Hello. I know it’s been awhile, but the brand new issue of the Fairlawn Focus is finally here. Hopefully, you will like the changes that have been made.

The first change is that the paper is switching from a bi-weekly to a monthly format. This will hopefully allow time for a better written and more planned out paper.

The paper will also have a new section starting this month called Focus on Fairlawn. Each month will feature a story on a different member of the Fairlawn congregation or a program at Fairlawn. This section will allow new members to learn about Fairlawn and meet Fairlawn "veterans" as well as helping to introduce new members to the congregation. Thanks to Kerry Pierson for the great idea!

That’s all I have to say for this month. Enjoy the paper!

Adam Payne

Each week during Sunday morning service, while the hymns are sung and the offering collected, the children of Fairlawn are waiting impatiantly for their favorite part of the service: Hi-God! This program gives the children something to do during the worship service. It entertains them while teaching them about Jesus and the Bible.

Right now Hi-God needs your help. Cindy Pierson, the Hi-God coordinator, is looking for people to volunteer to help teach Hi-God. Cindy has each week’s lessons planned out ahead of time, the program is just short of people to teach the lesson.

If you enjoy working with children and wish to help, here’s how you can do it. If you want to help with the 3 and 4 year olds class, please contact Cindy Dickens. To help with the kindergarten and 1^st grade class, contact Shannon Stigleman. For the 2^nd and 3^rd grades, please call Cindy Pierson. You can sign up to help as little or as much as you would like.

Fairlawn’s Children Center was set up in the late 1970’s, mainly for single women with children from low-income families. To this day, Fairlawn helps families with their day care needs, mainly through a program called Title XX. This is a government-sponsored program that provides money to families that are in need of low cost day care. The Fairlawn Children Center has the distinction of being one of only two day care providers in town to be on the Title XX program.

Fairlawn’s Children Center provides day care to about 70 area children on a daily basis. During the school year they care for children ages 2 – 5, but once summer comes they take school age siblings of the children. The Center staffs 16 part and full time employees: 8 full time teachers, 4 part time teachers, a cook, a janitor, an administrative assistant, and the Children Center Director. The director is Carol Hodges, a member of the Fairlawn congregation. Each day the teachers and staff are busy making sure the children are healthy and happy.

The doors open at 6:30 a.m. and parents drop off kids from then until around 9:00. The children are given breakfast, after which is story time and inside games. During the late morning the children get plenty of time to play outside in the playground area. Lunch is served around 11:30 a.m. and after a full meal the kids are ready for an afternoon nap. The afternoons are busy with indoor games as the children use the toys and games provided to help learn their numbers and ABC’s, although since not technically a pre-school the kids aren’t graded on learning them.

While the Children Center provides much needed help for area families, it also helps to advance Fairlawn churches ministry. At the beginning of each year, Carol Hodges mails out (continued on page 3) letters to each family telling them about Fairlawn’s worship services and the bus ministry. Many parents have responded to this. Quite a few of the children from the bus ministry started out by attending the children’s center. This is helping our church to grow by reaching out to children and showing them the love of Jesus Christ. The Children’s Center is also a largely multiracial facility. This helps us to live out our co-parish creed of overcoming racism.

The Children’s Center is always looking for new ways to better care for the children. They are currently in the middle of buying new playground equipment to replace some that had to be removed due to age. They also have a few spots left for this year so if you know of any family that needs daycare or you have any questions or suggestions for the children’s center, please contact Carol Hodges.

This last week Fairlawn hosted a rummage sale at the church to raise funds for church events. Lynn Kinder and Maydell Frank, the coordinators of the sale, wish to thank the following people who helped to make this week’s sale a huge success.

Helen Longest and Peg Edwards

For Advertising

Mary Ruth Stevenson

Nancy Ballard

For the Baked Goods

Janice Winters

For being the cashier

They also wish to thank the set-up and clean up crews and to everyone who donated their time and old items to be sold.

While most people see Halloween as a time of year when ghosts and goblins, or at least kids dressed like them, roam he country, it is interesting to note that Halloween was originally a Christian holiday.

Halloween, also known as Allhallows Eve, is the day before a Christian holiday known as All-Saint’s Day. This day was originally recognized by the 7^th century church as a day to honor God and all of his saints, both known and unknown.

Over the years this tradition mixed with those of other cultures and became the holiday we all know as Halloween.

Information taken from Microsoft Encarta encycolpedia.

Friar Florists

Some friars were behind in their belfry payments, so they opened a small florist shop to raise the funds. Since everyone liked to buy flowers from the men of God, the rival florist across town thought the competition was unfair.

He asked the good fathers to close down, but they would not. He went back and begged the friars to close. They ignored him. He asked his mother to go ask the friars to get out of business. They ignored her. So, the rival florist hired Hugh Mac Taggart, the roughest and most vicious thug in town to "persuade" them to close. Hugh beat up the friars and trashed their store, saying he'd be back if they didn't close shop. Terrified, the friars did so.

The Moral of the Story: Wait for it....