Garage/rummage-sale fans converged on West Seattle’s two mega-sales as soon as the doors opened at nine this morning. Above, the wide view of just one of the rooms full of stuff on sale at Tibbetts United Methodist Church (WSB sponsor), 3940 41st SW – you’ll also find items like sports gear and furniture outside, including this eye-catching chair:

Tibbetts’ sale continues till 4 pm today, and will run again 9 am-3 pm tomorrow. (If you like to plan ahead, check out the Christmas-decorations table by the stage!)

Just a few blocks away, at 3601 California SW, West Side Presbyterian Church is in full sale swing too:

Theirs also spans multiple rooms – you will be offered a map as you step inside. And as is always the case with rummage/garage sales, you can find “they don’t make ‘em like that” type finds – reel-to-reel, anyone?

WSPC’s sale continues till 5 today, and runs 9 am-2 pm tomorrow (it even has its own Facebook page). Be sure to look for the extensive bake-sale area inside the north side of the church.

Side note: Registration for this year’s West Seattle Community Garage Sale Day, presented and coordinated again this year by WSB, will start Monday, April 2nd … more to come. WS Garage Sale Day itself is Saturday, May 12th, 9 am-3 pm.

(Photo courtesy Alki UCC)
Alki United Church of Christ sent that photo along with an announcement of its “semi-spontaneous all-church Christmas pageant” 10 am tomorrow at 6115 SW Hinds: “Come as you are, or come dressed as an angel, shepherd or magi. Or grab something from the church costume racks when you arrive (though kids get first dibs!).” That’s one of the announcements we received after posting requests for church info; we also combed the Web, and here’s the result – a list of services tonight/tomorrow at West Seattle churches. For some of these churches, we have even more information on the WSB Holidays page, but here are the basics, in alphabetical order:

ADMIRAL UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST (California/Hill):
Christmas Eve candlelight worship service with carols, 9 pm
Christmas Day, 10:30 am

ALKI UCC CHURCH (6112 SW Hinds):
Christmas Eve: 5 pm “designed for families with young children,” 10 pm candlelight service
Christmas Day: 10 am (as mentioned above)

ARBOR HEIGHTS COMMUNITY CHURCH (41st/102nd):
Christmas Day: 10 am

BETHANY COMMUNITY CHURCH-WEST SEATTLE (meets at High Point Community Center, 6920 34th SW; WSB sponsor)
Christmas Eve “family celebration”: 4 PM

EASTRIDGE CHURCH-WEST SEATTLE (39th/Oregon):
Christmas Eve: 5:30 pm
Christmas Day: 11 am

FAUNTLEROY UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST (9140 California SW):
Christmas Eve: 4 pm children’s service, 7 pm all ages, 11 pm Communion service
Christmas Day: 10 am

FIRST LUTHERAN CHURCH OF WEST SEATTLE (4105 California SW):
Christmas Eve: 11 pm, Liturgy of Lessons, Carols, and Holy Eucharist
Christmas Day: 10:30 am, Festival Liturgy and Holy Eucharist in the nave

HILLCREST PRESBYTERIAN (10404 34th SW):
Christmas Day – 11 am

HOLY FAMILY CATHOLIC CHURCH (20th/Roxbury):
Christmas Eve: Mass at 5 (English), 6:30 (Spanish), 9 pm (Tagalog)
Christmas Day: 8 & 11 am (English), 9:30 & 12:30 (Spanish), 6 pm (Tagalog)

HOLY ROSARY CATHOLIC CHURCH: (42nd/Genesee)
Christmas Eve: 4 pm, 7.30 pm, 10 pm
Christmas Day: 8 and 9.30 am

HOPE LUTHERAN CHURCH (42nd/Oregon):
Christmas Eve: 5 pm family service, 7 pm contemporary, 11 pm candlelight Communion
Christmas Day: 10:30 am

