Dear CUMC Family and Friends,
Please join us tomorrow, June 11, 2023, at 11:00 a.m. for my Farewell Sunday. Let us give thanks to God as I say Paalam (Pilipino for goodbye) for these wondrous and grace-filled last eleven years of our faith and ministry journey together. It's been a long ride. It's been a memorable adventure. It's been an amazing experience of growing together in God's love and mercy.
As I embark on my new pastoral journey with Boehm's and Colemanville UMCs in Southern Lancaster, PA, I am forever grateful for the gift of being your shepherd for many years, for the blessing of ministering with you in the midst of life's joys and sorrows. Saying Paalam (goodbye) with Filipino sensibility expresses a multi-layered feeling of sadness, gratitude, regret, yearning, hope, and anticipation. Paalam is not only about the end of our collective journey. It is also about opening the door of new beginnings. As we bid goodbye to each other, we make room for new life-affirming relationships, new holistic growth in faith, new ways of making disciples of Christ, and new possibilities to make the Earth a better place to live.
So I say Paalam to you---with a prayer that we make new space for Abba's abounding love, for Christ's amazing grace, and for the Holy Spirit's transforming power.
For the last time, shall we dance together with the Triune God?
Gratefully,
Pastor Manny