small Group

More than 50 faithful followers of Jesus Christ attended Celebrate Recovery this week. Of those, there were three newcomers. Celebrate Recovery is all about the newcomer because as we all know, taking that first step on the road to recovery is the most difficult.

This week's message was "Hope, Principle 2—Earnestly believe that God exists, that I matter to Him, and that He has the power to help me recover."

The Bible says, "Happy are those who mourn for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:4). Simply put, my life without Christ is a hopeless end; with Him it is an endless hope!

Every Friday night, we hear praise reports from those in attendance about how important Celebrate Recovery has become in their quest to heal from the hurts, habits and hang-ups that have long held them captive and been strongholds in their lives.

A men's co-dependency small group will begin on Friday, February 19. Praise God as He continues to raise up leaders to facilitate the needs of those who walk through our doors every Friday.

The "step study" classes will also begin next week. This is the deep dive into the 12 steps to recovery. The mens step study group will be held on Wednesday evenings starting on Wednesday, Feb 10. The womens step study will be held on Thursday evenings beginning Thursday, February 11.

Both step study groups will be meeting in an assigned classroom at Northland. Please stop by the Welcome Desk for information and classroom locations.

If you have questions or would like more information about Celebrate Recovery please contact Laurie Jean Harrington at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

How to Access Your Giving Statement

Northland is committed to reducing costs as part of an ongoing effort to be good stewards of your tithes and offerings. One of the steps we’re taking together as a congregation is moving away from mailing giving statements to your home. This move will save the church literally thousands of dollars in postage and printing costs, and will help to reduce paper usage as we care for God’s creation.

Your giving records are now available via Northland’s secure online giving system (the following screenshots give you a step-by-step overview).

Your 2009 giving statement is now available for download. If you’d still prefer to receive your upcoming giving statement in the mail, contact Twila Roberts at 407-949-7181 or (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), and she will gladly take care of that for you.

Also, in the past, we automatically sent giving envelopes to you in the mail each year. While we are still happy to provide those, we will no longer be sending them automatically. Again, this is to reduce costs and paper usage.

Thank you for your faithfulness as you worship Him with your tithes and offerings! Twila is available if you have any questions about these changes or if you have other giving-related questions.

STEP 1: Go to www.northlandchurch.net and click on “Tithes & Offerings.”

STEP 2: Log in using the same ID and password you use for online worship. If you don’t have an account, you can register for one.

STEP 3: Your giving dashboard gives an overview of all of your tithes and offerings. Whether you’ve given by check, online or at one of the church’s kiosks, all of your giving is shown in this secure environment.

STEP 4: Click on the “Contributions” tab to give your tithes and offerings via secure transaction. You can make a one-time gift, or set up recurring giving via bank draft or credit card.

STEP 5: Click on the "History" tab to view all of your giving transactions in 2009. (If your history is not viewable, your account is not yet synced. Please contact Twila Roberts at 407-949-7181 or (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) for assistance.) To download a printable PDF copy of your giving statement for 2009, simply click on the button that says "Tax Report 2009" (the free program Adobe Acrobat Reader is required to view and print your statement, available at http://get.adobe.com/reader).

VIDEO: Disaster Response Team Member Interviewed by WKMG Channel 6

April Hedrick, a nurse with Florida Hospitals and a member of Northland's Disaster Response Team, talks with WKMG's Flashpoint program about her experiences serving in Haiti. Click to watch now.

VIDEO: Six Minutes in Haiti

Six Minutes in Haiti from Northland Church on Vimeo.

A first-person look at the crisis in Haiti, as documented by James Price, a member of Northland's Disaster Response Team. James served with 16 other Northlanders at Adventist Hospital in the city of Diquini just days after a 7.0-magnitude quake devastated the country.

Last weekend’s prayer

Last weekend we closed our worship services with a congregational prayer of confession and commitment. Through emails, tweets and Facebook messages, many of you asked for copies of that prayer, so here it is. I would encourage you to keep this as your prayer throughout the week.

 

Creator God, we acknowledge You as the One who formed each of us in our mother’s womb. 

Every human being has been fearfully and wonderfully made, created in Your image.

O Lord, we have no excuse for treating with contempt those You have created.

Please forgive us for the times we have shown disrespect to others, especially those in our own families.  

Forgive us for trying to undermine them, for accusations and demeaning words. 

We have seen the damage this has done. 

We have not often enough praised our spouses, our children, our parents, our grandparents and our friends. 

Please lead us to the intimacy that follows honor, the kind of closeness that follows respect and courtesy. 

We pray for all of our relationships to be built upon the foundation of respect. 

We humble ourselves before You and ask You make us more like Jesus. 

Amen.

 

Photo credit: Lay It All Down For The Lord by Will Foster Photography licensed under Creative Commons.

Update: I updated the prayer with the final version which was used in the service. Sorry for any confusion.

SKYWARN: Weather Spotter Training Coming February 8

The Northland Disaster Response Team has been blessed with another training opportunity.