LIFE CHURCH (35th/Cloverdale):
Christmas Eve: 6:30 pm

MARS HILL CHURCH-WEST SEATTLE (7551 35th SW):
Christmas Day: 10:30 am

NEW APOSTOLIC CHURCH (3210 SW 106th):
Christmas Day: 10:30 am

OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE CATHOLIC CHURCH (35th/Myrtle):
Christmas Eve: 4 pm Family Mass, 10 pm Mass with choir
Christmas Day: 10 am morning Mass

PEACE LUTHERAN CHURCH (39th/Thistle):
Christmas Eve: 5 pm family, 10 pm candlelight
Christmas Day: 10:30 am

ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH (3050 California SW):
Christmas Eve: 5 pm Children’s Pageant/Eucharist, 10 pm Festival Eucharist
Christmas Day: 10 am Holy Eucharist

TIBBETTS UNITED METHODIST CHURCH (3940 41st SW; WSB sponsor):
Celtic Christmas Eve Service at 8 pm: Poems and carols from Ireland, Scotland and Wales. “The bagpipes will be playing, the candles glowing and the Christ Child will be carried through the congregation during the Christmas Hail.”
Christmas Day: 10 am

WEST SEATTLE BAPTIST CHURCH (4157 California SW):
Christmas Eve: 6:30 pm candle-lighting service

WEST SEATTLE CHRISTIAN CHURCH (42nd between Oregon and Genesee):
Christmas Eve: 6 pm in the activity center
Christmas Day: 9 am

WEST SEATTLE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH: (3601 California SW):
Christmas Eve: 5 pm family-friendly, 11 pm Communion
Christmas Day: 11 am

WESTSIDE UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST CONGREGATION (7141 California SW):
Christmas Eve: 5 pm “family-friendly” service including “Christmas in the Barn” pageant (you can participate if you choose) and candy-cane communion; 8 pm reception; 9 pm candlelight service
Christmas Day: 10:30 am

(Your church missing? That means no one e-mailed us AND we couldn’t find info online – but we’ll be happy to add it; please e-mail address, time/s, link if available, ASAP, to editor@westseattleblog.com)

That’s our first video clip from tonight’s Our Lady of Guadalupe tree lighting in Sunrise Heights – first the countdown by emcee Brian Callanan (an OLG parishioner and longtime local TV newsperson who’s now with Seattle Channel), then “O Christmas Tree/O Tannenbaum,” featuring not just the hundreds-strong crowd and OLG choir members caroling, but also Engine 37 roaring north on 35th to a call, and a brightly lit pickup truck turning up in the lower part of the frame.

Something new is largely unseen (given the time of night) off to the left of the frame – the new Parish Life Center that has almost fully taken shape north of the church. As Brian noted – sharing the impromptu under-the-tree stage with OLG’s Father Jack Walmesley – next year, the post-tree-lighting cocoa and chatting will happen inside the new center, instead of the school building. Here’s more from tonight’s event – two of the songs that preceded the actual lighting:

If you love Christmas caroling, make a note to be at this event next year – the crowd went through all the classics (with a program featuring lyrics, in case you’ve forgotten them), including the ever-popular “Jingle Bells” accompanied by car keys.

It’s the only Christmas tree lot in West Seattle where the trees get blessed. A few hours after the Holy Rosary School Tree Lot opened for the season this afternoon, we were there as Father John Madigan (with an assist by young Sam Lee) presided over the annual Blessing of the Trees:

In addition to supporting the school, 15 percent of the tree lot’s proceeds go toward four beneficiaries this year: West Seattle Food Bank, the Salvation Army‘s Hickman House domestic-violence shelter, and West Seattle Helpline, as usual, plus the Ed Kingston Memorial Fund. This is the lot’s second year on school property next to the playground (41st/Dakota); you can see the hours, and the merchandise, here. (A full roster of West Seattle tree sellers is on the WSB West Seattle Holiday Events and Info page.)

