A message from our Pastor – December 2023

10:00 AM
1 Church Street
East Harwich, MA 02645
Tel: 508-432-3734
harwichumc@gmail.com
Christmas Past, Present and Future,
Beginning in 2012 I had the opportunity to accompany Al LePage on the organ as he took on the role of Englishman Thomas Hutchinson, Traveling Thespian, and did a dramatic reading of A Christmas Carol in the style of Charles Dickens.
We met when Al was asked to perform in Franklin for the Historical Society and since Franklin UMC was next door LePage asked to use the Victorian style Methodist church as the venue. LePage regularly came home from the Pacific Northwest to visit family and perform for the benefit of local Food Pantrys in the Middlesex County area and at the Parker House in Boston.
Providing music for the scene changes and featuring Bach’s Toccata in D minor https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=shared&v=erXG9vnN-GI for Marley’s ghost, I joined him until 2018. We played at the Wayside Inn Chapel, the Old South Meeting House, the Sherborn Unitarian Church, Providence RI and several other venues during those years.
This year members of Harwich UMC have the opportunity to use A Christmas Carol as our Advent/ Christmas study and devotionals.
Al’s father died near Thanksgiving in 2019 and Al no longer comes East from The Pacific Northwest where he is a park ranger who regularly portrays historic persons. Others have taken up the role and provide dramatic readings of A Christmas Carol but in Christmases Past Al filled an important niche in providing an historic entertainment and funds for Food Pantrys in the area.
Your contributions to the people of Harwich and neighboring communities thru your capabilities, our Thrift Shop and our presence here at 1 Church St changes lives. Thank-you for the Christmases Past, present and – God willing- for many years to come.
Your pastor,
Dianne