Parish News

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Pre-K ‘s Hallows-Eve

Pre-K school had a very wonderful Hallows-Eve celebration at St. Ann Church. All the kids dressed up in lovely costumes. They enjoyed Trick or Treat, cupcake decoration, magical drink with joy, laugh, friendship, and love. 

Thanks Fr. Tuan, Sisters, and parents for spending time with our kids today. May God bless all of you through the intercession of All Hollows (All Saints)

Click here for more photos

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Pastor Letter October 29, 2017

We had a wonderful weekend starting with the Stewardship Campaign as we heard from our speakers at some of the Masses. The speakers shared with us on how they engaged and participated in as good steward of God’s gift. They shared with us and focused on an area in our Annual Parish Report. We hope that you had time to check the information in it. 

We joined each other to thank God for the blessing that we received from the past year. We are asking you to make your commitment for this year as you received the stewardship letter, which the parish office had sent to your home. I hope the you have seen the video and heard the witness talk recently. The stewardship of treasure is the money to support the operation, activities and ministry of each parish. And we ask you to make your commitment now. Please assist your parish by being a good stewardship of your time and talent. On behalf of our parish staff, priests and sisters, we deeply appreciate you for supporting our ministry to serve you more effectively so that you benefit from what we do.

We thank those who attended the Cornerstone Convention last weekend. We also thank you for supporting it and we also thank the children’s choir from St. Ann’s Church who sang at the Mass there on Saturday. We also thank the core team who assisted us with the senior luncheon at St. John of the Woods’ Church last Wednesday. We had so much fun for fellowship and a wonderful meal to enjoy. We thank you for bringing your parents and grandparents to the Church for the Sacrament of Healing and joining with the parish for the Weekend Mass to acknowledge them and to pray for them. We also thank the Priests and Liturgy Committee who organized this event to support the homebound ministry within our parishes.

We spent time with the parish staff at their regular meeting last week. We thank them for their ministry among us. We listened to them, consulted on their concerns, spent time to inform them on what was going on and we sat with them to plan and to prepare events that we are going to celebrate for the coming months. We planned all the liturgical events for the next few months and we communicated with those ministries relating to them. It was an informative meeting that we had with them. We have only a few parish staff, so we have to maximize their time and talent to assist us with the mission that we want to establish. We thank the parish volunteers who carry on with many different tasks, responsibilities and duties that our limited number of staff cannot do. Our volunteers assist us to have various programs and do various projects at each parish. We have volunteers who mow the lawn, clean the parishes’ grounds and the parish property and buildings. It is amazing all the work that they do and we thank our volunteers, who are able to assist us while Don is on sick leave (after he had the accident). We need more volunteers who can assist us in this area. There is so much work and you will be able to witness it when you are involved with the parish ministries and activities.

We congratulate the new council member on each of the parish council and we are still in need of more people who can sit on the leadership team. We need you to assist us in the area that you can share your gifts in (time and talent). We welcome all the babies and newly baptized into our Faith Community. We have many different events from our parishes to help parishioners engage and participate in the parish life. We had more than 70 people who received the flu vaccination at St. Ann’s Church on Sunday. We thank the core team member who organized this social event to support our parishioners’ health, such as parish nursing program to come to the Church to assist our parishioners in taking care of their health. We also thank many catechists and parish ministers who signed up for the Safe Environment Workshop for this Tuesday at Sacred Heart Church’s Hall. It is an important workshop that we need to have in supporting volunteers who work and assist children and the elderly. This workshop provides information for us on how to create a safe place and protect them, in addition to protecting those who are serving them. 

There is a lot of work that goes into keeping our parish grounds clean and looking beautiful. We thank the parish volunteers who come weekly to assist us to clean and keep our grounds beautiful. We did not mow our lawn during the summer because the grass was dry and now due to the rain, the grass is growing faster and green again, so we need to mow them and this takes a lot of time from our volunteers to assist us with this. The Facility and Maintenance Committee spent time to clean the lawn mower and tuned it (when we were not using it), so it can be ready for us to use now. When Don (our beloved parish staff) had the accident and on sick leave, the parish staff and parish leadership team along with volunteers assisted with the cleaning of the Church, parish buildings (facility) and secured the buildings. We thank you for your continue support of our parish ministry and mission! 