(WSB photo from Eastridge turkey giveaway, November 2009)
Two weeks till Thanksgiving – and here’s one of many local examples of the “giving” part of the holiday: Eastridge Church has announced its annual turkey/groceries giveaway. It’s donating 1,000 turkeys and bags of groceries, split between its two campuses here in West Seattle and in Issaquah. The giveaway has drawn long lines the past few years and will start at 9 am Saturday, November 19th, at the 39th/Oregon campus.

By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

After almost 15 years, Rev. Peter DeVeau will deliver his last sermon to West Seattle’s St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church tomorrow.

His departure is entwined with a return – he is going to lead the Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral congregation in Kansas City, where he served for more than 6 years earlier in his career.

Sunday night, community members are invited to a farewell celebration at St. John’s. We caught up with him late Friday for a look back, and ahead.

Walking through the hallways of St. John’s to get to the library, Rev. DeVeau points out wall-hangings depicting its history. The church is the oldest congregation in West Seattle, he says, founded in 1892, and its current site is on the site once home to Holy Rosary Catholic Church (now of course on the north end of The Junction).

He is clearly excited about his new congregation and his new city, describing it as “Midwestern but not, Southern but not, Western but not, looking west for its energy, unlike St. Louis” (on the other side of the state). The cathedral, he says, is at the city’s “crossroads,” in an 1886 building “full of treasures” including Tiffany glass, with other attributes including its renowned music program and social outreach.

But he is also sad to be leaving the “unique culture of the Northwest,” where people “participate in the life of churches because they are very committed to (the church/faith),” as opposed to joining simply for social reasons, as is the case in some other regions. That commitment doesn’t necessarily manifest itself in frequent attendance, DeVeau notes: “You can have a very active congregation, but only see (individual members) on one of every three Sundays.” The congregation he’s leaving, he observes, “has always had a good outlook on things.”

We ask what he will remember most, be most proud of, looking back at his St. John’s years. The integration with neighboring West Seattle High School - in terms of sharing the parking lot, for example – is a point of pride. After his arrival at St. John’s, he explains, he heard that WSHS was in line for remodeling, and he asked if the church had spoken to the school about possible ways their sites could better interface; that led to their participation in architectural charrettes for the project, and results that ultimately led to better visibility for the church, as well as other benefits. For a while, he says, there also was a program of “ecumenical outreach to high-school kids” once a week, serving 90 teens at its peak.

Another point of pride – the remodeling of the main building for full accessibility to those with disabilities, and best use of its spaces, to help it fully realize its potential – like the congregation it serves.

Then, there are the houses on SW Roxbury, miles away from St. John’s location in the Admiral District. Half a century ago, DeVeau explains, the church bought land along that busy street in the Roxhill/Westwood area, intending it for a third “mission church,” in addition to churches in Burien and on Vashon Island.

In a complicated set of circumstances that also involved a house that once stood on the St. John’s property in Admiral, the church teamed up with Habitat for Humanity to build distinctive houses on the Roxbury property – two used for transitional housing as part of a program serving refugees.

St. John’s congregation also reaches across the world to offer help to impoverished people in their own countries, he recounts, including a “Books and Bricks“ program for schoolchildren in Mulundi, Kenya. According to the minister, a mission of five people from St. John’s just traveled to the area; inbetween visits, he says, they prepare intensively, even gathering to study Swahili.

Within the West Seattle community, outreach and giving are extensive too. They include charity programs such as Lettuce Pray – with a food-growing garden in St. John’s future, DeVeau notes – and the Seafarers’ Mission, as well as St. John’s regular turn as a host congregation for Family Promise of Seattle, whose participating churches spend a week each quarter or so providing shelter and meals for homeless families in the program.

Then there’s the arts and crafts co-op – which has a sale coming up next weekend, DeVeau is quick to point out – and other forms of outreach, including its “famous rummage sale” (and a friendly rummage-sale rivalry with other local churches) plus the annual Blessing of the Animals, which we covered again this year:

The parking-lot sharing with WSHS enables St. John’s to have space for that, by the way. Meantime, the Montessori-based Sunday-school program is something he’s proud of, too. And there are even smaller details, such as the fact the church offers gluten-free communion bread for those who need it, and a simple way of gesturing to the server for that option.