On Monday evening, February 8, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., Scott Spratt, Warning Coordination Meteorologist with the National Weather Service, will present the SKYWARN Weather Spotter training at Northland in Longwood, in Rooms 4213-15-17.

SKYWARN is a program developed and taught by National Weather Service (NWS) meteorologists and consists of trained weather spotters who report severe and hazardous weather to help in the weather warning process. SKYWARN Spotter reports provide vital “ground truth” to the NWS. The reports serve the NWS mission of protecting life and property in three ways: 1) Assists with present and future warning decisions; 2) Confirms hazardous weather detected by NWS radar; 3) Provides verification information, which can be used for future research and to improve warning efforts.

SKYWARN is a volunteer public service for those 18 years or older. Those younger than 18 are encouraged to attend a training session to learn about the dangers of weather, however, they will not generally be awarded Spotter certificates.

Basic SKYWARN two-hour training session covers the following topics:

The National Weather Service (NWS)
History of severe weather in East Central Florida
Reporting your observations to the NWS
Weather definitions
Florida weather hazards
Weather safety
How thunderstorms form
Moisture
Instability
Lifting Mechanism
Wind Shear
The thunderstorm life cycle
Towering cumulus stage
Mature stage
Dissipation stage
Visual clues of storm strength
The squall line
Radar and 3D view
Shelf cloud
The supercell thunderstorm
Visually name storm features
A new precipitation reporting network (http://www.cocorahs.org)


THE CLASS IS LIMITED TO 80 PARTICIPANTS and is open to the public, so CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP as soon as you can!

Obviously, if there is any threat of severe weather on February 8, our trainer, Scott Spratt, will not be able to attend and we will have to reschedule the class. Scott is a great teacher and you will learn so much in these two hours about weather. If you have any questions, please contact Gretchen Kerr ((JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)), or Debbie Hanley ((JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address))

SLIDESHOW: 51,000 Meals for Haiti / Citrus Harvest for the Hungry

Last Saturday, January 23, more than 500 Northlanders volunteered to help feed the hungry, both here and abroad. In partnership with Kids Against Hunger, they packed 51,000 meals for Haiti in just three hours. Those meals will soon be on their way and will be placed directly into the hands of the Haitian people.

Many also picked citrus from local backyard and groves to help feed hungry people in our own community. More than 11,000 pounds was collected in less than one day! The entire harvest will go to local shelters, food banks and soup kitchens throughout Central Florida.

Three other local ministry partners also benefitted from Northland's Serve Team efforts, including Harvest Time International, The Hope Foundation, and The Sharing Center.

Thank you to everyone who served! Click here to SERVE OTHERS at future serving opportunities.

ORLANDO SENTINEL: Local volunteer tells of “organized chaos” in Haiti

By Jeff Kunerth, Orlando Sentinel, January 23, 2010

At night, the homeless of Haiti make their beds in the streets of Port-au-Prince, cordoning themselves off from the cars and trucks with rows of rocks and chunks of concrete, said a disaster-relief volunteer who returned to Central Florida on Thursday. In the morning, they get up, remove the rocks from the streets and the traffic returns.

"It's a wild place right now. People are basically living in the streets," said Joel Timyan, 52, who was in Haiti for four days as part of the disaster-relief team sent by Northland, a Church Distributed, in Longwood.

Timyan, who lived in Haiti for 30 years, was sent by the church Sunday to help with the logistics of getting people from the Port-au-Prince airport to the Seventh Day Adventist hospital in Diquini — one of the few hospitals not destroyed by the earthquake.

He was one of about 100 people who went on the mission, organized by ACTS World Relief, in conjunction with the General Conference of Seventh Day Adventists that included about two dozen people from Florida Hospital and 17 from Northland church's disaster response team. The group's purpose was to set up a base of medical operations near the Port-au-Prince airport.

While there, Timyan, of Oak Hill, was rustling up people he knew in Haiti who had cars and trucks that could be used to transport people. For the four days he was there, Timyan said, there was little time to rest or sleep.

"Haiti was a disaster before this disaster," he said. "I was impressed with how well the people of Haiti are taking it. They are resilient people."

Timyan said he was awakened from his sleep early Wednesday morning when a 5.9 magnitude aftershock hit the island. He was so exhausted, he said, the tremors hardly phased him. He was ready by then to return home where people aren't sleeping in the streets at night, bodies aren't rotting in the sun, and hospitals don't run out of water.

"This was my first disaster-relief mission. It's organized chaos. You are devoid of any sleep, and you are on your own," he said. "I'd love to go back when things settle down and it's not so stressful."

He left, though, with a renewed and heightened respect for the Haitian people who had so little to begin with and lost it all.

"I don't know how Haiti can rebuild with the resources available to them," he said. "And yet, they will survive. I know they will survive."

Jeff Kunerth can be reached at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or 407-420-5392.

Copyright © 2010, Orlando Sentinel

Find this article at: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/os-northland-haitian-disaster-20100122,0,3714992.story