Amy Mui, shown receiving an appreciation plaque from President Newton (click on photo for larger view), was honored at Holy Spirit, San Francisco.

Amy began serving Holy Spirit as a parish worker in 1969 after having served as Secretary to the Director of Lutheran World Federation to assist the Chinese refugees that, at that time, were pouring into Hong Kong.

In 1969 Amy became the speaker for the Chinese Lutheran Hour. Later she began a Cantonese language school at Holy Spirit which these past 23 years has continued to bring parents and students to know Christ within their own culture.

We thank the Lord for Amy's ministry in our district and beyond and wish her every happiness as she continues to serve our Lord in her retirement.

To see additional photos of the recognition event for Amy, click on or cut and paste into your browser the following link:

http://share.shutterfly.com/ osi.jsp?i=EeBtGbFs3cOHg

Kat writes: "My name is Kat Reil, I am 22 years old and I have 3 sisters and one brother.

I am very excited to be working with the youth at Mount Olive. I look forward to deepening their relationship with Christ, building relationship with others and creating a safe place where our youth can hang out and have fun."

Kat Reil will serve as Director of Student Ministries at Mount Olive Ministries, Milpitas, California.

Word of Grace Lutheran Mission was started as a mission church plant of the CNH Dist in partnership with Circuit 14 on June 23, 2002, with the installation of Eric Johnson as Missionary At Large and a core group of 5 people in Rohnert Park, CA. Since that time Word of Grace has grown into a worshiping congregation of about 50 people.

Over the past three years, God has been faithful to add, slowly, new leaders to Word of Grace. Now at the end of their third year, the mission congregation of Word of Grace is looking forward to the future with great expectation to see how God will use them to increasingly raise up new leaders, release people into the service of Christ's mission, and see a harvest of souls won in Rohnert Park and surrounding Sonoma county communities.

Visit their website:
http://www.woglc.o rg

In "The Parish Paper" (Nov. 2004), Herb Miller quotes a study of 152,681 adults baptized in the Southern Baptist Church that can give insight to congregations from every denomination. One section of that study lists influences for conversion. The following percentages of adult converts indicated that the following influences were important:

• 76.9 % Attending worship services
• 57.5 % Reading the Bible on your own
• 56.6 % Someone personally sharing the plan of salvation
• 53.0 % Watching the way a person lived as a Christian
• 47.2 % Someone telling about their own personal experience
• 46.6 % Attending Bible study
• 46.6 % Experiencing a personal crisis
• 27.9 % Attending a revival or crusade
• 21.6 % Watching/listening to religious programming on TV/radio
• 16.9 % Reading a religious booklet or tract.

LHM Global Care Packages is a program of Lutheran Hour Ministries' International Volunteers Services department that features the By Kids.For Kids®, The Mothers Touch, and Teacher to Teacher® care-package outreach efforts. This program provides care packages to children, mothers, and teachers around the world to share Christ with them and to bring them joy and hope despite their desperate situations.

Pictured (click photo for larger view) are members of Peace, Arroyo Grande, California, at their Vacation Bible School workshop. Jan Sorge is at the center back, wearing a green blouse.

When the newly formed Mission Action Councils came together for the first time in early March, members immediately began to share different ideas for mission outreach. Jan Sorge from St. Paul Lutheran in Merced mentioned the value of Vacation Bible Schools in the Park, and offered her help and guidance in setting these up in other locations.

The Holy Spirit had already led groups in Lompoc, Arroyo Grande, and Paso Robles to begin exploring such tools for outreach and missions in their respective cities.

So Jan Sorge agreed to present a workshop at Peace Lutheran in Arroyo Grande. She traveled with her husband to Arroyo Grande on May 14 to train representatives from several congregations of Circuit 9. Jan also spoke on forming Bible Clubs in the public schools and the positive effect they have had on the students. The workshop visibly excited the participants and several congregations have begun the process to expand Vacation Bible School beyond the confines of their churches to share Jesus with those who don't know Him.