Rev. DeVeau’s memories of St. John’s also will include some days indelible from all our memories: “I’m really proud of how the church reached out to the community (after) 9/11,” a strong memory as well as the day of the Nisqually Earthquake, which he remembers as the “Ash Wednesday quake.” A sculpture in the sanctuary was moving back and forth – evoking memories for some of the 1964 quake in which the same thing happened.

We ask Rev. DeVeau also to muse on the state of the church and his denomination, in an evolving world, as he gets ready for a personal transition. He points out that the St. John’s congregation is somewhat younger than some, including members spanning a wide age range, “even some 20-somethings.” Episcopalians are “decidedly Christian, but open-minded,” he says, “not afraid of questions.” And the faith, he says, is not about focusing on “how everything’s going to go to hell at any second now” – while of course, he says, they believe “God has the final word,” there’s just not a focus on the future as much as how to live right now the way they believe He intends – “justice, mercy, peace.”

While St. John’s is the only Episcopal church in West Seattle, it has strong ties to the leadership of the Diocese of Olympia, to which it belongs (Diocesan headquarters are actually in Seattle, not the city of Olympia). Its Bishop, Greg Rickel, is a West Seattle resident, Rev. DeVeau points out.

Now, to the farewells. His final sermons, for the Sunday morning services at 8 am and 10:15 am, are the first after All-Saints Day, and will include baptisms as well as the other traditional components. He says he has built the sermon around “Occupying Your Street” – a takeoff on the “Occupy Wall Street” movement. “The call is to get out there and make a difference.”

He plans to be doing that – it’ll just be that he’s “(going) out there” 1,900 miles from here, once he and wife Mary move next month. His successor has not yet been chosen – or “called,” in the church lexicon; he says St. John’s elected “vestry” will embark on the process of calling an interim minister shortly, and will take it from there.

St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church is at 3050 California SW, south of West Seattle High School. Sunday night’s farewell reception is scheduled for 5-7 pm.

(WSCC history highlight – an all-church photo before its new Activity Center was completed)
Several West Seattle churches have celebrated centennials in the past few years – and this year, it’s West Seattle Christian Church‘s turn. Today, WSCC’s Pastor Dan Jacobs says, you are welcome to visit the main building (42nd/Genesee) any time during the day to see a display of the church’s past 100 years of history, an “interactive walkthrough.” Tonight, the church community gathers for a sold-out celebration banquet in the WSCC Activity Center. And next weekend, Dan says, instead of Sunday morning worship services, WSCC will spend the weekend in “Don’t Go To Church, Be The Church” mode: “We will be in teams serving all over the community that we’ve been privileged to be part of for the past 100 years. We will be at the White Center Food Bank, Roxhill Elementary, cleaning / weeding Junction Plaza Park, cleaning up the Junction area alleys, bringing breakfast to area Fire Stations and the Police Precinct, as well as doing some onsite preparation of hygiene packs for area homeless shelters. We have been honored that God has allowed us to be part of the West Seattle Community for these past 100 years and wanted to launch the next 100 in an appropriate manner.”

“Blessing of the Animals” events are a tradition for the weekend closest to the Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of animals – and again this year, West Seattle had three of them. We dropped by the third and final, and only outdoor, blessing event, presented by St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church in the West Seattle High School parking lot next door. Order of St. Francis Brother Kris Wilder (above left) and St. John’s Rev. Peter DeVeau (above center, and below) offered the blessings;

Here’s video as everybody – people and pets – circled around:

(This weekend’s other two West Seattle “Blessings of the Animals” were at Providence Mount St. Vincent on Saturday morning and Alki UCC earlier today.) Side note: If Brother Wilder looks familiar … it may not be just because he has been featured in our previous years’ coverage of this event. He was also on WSB recently in a different kind of robe: The one he wears as a karate instructor, and author of self-defense books.