I had a chance to visit the religious education classes on Wednesday and on Sunday at St. John of the Woods’ Church and St. Ann’s Church. We also have a program at Sacred Heart’s Church on Saturday. You are cordially invited to our parish minis-try, so you can feel more at home with our parish activities and ministries. You are also cordially invited to join us for differ-ent celebrations such as All Saints, All Souls, and feast days that we are celebrating. You are encouraged to call the outreach minister to inform them if you want to have a Priest go to your home to be anointed or celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation. We thank you for your continue support of our parish ministry and sharing your blessing with the parish! May the Lord continue to bless upon you!

Sincerely yours in Chris,

Fr. Tuan Nguyen, D. Min, Regional Pastor

Download October 29, 2017 bulletin.

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Pastor Letter October 22, 2017

We had a wonderful time at the Fall Harvest Festival last weekend at St. John of the Woods Parish. We thank the core team who took the whole year preparing for this event. We had so much fun with others for social fellowship. We are very blessed to have many handy people from the parish to build and to make many different gifts and sharing their time and talent to make this festival a special one.

We thank you for coming to sup-port us with this festival celebration and you were able to take home some special gifts, which is homemade and made in Tacoma, U.S.A (not from China or any other country). We are very proud of this event, because we have many parishioners who participated in it and it is truly our parish event. We also congratulated the Vietnamese Language School at St. Ann’s Church who celebrated their Full Moon Festival with the children last weekend. It was a joy for the children and their parents to celebrate it in the Church after the 4PM Mass and it was a joy to wit-ness the children enjoying this event.

We welcome many guests and visitors who have come to the Cornerstone Convention this weekend (from Friday to Saturday) at the Taco-ma Dome and they are joining us for Weekend Masses. You are welcome to join our parish family and we are very happy to welcome you to be with us to pray for our country, for peace in the world, immigration and refugees, and our own parishes. We thank you for taking time to attend this convention and supporting it with prayers. I had the chance to meet with many people who came to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation and at different activities I attended during Friday and Saturday.

We thank volunteers who assisted us with cleaning up the parish grounds, mowing our lawn and pulling out weeds around the parish’s property. We ask you to lock up your car when you are in the Church or group meetings and we ask you to take any valuable items with you and please do not leave them in your car. We have a security person who watches your car, but you do not want to tempt any thief to break into your car. I have heard many compliments from those who come for Weekend Masses and guests who like our parish ground and our parish for being so welcoming. We have lots of tree barks (mulch) on the parish grounds around our Church’s buildings, through-out the summer we had some incidents, which caused fires, because cigarette butts were thrown on the bark (causing a fire due to the barks being so dry). When I was at St. Ann’s Parish Office last week, I took a little rest to go over to the rectory between appointments; I saw smoke and fire coming from the back of the Church near the rectory. I managed to find a hose at the rectory (near our statue of St. Ann) to put out the fire. So, I ask you if you are smoking after or before Mass, could you please put the cigarette butts in the tray or in the tray box. We thank you for helping us to keep our Church looking beautiful and welcoming for all to come to worship the Lord and be safe as well!

We thank parents and godparents who attended the Baptism Class to prepare your child to receive this Sacrament. We thank you for taking your responsibility, as you have the most important role and duty to train and to teach your child about their Faith. We are very happy to welcome new members to the Liturgical Ministry. They have received the training and are ready to serve. We had the training for Altar Servers and a session for the Extra-Ordinary Eucharist Minister.

We thank teachers, teacher’s aides and parents who assist students from the CCD program who come to Weekend Masses, and those students who are participating in the Altar Serving Ministry. We also thank the Extra-Ordinary Eucharistic Ministers who came to the train-ing session that we had. We also encourage volunteers to attend the Safe Environment training (those who work with children and the elderly) at Sacred Heart’s Church. It is an important training session for us all to learn on how to serve others safely on behalf of the Church. The Lord has blessed us, so we want to be a good steward of God’s gift and share it with others.

