Thanks to Thom and Lorie for opening up their home and hosting a fun afternoon of BBQ on Sunday! Thanks as well to our team of college students from Augusta Georgia for a week of serving the city with Tapestry.

Finance Report
The Finance Team has been hard at work on the books at Tapestry. You don't see a lot of their work most weeks, but thanks to them we now have a summary of the church's finances in the new financial report distributed Sunday. Make sure to tell Glenn, Kevin, and Cam thanks for all their hard work and faithfulness. If you did not receive a copy of the finance report, and you would like one, you may request one by contacting Glenn.

The Finance Team would like to remind all you faithful servants at Tapestry to please submit requests for non-budgeted expenses in advance by filling in a request form for approval by the Pastoral Team before you spend the money. This will guarantee your reimbursement.

Coming up

• Prayer Night is 7:00 pm this Friday at Max and Lynda's. We take communion on the first Friday of the month, so if you haven't been in awhile, this is a great week to start back. For directions, click here.
• Family Camp is 17 August. If you're interested, signup here and we'll email you with more details when we have them.
• Tapestry will be hosting a community Scrapbooking Soiree at the Tuscany Club 13-16 August, 1:30 pm - 3:30 pm. Invite your scrapbooking friends and bring your best scraps for afternoons of catching up on those albums you started years ago. For more info, email Kelly and Brooke.
• Tapestry Kids Camp is coming to Citadel Park 13-16 August, 9:00 am - 11:30 am. If you know anyone living in the Citadel area, let them know that they can signup for this free event at www.tapestrycalgary.com.

On the web
• See photos from last Sunday's BBQ and this summer's Tuscany Kids Club.

• Don't forget about Tapestry Tuscany's online calendar, where you can find times and directions to all our upcoming events.

Note from Nick
I recently read this story in the New York Times about the Turkana people in Kenya who were helped by World Vision, a Christian Charity, to turn arid tribal land into irrigated farmland. Rather than bring in heavy earth movers and complicated gas powered machines, they used a simple system, one that the Turkana could build and maintain themselves. This meant back breaking work for the people. 5 people died during the construction. “It was the heaviest work we had ever done, but we had no choice,” Ikai Moru said. “It was the only way to get land to plow.” Even though the US was not able to come through on their promised payment in corn, the people finished this project and produced 1/2 acre irrigated plots for each family to farm. The end result? This African region, which had seen many well intended aid efforts try and fail, grew enough crops to donate 14,000 pounds of food to the poor all around them! It is the very best that could have been hoped for.

Tapestry has come a long way since January. The early part of our transition was less than organized. People and ministries were forced to fend for themselves and communication was limited as we dealt with Jim and Steph leaving. While we are still making adjustments and improvements, much of our early frustrations seem to have been mitigated. Thanks to the hard work of the Transition Team, we now have clear statements of how and why we do what we do as a church. The Finance Team has us up to speed financially. Sunday mornings have been streamlined in setup, tear down, and in the worship time. MOPS is about to begin a great new session. Communications have improved thanks to the website and newsletter, and I have been able to meet with many of our leaders over the past few months.  So many others that I haven't mentioned have served faithfully through this time, and every contribution has been important. Together we have done the hard work that needed to be done.

We are grateful to God for making this hard time a growth point for our church, but I am reminded of Moses' words to Israel as they prepared to enter into the Promised Land in Deuteronomy 6:10-13. "When you have eaten your fill in this land, be careful not to forget the Lord." We all have a tendency to forget the God who has delivered us, once we have escaped the discomfort of our troubles. Let's thank God for hearing our prayers and helping us grow in health, but we must also remember that we're not there yet. Israel had a lot of cities to take when Moses spoke those words of warning. Yet we know that the same God that has brought us this far will bring us the rest of the way. He has saved us to send us out. He has fed us so that we can feed others. Let's not get comfortable; instead let's continue to give ourselves away and to reach out to the people around us, taking risks for the sake of the Kingdom of God.

-Nick