Tomorrow, All Souls Church of Seattle (WSB sponsor) celebrates one year of weekly public worship in West Seattle, and Pastor Andy Pelander (at left in the church-provided photo above) has an invitation, and status report.

All are invited to participate in our service, which will include ‘community stories’ from folks who’ve been part of this exciting, growing new worshipping community over the past year. Of course, we’ll also have birthday cake! Join us Sundays at 10 a.m. at Madison Middle School.

All Souls began humbly in autumn 2009 with a handful of families in a living room in Admiral, dreaming and praying about what a brand new church would be like in our neighborhood, for our neighborhood. We imagined a community where we could worship, love one another in authentic relationship, and seek the welfare of our city. A year later, on Oct. 3, 2010, having gathered many more local families, we began meeting weekly for public worship.

To get a church off the ground this past year has been more hardworking than anyone involved could have imagined(!) and, yet, so much more rewarding than we could have hoped. Plenty of blood and sweat, and our share of tears…

And we’ve seen a dynamic, multi-generational community take shape that wasn’t here before we began–in our beloved West Seattle neighborhood. All Souls is now a church family into which folks are welcomed no matter what, are becoming known and being served, are encountering the character of God and his gospel of grace, and are being changed by it. We’ve celebrated faith at All Souls, both new and renewed!

A thousand thank you’s to all who’ve given of themselves so greatly to this remarkable project. We’re seeing buds on our little tree.

Every Sunday is a good Sunday to visit All Souls for the first time.

They’re online at allsoulsseattle.org, and you can check out their Facebook page for some of their outside-the-service activities.

(WSB photo from St. John’s 2010 “Blessing of the Animals”)
This weekend is the closest one to the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi – patron saint of animals – so it’s time for West Seattle’s traditional “Blessing of the Animals” events. On Saturday, you’re invited to the lobby of Providence Mount St. Vincent at 10:30 am. Then on Sunday, St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church will offer blessings in the West Seattle High School parking lot next door (3000 California SW) at noon. As The Mount’s announcement put it, it’s simply an occasion “to give thanks for all creatures great and small.” (And that means even the smallest of pets, if someone brings ‘em – check out the guinea pigs in our report on St. John’s event last year.)

Some of the 1,000 paper cranes lovingly hand-made by residents, staff, and other community members at Providence Mount St. Vincent in recent days graced The Mount’s chapel for its 9/11 anniversary service this afternoon. The service featured prayers and readings from faith traditions including Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Jewish, and Hindu, and lots of music:

Mary Fierke and Ellen McClain led the music, including congregational renditions of songs from “Amazing Grace” to “America the Beautiful.” The service was followed by a dessert reception in The Mount’s café.

Much of the celebrating was done six months ago, but West Side Presbyterian Church‘s centennial will leave a lasting memory – the Centennial Courtyard, dedicated this afternoon.

Speaking to those gathered to dedicate the new courtyard, Laurinda O’Connell and WSPC’s pastor, Rev. Paul Smith:

Rev. Smith marks a milestone of his own this year – 30 years since he became pastor of WSPC.

A key word for Hope Lutheran‘s new pastor Peter Mueller is “connection.”

He’s thrilled to discover West Seattle’s community connections, including the new neighbors who have welcomed him and his family – he got to meet even more of them at a Night Out block party on Tuesday.

But he’s also clearly no stranger to online connection. Though his office at the church is still full of storage boxes that just arrived from his previous home in Southern California, it’s topped with one essential element – a laptop. And when we ask for specifics on a Biblical verse he paraphrases during our conversation, he pulls out not a well-worn leather-bound book, but … his iPod.

He’s even enthusiastic about the church’s website address.

That address is hopeseattle.org. “I love the fact our website domain is hopeseattle, because in a sense, that is what this place needs to be about – provide hope for Seattle,” Mueller said, in a conversation at the church this morning.

