Worship This Week & Following

Please join us in Hadley Hall

at 10am this Sunday for the

Third Sunday of Easter--The Journey to Emmaus

Please join us for coffee hour after the service.

We hope you will join us in person or online.

The service will be live streamed through

Facebook Live here

or on 3CX here

artwork: "On the Road to Emmaus" © Mary Southard

www.ministryofthehearts.org. Used with permission.

Just a reminder that for the months of April and May, the 3rd and 4th Sunday worship services will be held in Hadley Hall. Special thank you to Chris McCune, who runs the tech and streams the services, for being so flexible and accommodating.

There will be no live streaming on April 30th and May 7th

Please consider helping out with technology (or encouraging others to do so)

so that we can continue to stream weekly.

Book Discussion Series in May/June

All are invited to join our upcoming book discussion featuring "Tattoos on the Heart," by Fr. Gregory Boyle. This hope-filled and spiritually uplifting book celebrates the strength, compassion and humanity of people often ostracized in our society.

This group, led by Pastor Kathy, will be meeting for five weeks beginning Thursday, May 18th in the Davis Room (upstairs from the sanctuary) at 10am.

If you are interested in learning more, signing up, or getting a book, please contact Pastor Kathy or the office.

Last Call! We Start Printing New Directories Next Week--

New Pictures Wanted!

We are getting ready to print our HCC Members and Friends directory (last printing was in 2018).

We would love to get a current photo of you/your family to include in our updated directory, especially if you are a new member or friend or didn't have your picture in the last directory.

Please email a current photo to hcc1752@gmail.com

Upper Room Devotional

We have copies of the May/June Upper Room devotional available in the foyer of Hadley Hall.

Please stop by and get your copy.

If you need a copy mailed to you, please contact the main office.

The Food Truck Festival Needs Your Help

April 29, 2023

The vendors and the entertainment are all set for our 2nd Annual Hampstead Eats Food Truck Festival. If you can help in any way on Saturday, 4/29, it would be greatly appreciated.

Things you can do:

• Help with Setup starting at 10AM
• Help with Ticket Sales - multiple timeslots starting at 11:30AM
• Help with Parking - multiple timeslots starting at 11:30AM
• Help with the HCC Table - multiple timeslots starting at 11:30AM
• Help with Cleanup starting at 5:00PM

Contact the office at 603-329-6985 and we will get you signed up.

Let’s make this event a huge success! As always, thank you for your support,

Your Fundraising Team

And from Our Missions Team:

Capital Campaign Update

Donations and pledges to our church’s Capital Campaign are currently a remarkable $154k or 44% towards our goal of $350k.

Our Capital Campaign continues to receive pledged funds as well as new funding. Several grants are being pursued to help us to continue growing our funds to reach our goal. Related to this, we are in the process of submitting paperwork and photographs to the New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources with the goal of adding us to the state's Register of Historic Places, which some of the larger grants require in order for our building to be eligible.

Restoration and repair of our steeple will begin late spring or summer. 

We are also looking into restoring our sanctuary windows. A potential vendor is willing to coordinate scheduling this work to match our available Capital Campaign funding. This may be an opportunity for new Capital Campaign pledges and donations. There are 18 windows in our sanctuary. Eight window bays have two windows each.

Would you consider a donation to cover a window restoration? If you are interested, please contact any member of the Capital Campaign Team or you can leave your name with the office.

Our Capital Campaign is growing but we have not reached our ultimate goal. It is our hope that we can encourage additional pledges and/or additional donations over the next two years. Since it is tax season, donations you make this year could result in potential tax savings next year. Contact your tax preparer or financial advisor for more information.

Bible Study Postponed Until May 3rd

Weekly bible study will resume beginning Wednesday, May 3rd at 9:30am in the Youth Room.  

We hope you'll join us! 

UCC Special Offering Thanks

Thanks to all who helped contribute to our UCC special offering for One Great Hour of Sharing. Their focus this year is on alleviating hunger in our country. Our congregation raised $1,293 for this effort.

Loaf & Ladle Success

Thank you everyone who came to the Loaf and Ladle on March 26! What a smashing success! We enjoyed many delicious soups – including chicken noodle, vegan chicken pie, vegetarian chili, corn chowder, lasagna, sausage, minestrone, stuffed pepper and vegan butternut squash – along with some fabulous home baked bread! We followed up with dessert -- many yummy brownies. THANK YOU TO ALL THE WONDERFUL COOKS AND BAKERS!

Al and Marion Lake’s daughter, granddaughter and great-grandchildren all surprised Al with wonderful cupcakes – it was Al’s birthday!

We collected over $300 from the generous offerings – as well as $500 from The Lions Club. All will be donated to NuDay Syria as they continue their mission in aiding families in Syria affected by the massive earthquakes this past February.

THANK YOU EVERYONE!

The Missions Team 

A Word from Peace & Justice

This week our article is about unhoused families living in hotels who are facing deadlines to find new

homes. An article from New Hampshire Public Radio from April 1 reported that the New Hampshire

Emergency Rental Assistance Program was using federal pandemic-assistance funds to pay for hotel rooms for adults and families in housing crisis.

The federal funding ended in December but the state has

continued the program until now. April 1 was the deadline for adults to find housing and vacate the hotel accommodations. June 15 is the deadline for families with children.

New Hampshire Housing Authority, which has overseen the hotel housing program, reports that about 700 households were in the program and 500 of them had the April 1st deadline for assistance to end.

Some non-profit agencies were working steadily to help those families with finding rental units and paying security deposits and even first month’s rent. But at the beginning of the month NH vacancy rates were at 0.5% and the rents have increased by more than 45%. Many of the families in the program had held apartments until being evicted by landlords seeking to do renovations. Now the families with children are in the midst of finding housing before their June 15 deadline.

In an article on Monday, also from NHPR, there is a report that many seniors are turning to agencies such as Crossroads House in Portsmouth as they are facing homelessness for the first time. They are poor or on a limited income and because a new owner of their housing decides to raise rent to a point that they cannot afford the unit they are without a place to live.

Crossroads House spoke of the extra burden that this population puts on the shelter due to their complex health needs and mobility challenges.

The Assisted Housing Division at New Hampshire Housing reported that more than 1500

people 62 years and older are on a waitlist for a voucher to help pay for housing.

The waitlist could take 5 to 7 years to clear.

Steeple Lighting

Steeple lit the week of April 17th

in memory of

Douglas Craighead

from Sarah, Christie,

Matt & Elizabeth

Scam Emails & Texts

Emails and Texts are often sent, saying they are from Pastor Kathy or another staff member. She (or the HCC staff) will never send out a generic email/text--she'll address it to your name. She will never ask you for money/gift cards over email nor via a text.

Also, any email from Pastor Kathy will always have her signature line on the bottom with her phone number/address.

If in doubt, please contact the church office or Pastor Kathy.

April Birthdays

Debra S. 04/08

Peggy F. 04/11

Ken G. 04/24

Lydia F. 04/27

Ellen M. 04/29

Linda T. 04/29

If you would like your birthday recognized, please call the office to make sure

we have it in our records!

New Hampshire Conference UCC Weekly News

We thought you might enjoy reading the NH Conference UCC weekly newsletter. You can read it with this link.

4/18/2023 Newsletter

Each week, we will update this section of our Weekly Word with the new link

for the current newsletter.

Food Drive to Support

Saint Anne Ecumenical

Food Pantry



 Currently in need of cereal, coffee, salad dressings,

pasta sauce, granola bars, grated cheese and ketchup.



Please drop off any donations in the foyer of Hadley Hall

Please, no expired items.

Thank you for all your support!