April 1, 2022

Spend Easter with Hope

We look forward to celebrating the Easter season with you! Join Hope for any of our Holy Week and Easter Sunday services:

Palm Sunday, April 10

Worship at all campuses at regular times

Maundy Thursday, April 14

Worship at 11:00am and 7:30pm at Hope Central Campus

Good Friday, April 15

Good Friday worship at 11:00am at Hope Lake Weir Campus



Tenebrae Service at 7:30pm at Hope Central Campus

April 16

Easter Vigil Worship at 7:30pm at Hope Lake Weir Campus

Easter Worship at Hope Central Campus at regular times

Easter Sunday, April 17

Easter Sunrise Worship at 6:15am at Hope Central Campus and Everglades Rec.

Easter Sunrise Worship at 6:30am at Hope Lake Weir Campus

Easter Worship at all campuses at regular times

Hope South Campus Land Dedication Ceremony

You're invited to the Hope South Campus Land Dedication on April 3 at 3:30pm.

Join your family of Hope for this joyous celebration as we officially kick off our development of Hope South Campus.

Click the video to watch a special announcement from Pastor Jon-Marc.

Easter Egg Hunt at Hope Lake Weir Campus

Saturday, April 9 from 10:30am to 12:00pm

Get egg-cited! It's time for Hope's Easter Egg Hunt at Hope Lake Weir Campus. Invite your family and friends to attend a wonderful morning of fun activities. We will have refreshments, games, prizes, face painting, balloons, and a petting zoo! All ages are welcome.

If you are interested in volunteering, please contact Anita Dillman at anitadillman1@gmail.com or Tonia Brock at brocklg@aol.com.

Hope Mourns the Death of Former Council Member

We are sad to announce the death of our member Mike Slating on Sunday, March 27, 2022. Mike was born on April 15, 1947. He and his wife, Pam, were married on February 7, 1992. They joined Hope Lutheran Church on February 27, 2011.

Mike served Hope faithfully as a member of the Church Council for 3 years.

Arrangements are pending at this time. Please keep Pam and their family in your hearts and prayers during their time of grief.

Return Your Lenten Boxes April 9 & 10

Lenten Boxes will be collected on April 9 and 10 at all Hope campuses. Boxes may be heavy; if you fear your box may buckle or open, you can adhere the sides using tape to make it more secure.

You are also encouraged to write a check instead, if your donation is too large for the box. Make your check out to Hope Lutheran Church and write Lenten World Hunger on the memo line.

The Mission Outreach Team wants to thank all who are generously giving to help people worldwide who struggle with food insecurity. Thank you! We also know that many prayers are being sent along with your donations. Thank you, thank you!

Ways to Help Ukraine Through Lutheran World Relief

So far, Hope Lutheran Church has contributed $54,361.45 to help the people in Ukraine.

We are sending the money to Lutheran World Relief weekly.

You may go to lwr.org/match, or send a check through Hope with Ukraine in the memo line.

Women of Hope Retreat 2022

April 19-21, 2022 at Luther Springs

This year, our Women of Hope Retreat will be held on April 19 to 21, 2022 at Luther Springs Retreat Center in Hawthorne, Florida. The special speaker for this retreat will be Pastor Sarah Locke, Pastor for the Jacksonville Campus Ministry, which serves universities and young people in this area. Pastor Sarah is passionate about the work of the church, interfaith relationships, and helping people reflect on the awe and wonder of what God is doing in their lives. 

We encourage you to sign up early. You can find the registration form with further information by clicking the link below. Questions? Contact June Cook at frankjunecook@gmail.com or call (cell) 352-430-5025 or (h) 352-751-1968. If you complete a paper registration form, please leave completed forms and payment in the Women of Hope box located in the Information Hallway at Hope Central Campus.

Cuba: Our Companion Synod

Cuba is one of our five companion synods. Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Christianity has steadily gained traction in Cuba. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Cuba, which is headquartered in Santiago, Cuba, continues to expand and with our support will continue to add churches and train leaders. As the Florida-Bahamas Synod under the Global Mission Table, we are finding ways to provide the support needed to grow the Cuban Church, the IEU-SL (Iglesia Evangélica Unida- Sinodo Luterano).