You will receive my letter on Stewardship of Treasures asking you to financially support our parish. You will hear from witness speakers within the next few weeks on how they support our parish’s ministry and parish mission. As you have read the Parish Annual Report on what we had done for the past year and we ask you to please continue to support this year’s budget with your commitment to support our parish’s ministry and activities. We thank priests, religious sisters, parish staff, and volunteers who are serving us. We also thank you for supporting them with their ministry by being a good steward of God’s gifts to us. Our regional parishes are very blessed to be diversified with many different cultures, languages and traditions. So, there are many blessings and we need to share with each other: different gifts that God has given to us, and unite with love to celebrate the sacraments to worship Him (through different cultures, languages and traditions). God is truly the center of our life and we need to gather together in the Church to worship Him. We have many young families and young parishioners, and we are able to offer various programs and activities to assist them. We also have many seniors and the elderly who are homebound and our regional parishes are able to offer them the pastoral care that they need. Our parishes are very active and you are always welcome to share what you can do to assist our parishes’ ministry and life.

We have Sister Kim Tran who is assisting us with the Stewardship and Communication. I cordially invite you to check our parishes’ web-site and bulletin to find out more information of activities and events. I have asked the group coordinators to share their ministries and activities with us, so our parishioners can know what they are doing and can assist/join in their ministry.

We congratulate those couples that have made their vows this weekend and we congratulate all the babies who received the Sacrament of Baptism this weekend. We also thank you for supporting those families who have lost their love one. Thank you for comforting them during the time they are mourning for their love one!

We thank Father Patrick for taking time to visit the religious education classes last Sunday. Father Patrick went into each classroom to visit them. We thank you for enrolling your children and grandchildren in the Confirmation Class for this year. We have a wonderful core team who assist us, so we are very happy to encourage the Junior High School to sign up for the program for this year. May you have a blessed weekend with your family!

Sincerely yours in Chris,

Fr. Tuan Nguyen, D. Min, Regional Pastor

Download bulletin for October 22, 2017.

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Online Giving

The transition from ParishPay to WeShare has been completed successfully. If you are using Online Giving to donate to St. Ann or St. John of the Wood. You need to verify your accounts right now. Click on the link below and follow instruction. This only takes about 1 minute. Thanks for your patience and generosity 

St. Ann: https://www.parishpay.com/nonprofit/login.html?pc=bn44s584

SJOW: https://www.parishpay.com/nonprofit/login.html?pc=xpdzdi65

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Fall Harvest Festival 2017

“Rejoice and be glad.” Thanks God for a very fabulous Fall Harvest Festival this year. It was not just food and goods, but also joy, love, fellowship, and unity that all those who came to this Festival have definitely touched. 

 Many special thanks to Karen & Ken, Gaye & Tom, Conie, Twyla, Gary, Mark, Terrie, Paula, Bob, Bonnie, Rita, Tina, Wendy, Mario, Sandra, Samantha, Arleen, Pat, Marleen, Dianna, Joan, Aurelia, Steve, Amara, Adamari, Gael & John, Charlecia, Serena, Kathy, Gena, Sabrina and those who have devoted to the success of this Festival. May God bless you and reward you abundantly.

Thank you for supporting our Parish, Saint John of the woods. The success of this Festival means a lot to the future of our Parish. 

In one banner of Love, we have succeeded! 

Click here for more photos

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Pastor Letter October 15

We had a prayerful feast day celebration with the Samoan Community at the St. Ann Parish for their patron saint of their community, St. Francis of Assisi. We started this celebration with the Divine Mercy prayer, Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, Benediction and the Eucharistic celebration followed with social and fellowship with the community. We thank the Samoan Community for sharing with us their culture and tradition, especially engaging and participating fully in the parish’s life and ministry. 

You are cordially invited to their White Sunday celebration, which is a special children’s celebration, similar to the Vietnamese’s Moon Festival celebration for the children. The children gather to sing a song and they pray with a lit lamb in their procession and their parents dress them in white. The Vietnamese children have a special cake to eat on this festival day (moon cake) and for the Samoan children, they dress in white (hence the White Sunday celebration). We thank Father Andrew who comes to be with the Samoan Community for this special celebration.

