October 2026 Newsletter

Notes from My Heart

A Working Vacation and a Workday at the Church

Greetings, Friends and Family.

Shannon and I have just returned from a road trip to Elkhart, Indiana, where we attended the NOMADS Annual Meeting and Rally. Right now there are about 800 active and alumni NOMADS and 150 of them met for a week to worship together, to work and serve together, and to fellowship together.

One of my favorite events at this year’s meeting was a time called Sunday Service Projects. There were four projects available to choose from; a sewing project making school bags and receiving blankets for Mid-West Mission Distribution Center, card making for NOMADS who have been ill or lost loved ones, Bashor Children’s Home grounds clean up, and a Bed Build for children. We chose the Bed Build, and all I could say was WOW!!! In 3 ½ hours a large team of NOMADS, 40-50 volunteers, partnered with Sleep in Heavenly Peace (www.shpbeds.org) , took a pile of lumber and turned it into 40 beautiful beds for children who do not have beds of their own. These beds will be distributed to the children of Northern Indiana complete with a mattress and bedding. Since its inception, this ministry has delivered over 400,000 beds to children aged 2-18 all over the country.

This was such an amazing experience for me that I want to bring some of the energy and excitement back home to our projects here at Aztec Methodist. I know that some of you are concerned that now that we have purchased the 118-120 building and parking lot, we will be busy working over there and allow our church building to fall into disrepair. And some of you are worried that now that we have purchased 118-120, we will just let it sit there and never do anything to fulfill all of those things we talked about from our visioning team. I can assure you that neither of these things is going to happen.

At the new property, the roof repairs have been completed and the plumbing and electric are on deck. Doug Thomas has already started demo in the old bank, and we are working on a plan for the whole facility to share with you, hopefully before the end of October. Also, the buyer for the McCoy property has paid the balance due, and your Leadership has voted to pay off the loan, so we will own the building free and clear, no worries about making payments. This decision will be ratified by you, the membership, at the Charge Conference this fall.

On Tuesday, October 6, we will be having a workday at the church. We will meet together at 8:00 am in Fellowship Hall for a short devotion and snacks and then go to work. Our project for this workday will be to scrape, sand and prime all the windows on the South side of the church. We will be renting a man-lift for the tall stained-glass window in the sanctuary, but the rest of them should be reachable from the ground or with ladders. We will break for lunch (provided) at noon, and work for as long as we can into the afternoon. It looks like we are going to have beautiful weather on Tuesday, so please make plans to come join us for all or part of the day. There is a sign-up sheet at the back of the sanctuary or just show up.

After spending over 9 years working with NOMADS on over 45 projects, and with my most recent experience with the Bed Build for Children, I know that there isn’t anything as rewarding as working together on a team for the common purpose of being the Hands and Feet of Jesus. And taking care of our church as well as creating the new space to further our ministry is a blessing we can all share together.

Mariel Lynch, Trustee Chair