Cuba is an island country located only 90 miles south of Florida. It was originally settled by Ciboney Taino people about 6000 years ago. With the arrival of Columbus 500 years ago, it became colonized by the Spanish and remained a Spanish colony until the Spanish American War in 1898 and Spanish is still the primary language used by the Cuban people. It became independent with the occupation of the United States in 1902. It was always a fragile republic and in 1952 it fell to a coup and eventual dictatorship under Fulgencio Batista. He was ousted in 1959 by Fidel Castro who established a single party authoritarian regime where political opposition is not allowed. It continues to be ruled by the Communist Party of Cuba.

Under Castro, Cuba was declared an atheistic country and religion was considered contradictory to the Marxist rule of communism. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, religion has gradually returned to the daily lives of the Cuban people. In the future, I will tell you more about the evolution of the Lutheran church in Cuba and what is being done to aid its future development.

H.O.P.E. University - Wednesdays at 10:00am

Pastor John LeCain is leading a Lenten educational series covering the Book of Acts and following Paul’s footsteps through some major historical sites.

Acts Odyssey, using the book written by Rene Schlaepfer, will retrace the journeys of the apostles as told in the Book of Acts. As he visits ancient sites in Israel, Greece, Italy and several Aegean Islands, Rene meets with archaeological experts - and encounters modern thieves, rioting mobs, and nests of serpents. His adventures are enlightening, entertaining, and inspiring.

The special Lenten class will cover one chapter per week and will include videos. Books are necessary for class. No registration is required. To receive a physical book at no cost, please contact the church office at (352) 750-2321. You can also find the book available for purchase on your Amazon Kindle device. Simply search for ‘Acts Odyssey’ by Rene Schlaepfer.

Why We Developed an Estate Plan: Part 2

I didn't tell you last week that I am on the Hope Endowment Fund Team. It was while Bea and I where doing our estate planning that I volunteered to be on the team, and yes, we have included the Hope Endowment Fund in our estate plans. Finally, I was asked to write something. This is something. There were some feeble attempts at humor in the first article in hopes that more people would read the whole article. If you are still reading, it worked.

I am not a financial planner, so I am not giving advice. I am hopeful that sharing what we did will encourage you to do some estate planning on you own. Actually, our first step in planning occurred over twenty years ago. In The Villages, it's not true that there are no free meals. We have free meals to learn about hearing aids, annuities, reverse mortgages, cremation, and even knee surgery. At one such meal we learned about wills, trusts, power of attorney, and health care directives. We followed up on this and even funded our trust. Then we did nothing until we realized that we might have an estate to leave. Like many of you, we thought of our family first and included them.

Next we began to look at our faith and what we value. For Bea and I, our faith was centered in God's gracious gift of Jesus, and specifically how we have experienced that grace through the Lutheran Church. My father died when I was eight. I was an only child. I was a Lutheran because a friend invited me to Sunday School. I brought my mother to church with me, and we both became active members. Bea and I both went to Lutheran Universities. We met in a Lutheran Summer Program for youth that we volunteered for in Jersey City. For thirty years I was a Pastor, and Bea kept me going in parishes in Queens, NYC, Long Island, and Northern Minnesota.

Finally, after Bea had moved where I went for thirty years, she chose The Villages as the place for us to retire. And low and behold, a new ELCA mission had just begun. As we planned our estate, this led us to see that what we valued most centered around our Christian Faith, and specifically the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. After we had decided this, then we set our minds on what specifically we could do to share God's grace with others through our estate. 

Next time I'll try to be more humorous, and I will share what our decisions are. (To be continued). Pastor Frank Livingston.

Worship Attendance for March 26-27, 2022

Central Campus:

4:00pm = 288

6:00pm = 63

8:00am = 169

10:00am = 450

Lake Weir Campus:

10:00am = 121

Everglades Rec Center:

8:00am = 76

10:00am = 136