We thank the students from the religious education program who have signed up to be altar servers within our regional parishes. We had the training a few weeks ago and we will have a few more follow up training for this ministry. We encourage parents to assist your children with this ministry, because they depend on you to drive them to Mass when they serve at Mass. Please help your children to participate in this ministry and promote vocations for priestly life and religious orders by serving our parish.

We started the Scripture Class in different languages within our regional parishes (in English at St. John of the Woods’ Church on Monday and Tuesday, in Spanish at Sacred Heart’s Church with the Missionary Workers, and in Vietnamese at St. Ann’s Church on Thursday night). We thank the instructor and facilitator of these classes within our regional parishes. It is a joy for us to share together the Words of God among us. We have the Adult Education Classes together with the Faith Formation program to prepare candidates for different sacraments within each parish. We thank you for your help and support.

You have received the Parish Annual Report that the parish office has sent to your home or you may have picked one up from the back of the Church or found it inserted in the parish bulletin. I will ask Sister Kim Tran to post it on the parish website for your information. We thank you for your support of the parish ministry by being a good steward of God’s gifts by sharing them with the parish. Steward-ship is the way of life to share with each other God’s generous gifts to us. In sharing God’s gifts to us with others, in return God continues to give us more to share. You will hear different witness speakers promote the campaign when it commences. In gratefulness to all of God’s blessings, we thank you for supporting your parish and it is a joy for us to serve you and we thank you for your continue sup-port!

We will have training for the Extraordinary Eucharistic Minister at our parishes. We thank those who are currently serving in this ministry and also to those who are joining us for this year. It is a very special ministry that represents the parish to bring Christ to those who are homebound and at the liturgy celebration to be like Christ to each other, as Christ is truly present at the Eucharistic celebration and He is with us when we gather in His name. We thank you for engaging, participating and being involved with the parish ministry.

It is a joy to be with many of you who come to Mass early to pray the Holy Rosary during the month of October for Life. It is also the month to participate in the 40 Days of Life journey with others. We also thank you for taking time to teach the little children on how to pray the Rosary and also to make a Rosary. It is the best practice for parents and grandparents to teach the children and grandchildren to pray and it is a joy for me to witness parents and grandparents bringing them to Mass. I am so happy to check in with them by signing their sheet of Mass Attendance each weekend. It is little more work and time for us to do it, but it is the best way for us all to be involved with what we believe is the best support to give the children and their parents in the area of faith education.

We thank you for participating in the Charismatic Retreat and the coming of Cornerstone Convention at the Tacoma Dome! The Cornerstone Conference is open for registration until October 17th and I hope you will not miss this wonderful opportunity to attend on October 20th to 21st (Friday and Saturday). The Sacrament of Reconciliation is available at the commencement and at the end of each day and also at Noon for those who want to receive it during these two days. I am volunteering to celebrate the Sacrament of Recon-ciliation with other Priests. We cordially invite you to join Pope Francis to open your heart to share the journey of life with Immigrants as the Lord had said, “For I was… a stranger and you welcomed me.” (Mathew 25:35) The Archbishop’s Office has sent a prayer for us to pray, and I invite you to share the journey of prayer with our parishes to pray together at our Mass for God’s children who have come to live among us.

We pray: 

“Heavenly Father, Lord of all humanity, many are the journeys your people have taken: Abraham’s journey led from fear to understanding; Moses’ journey led from bondage to liberty; the disciples’ journey led from death to new life. Even today, your people journey -- immigrants and refugees, pilgrims and nomads, searching for hope, searching for opportunity, searching for peace, searching for you. Lord, I know that I too am called to journey. Yet too many times, I have heard your call, and my feet have remained unmoved. Continue to call me beyond my comfort and into encounter. And when I meet a companion on the road, may we find you in each other’s embrace. Let us share the journey. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.”

You are invited to visit our parish website for further information on our regional parishes’ activities and ministries. We thank you for your continue support of our parish’s mission. May you have a blessed week with your family!

Sincerely yours in Chris,

Fr. Tuan Nguyen, D. Min. Regional Pastor.

