TOUCAN SUNDAY IS THE SECOND SUNDAY OF EVERY MONTH. Bring your aluminum cans for the youth of St Mark's to recycle. Feel free to pull up by the door and let the kids unload your cans for you.

FAT TUESDAY PARTY, TUESDAY FEB 16, 6-9 PM at St. Mark’s Lutheran sponsored by the youth group. We will have live music, games and good food. Please bring a topping to put on pancakes or ice cream or both.
Background on this festival: Mardi Gras, literally "Fat Tuesday," has grown in popularity in recent years as a raucous, sometimes hedonistic event. But its roots lie in the Christian calendar, as the "last hurrah" before Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. That's why the enormous party in New Orleans, for example, ends abruptly at midnight on Tuesday, with battalions of streetsweepers pushing the crowds out of the French Quarter towards home. Mardi Gras literally means "Fat Tuesday" in French. The name comes from the tradition of slaughtering and feasting upon a fattened calf on the last day of Carnival. The day is also known as Shrove Tuesday (from "to shrive," or hear confessions), Pancake Tuesday and fetter Dienstag. The custom of making pancakes comes from the need to use up fat, eggs and dairy before the fasting and abstinence of Lent begins.

Please submit pictures taken by yourself or family members that remind you of or represent peace for you to be used by the Sunday School for a powerpoint in their spring program. Please e-mail pictures to hopes@sio.midco.net. If you have any questions please ask Kjerstin Smith, Michael Kruse or Pastor Lori Hope.

HEY HIGH SCHOOL KIDS Just a reminder that you are invited to Sunday School on Sunday mornings too!!!