Thank you from Rev. Chase
Dear SSPC!
I want to thank you for making my ordination service so special! From Dr. Kyle, the Praise Band, the Choir, the musicians, thank you for the beautiful music. To Ellen and her spectacular Fellowship team who made the most delicious food - it was all so glorious and special - Thank you! Also a special thank you to Priscilla and John for their efforts as well as for helping me get ready with the bulletin and room set up, etc. Thank you to all who attended in person and watched online. I am incredibly blessed to be serving as your Associate Pastor. Thank you for this amazing opportunity.
With God’s love,
Lisa
MATE ROAR Trip
This is a reminder that the ROAR Team will be returning to Farmington, Maine this summer. MATE stands for Mission At The Eastward and has been helping people in need for over 60 years. SSPC has been participating in this rural ministry in central western Maine for over 25 years. The ROAR Team is not a specific group of people; they are a group of SSPC volunteers who are God’s hands and feet on the ground at a specific mission location.
The Team generally arrives in Farmington on Saturday, July 30 and will depart on August 06, 2022. As always, departure time may vary for some people. The Saturday arrival allows us to worship together on Sunday morning at the Fairbanks Union Church and tour the project sites on Sunday afternoon. We have breakfast and dinner as a group in the St. Jo’s fellowship hall and prepare our lunches to take to the job sites every day.
We are registered to be at MATE July 30th - August 6th, 2022 and are scheduled for rooms in a dormitory at the University of Maine, Farmington Campus. At this point in time the college is requiring people who have been vaccinated to have their shot record card with them when we check in at the dorm. People who are not vaccinated will need to take a rapid COVID test after three days (that doesn’t make sense but that is their current policy). Updated information from the college will be passed along when it is available.
If you know anyone who is interested in being part of the MATE ROAR Team, church member or friend of the church, please let them know about the dates and have them contact Terry Reed, 717-766-2714, or see him in church.
Spotted Lanternfly- Stop the Invader!
Beginning in 2021, you may have noticed a relatively large insect with gray-pink wings and lethargic movements climbing up the trees in your yard. This was probably the adult stage of the Spotted Lanternfly, an invasive pest that arrived in Pennsylvania in 2014 from Asia, and is now moving westward through Pennsylvania. This species moves around much like grasshoppers, jumping and flying short distances to get from place to place. These movements are clumsy and slow; in fact the species' rapid spread is more likely due to their indiscriminate choice of egg laying surfaces, which includes the undersides of cars and trucks, as well as more natural surfaces like trees and shrubs. Our highways have likely transported millions of lanternfly eggs into Cumberland County in the past few years, and now we are beginning to see the adults, even as local as our own church grounds. After hatching in spring, individuals go through 4 life stages (called instars) before emerging as adults in late July. Adults climb into trees, where they will gather en masse, and suck the sap from an assortment of trees and vines. This feeding can stress trees and lead to long-term weakening of established plants. Their favorite plants are grapevines, maples, and black walnut, as well as another invasive tree called Tree-of-Heaven. In fall 2021 a small Tree-of-heaven grove on the west end of SSPC campus was discovered with Spotted Lanternfly adults. These trees have since been killed to help slow the spread of lanternflies on campus.
You can help slow the spread of Spotted Lanternfly on your property by trapping adults as they move up trees to lay eggs. These traps can be made with everyday household items, and directions are available at the following link: https://extension.psu.edu/how-to-build-a-new-style-spotted-lanternfly-circle-trap. At SSPC we plan to install several of these traps to gauge the presence of spotted lanternfly on our campus.
Another way to reduce infestations on your trees is by scraping away egg masses in late fall to early spring. Check your trees, cars, and outdoor equipment (furniture, mowers, firewood) for rough, gray splotches 1-2" long. These egg masses contain 30-50 eggs each and should be removed (use a butter knife or scraping tool), then placed in an alcohol solution (rubbing alcohol or hand sanitizer), or thoroughly smashed.
As a fairly new invader, we are still learning how best to handle this pest. Spotted Lanternfly is just one of the many problematic species we've introduced to our landscape, and in time, we hope that eradication efforts are useful in reducing its spread across the Commonwealth.
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