But more about his thoughts in a moment. First, a little background. Mueller arrives less than two months after the retirement of Pastor Keith Eilers, who had served Hope Lutheran for a decade. You can read his background in detail on the Hope website, but the key points: He’s 39 years old, married to Patra, father to 4-year-old Hannah and 6-year-old John.

Pastor Mueller is not new to the Northwest – he grew up in Vancouver, B.C. after living a few years in the city of his birth, Calgary. He spent three years of his undergraduate college studies in Issaquah, at what was the time a small Lutheran college (Lutheran Bible Institute of Seattle) that since, he says, has moved to Everett. His master’s of divinity is from Regent College in Vancouver, B.C., which he describes as “one of the best theological schools in the world,” an interdenominational, international institution where he felt free to question the Lutheran faith in which he had been raised, ultimately coming full circle to realize it was right for him, not just because he had grown up in it.

His previous role was as associate pastor at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Orange, California, a town he describes is a hotbed of the Lutheran faith – including some of the most populous schools in the denomination, he says. He was there for more than seven years.

Now, he’s here. The Mueller family arrived in West Seattle fairly late last Sunday night, after taking four days to drive north. He remarks on the beauty they saw during a stretch of driving the California coast – Santa Barbara, Monterey, and what sounds like, from his narration of the harrowing “James Bond-like” curves, the Big Sur area. Since they had season passes to Disneyland in their former home, the kids had seen the fake Golden Gate bridge at California Adventure many times, and wanted to see the real one. “So we sat in San Francisco traffic a long time,” he recalls with a smile, saw the bridge, then cut over to Interstate 5 for the rest of the trip up through northern California and Oregon en route to Washington.

He is already extremely enthusiastic about West Seattle. His family is living just blocks from Hope (which is at 42nd/Oregon in The Junction), renting until their Southern California home sells in what continues to be a challenging real-estate market. He is already on the job at Hope, even though his first Sunday sermon is more than two weeks away: “Getting a lot of stuff set up, meeting lots of people.” And unpacking – the office is quite a scene, including, along with the boxes, his well-worn, sticker-covered guitar case.

Why come here? He notes that while the Southern California sun is beautiful in its own way, most of the year, the landscape is dry and brown. So as a former Northwesterner, “I missed the green, missed the mountains, missed the water of all kinds, missed canoeing, hiking in a forest or on top of some beautiful mountain, and I’m thankful to be back in the area where I can pursue that lifestyle, and teach my kids to love that lifestyle.”

He had moved to California to be with (then-future) wife Patra; as also described on the Hope webpage welcoming the Mueller family, she is a veteran Lutheran college educator. It goes way back in both their families; he is a fourth-generation Lutheran pastor, while Patra “is like Lutheran royalty,” he smiles, with “pastors on her dad’s side of the family going back 14 generations, all the way back to the Reformation. Her great-grandfather was president of the denomination in the early 20th century.”

Their children will attend Hope Lutheran School in the fall, Hannah in preschool, John in first grade.

Pastor Mueller says they did a lot of research online – there’s that connection again – and heard about the “Seattle Freeze,” so they were a little apprehensive about what they might find. But people “have been coming over out of the blue – a young mom brought flowers, Rainier cherries, and a card, with her daughter.”

Now, as for his new church. Why come here?

“Hope is at a really exciting crossroads,” he explains, talking about the “S curve” that businesses/organizations are said to follow – an incline, and then perhaps a plateau, and maybe a downward slide unless something new gets it back on the upward swing. “Hope is at a place right now where a new upward, uphill ‘S curve’ is beginning even before I got here. It’s exciting to come in and be a part of that.”

Part of it, he says, is other new additions to an excellent existing team, like Hope Lutheran School principal Kristen Okabayashi (profiled here last December). He is excited about the school, as well, observing that it is “doing really well” – it’s expecting to hit 200 enrollment sometime in the coming school year, and is just beneath that at this point in the summer.