The ability to link ideas, resources, and our need to get outside of the churches to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ is greatly facilitated when we get the word down to the churches, where they can be put into action. Such workshops, where we train the trainers and train others to participate in proclaiming the gospel multiply the resources and spread the work out to those who really would like to share in mission work, but don't know exactly how to go about doing it.

Thinking outside the box also helps us see other ways to accomplish old tasks in fresh new ways that meet the realities of our present culture. One workshop participant who has led VBS for many years in the past remarked how happy she was to learn of a different way to do Vacation Bible School.

Thanks Jan Sorge! Thanks CNH District for making it possible to share!

Rev. Herb Burch
Hispanic Missionary, Circuit 9

I am contacting you on behalf of the California State Military Reserve, a component of the California National Guard.

At the present time all of the Chaplains for the California Guard are deployed.

While they are gone, Chaplains of the SMR are trying to fill their shoes by providing counseling and services to soldiers and their families here at home. But we are desperately short of Chaplains.

There are 16 SMR support units located throughout California, so most volunteers would be able to find a unit close to them.

Thank you.

SPC Christopher Mott
Provost Marshall Office
40th Infantry Division
Support Brigade CASMR
JFTB Los Alamitos

The Annual Outreach Leadership Institute (OLI), an outreach training event coordinated by the Oswald Hoffmann School of Christian Outreach, LCMS North America Mission, and Lutheran Education Association-REACHnet is ramping up for its 5th institute on the campus of Concordia University in St. Paul, Minnesota. The institute was originally developed to train and equip outreach minded individuals to serve more effectively in their ministries and congregations. As a result, over 500 people have participated in the first four OLIs and have taken back to their ministries plans which were developed during the module sessions.

Reprinted from "Mission Moments", an article from Mike Ruhl, director for the Center for U.S. Missions.

In his monumental book, Good to Great--Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... and Others Don't, author Jim Collins writes about "confronting the brutal facts." He observes that a "breakout characteristic" of a "good" company becoming a "great company" is this watershed capacity to confront the brutal facts that current conditions are not healthy.

Is it possible a goodly number of American congregations need to "confront the brutal facts" about evangelism? Is it true that far too many Lutherans are perfectly content to go to heaven alone, and that reaching lost people with the good news of Jesus Christ is simply not a priority?

Frederick Baltz (from the ELCA) wrote an engaging article in the March 2004 issue of The Lutheran called "The Evangelism-Resistant Church." He identifies twelve factors which "hold back" congregations in evangelism.

New Prayer Requests:

Rev. Mitch Gowen, pastor at Our Savior, Aiea, Hawaii, has a call to Trinity Lutheran, Bowie, Maryland.

Rev. Paul Zimmermann, pastor at St. Peter, Lodi, California, has a call to First Lutheran, Clearwater, Florida.

Rev. John Standley, Cordova, Rancho Cordova CA has a call to Shepherd of the Hills, Yuma, AZ.

Rev. B. R. Mireles, pastor emeritus, who will have knee surgery.

Rev. Dr. Dennis Tegtmeier, Lutheran Church of Prayer, Bakersfield, CA, upon his retirement.

Ms. Anne Woodward of St. Peter, Lodi, CA, who will be serving as a long- term volunteer in Taiwan as an ESL Teacher from August 2005 through June 2006

Jenny Davidenas, daughter of Rev. Gene Davidenas, Foothill missionary.

Rev. Dr. David Stohlmann, Sebastopol, atrial fibrillation - corrective procedure June 22.

If you have a specific "district" prayer request that you wish to add, please let us know (rita@cnh- lcms.org)

Upcoming events:

• Large Church Meeting, Ministry Center -- May 26
• Board of Directors, Ministry Center -- June 11
• Evangelism Committee, Ministry Center -- June 13
• Hispanic Task Force, Ministry Center -- June 16
• Board of Directors, Ministry Center -- September 10
• Fall Pastors' Conference, Fresno -- October 11-13