The church has an estimated 325 regular attendees, he says, and “a lot of good things going on – a real desire for (growth), a lot of very sharp and smart leaders here.” One thing that’s impressed him i particular – Hope hired a consultant to help examine demographics, not just of the existing church community, “but within Seattle in general. They know who’s here, and what some of the needs are. (Hope has) done a lot of thinking about where they want to go.” His hiring, he said, was preceded by a planning retreat that among other things focused on what kind of pastor they needed to find.

Now that he’s been called as that pastor: “It’s really important for a new pastor coming into a church to listen well. I want to figure out and understand the story of Hope, the story of the community of West Seattle, based on the story that has happened, and where is God calling us into the chapter of the next story.”

One thing he intends to build on – the classic mission for a church, “to try to meet the needs of the community, particularly those who are struggling in life … that’s near and dear to my heart. If you look at a lot of the great leaders in the world that have made a difference … (they are) very clear, you cannot say you love God, if you are not willing to love people. It is important to me that Hope will grasp (that) and make (it) reality, grow in that … how do we love West Seattle and the people who live here, both those who are struggling and those who are just your average family, trying to raise their kids, pay their bills, keep their marriage happy … to not be a place of pat answers, but of answers that make sense for real life, provide” – again – “hope for Seattle. … Jesus said, if you want to find your life, you gotta lose it; if you want to find true happiness, true meaning in life, you gotta give yourself up in service for other people. As you give yourself away, you get yourself back.”

That’s where we ask for the specific citation. Mark 8, is the quick answer, but the specific verse requires a little bit of looking up. Patra is in the next room and fishes out a hard-copy Bible while the pastor looks in his iPod: 34 through 37. He muses on the example that Christians believe Jesus set: “We are called as Christians to transform the world around us by exhibiting that same kind of sacrificial love, whatever forms that takes, whatever relationships.”

And he’s looking forward to building many new ones as he leads the Hope flock, and explores the West Seattle community.

WHAT’S NEXT: Mueller’s formal installation as Hope’s pastor is scheduled for 3 pm Sunday, August 14th, with a reception following at nearby Seattle Lutheran High School. His first sermon will be the Sunday after that.

If you’re among those wondering how to help the victims of this afternoon’s huge apartment fire in unincorporated South King County southeast of South Park, here’s the first answer: Donate to the local American Red Cross. We just found out they are setting up an emergency shelter for fire victims at Peace Lutheran Church in Gatewood. Volunteers are setting it all up right now with the help of Amanda Rudd from the Red Cross; she told us outside the church that the latest count indicates 41 people are without a home tonight, from the 19 units gutted by the fire. They’re planning to shelter and feed about a dozen of them at Peace Lutheran. The Red Cross stresses that it cannot accept donated items, though, just money to fund operations like this; you can donate here – and we’ll let you know about any donation drives we find out about. (Thanks to Anne-Marie for the tip, e-mailing us after spotting the Red Cross vehicles at the church.)

ADDED MONDAY MORNING: From the South Park Yahoo! e-mail group, another way to help fire victims:

Providence Regina House and the South Park Neighborhood Center will be the drop off for donations to support the families who were burned out of their homes yesterday, many with only the clothing on their backs.

Here is what they need the most:

Men’s clothing (WE HAVE VERY LITTLE OF MEN’S CLOTHING AND SHOES HERE)
Full size toiletry items
Furniture for smaller apartments
Gift cards for food and stores such as Target and Fred Meyer
Non-perishable food
Bath linens
Bed linens (twin & full)
Mattresses & box springs (twin, full, queen)
Housewares of all sorts
Shoes for men, women, and children

WE HAVE LOTS OF NON PERISHABLE FOOD and women’s clothing, and some hygiene items, but could use the other things!! WE ALSO COULD REALLY USE lunch/snack friendly foods, such as applesauce cups, snacky foods, etc…so these hungry/stressed folks can snack, too.

I’m here now (address below) and will be here all day….and tomorrow….and until there is no more need!!

Paige Collins, Manager
Providence Regina House
8201 10th Ave. South, Seattle,WA 98108
206-763-9204
www.providencereginahouse.org