Download October 15, 2017 Weekly Bulletin.

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Form (Formar)

Parish Registration Form (online fill-able English)

Registro Parroquial (rellenar en linea)

CCD Registration Form (Registro CCD)

Baptism Request Form (Solicitud de bautismo)

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SJOW Forms

Parish Registration Form 

CCD Registration Form

Baptism Request Form

Volunteer Sign-Up Form

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Mid-Autumn Festival

Vietnamese Sunday School celebrated Mid-Autumn Festival with their students on Sunday the 8th. This is a Vietnamese traditional Festival which is annually celebrated especially for children to honor their innocence, purity, and loveliness. May God continue to bless upon our children and protect them from harm and evil deeds.

Click here for more photos 

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15th Anniversary of Vietnamese Eucharistic Youth_THD St.Ann Tacoma

Vietnamese Eucharistic Youth_THD at St.Ann Parish, Tacoma has celebrated their 15th anniversary with the theme “Now, and Then” on their Feast day of St. Theresa Lisieux. It was a fabulous celebration with Mass and Bingo night. 

Many congrats to VYC group at St. Ann Tacoma. Many thanks to your service for the Parish and for future generations. Keep up your good works and move forward in the banner of Love and Hope.

Click here for more photos

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October Parish Council

Finance & Pastoral Council have met together at Milner Center on Wednesday October 4th.

Click here for Meeting Minutes

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September Pastoral Council

Finance & Pastoral Council have met on Wednesday 27th.

Click here for Pastoral Meeting Minutes

Click here for Finance Report 

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Reporte Anual (Annual Report)

Hemos hecho un año maravilloso con muchas bendiciones de Dios y ayuda de nuestros semejantes. Un agradecimiento especial a los Consejos Parroquiales, a todo el personal, a los voluntarios ya los feligreses que nunca cesan de trabajar y servir por el bien y crecimiento de nuestra Parroquia, el Sagrado Corazón.

Haga clic aquí para reporte 

We have done a very wonderful year with many blessings from God and help from our fellows. Special thanks to Parish Councils, all staff, volunteers, and parishioners who never cease working and serving for the good and growth of our Parish, Sacred Heart.

Click here for the report

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Annual Report

We have done a very wonderful year with many blessings from God and help from our fellows. Special thanks to Parish Councils, all staff, volunteers, and parishioners who never cease working and serving for the good and growth of our Parish, Saint Ann.

Click Vietnamese report & English report

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Annual Report

We have done a very wonderful year with many blessings from God and help from our fellows. Special thanks to Parish Councils, all staff, volunteers, and parishioners who never cease working and serving for the good and growth of our Parish, Saint John of the Woods. 

Click here for the report

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Animal Blessing

On the Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi, Fr. Tuan gave blessings to animals at SJOW. Through this ritual, we learned lessons from St. Francis which is to love, respect, and serve God in all of his creation.

Click here for more photos

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Pastor Letter October 8, 2017

We had a wonderful celebration with the Eucharistic Youth Group at St. Ann Parish for their 15th Anniversary. We are very proud of this youth group leadership among the Vietnamese Community. Their activities mainly help the children and teenagers know God through their service to each other with in our Faith Community, to celebrate the Sacraments, especially spend time for Adoration with the Blessed Sacrament, receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and celebrate the Sacrament of the Eucharist, which is the heart of their mission and ministry.

Their Patron Saint is Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, which her feast day was last Sunday so they had a very special celebration to honor her and celebrated fifteen years of this ministry in our parish. They have around 200 members in their group and they attend the 4PM Mass at St. Ann’s Church after their activity on Sunday and they have a summer camp for their training and summer activities. Please visit their website for further information about their ministry and activities.

We have a wonderful breakfast once a month on the First Sunday throughout this school year at St. John of the Woods after the Sunday Masses (8am Mass and 11am Mass). It is a wonderful event for social and fellowship from our parish and we thank the core team who organize this for us. The food is delicious and it was so wonderful to witness families seated around the table in the parish hall to enjoy their meal and to catch up with others after the Eucharistic celebration in the Church, in the repainted parish hall. We just ordered more pie varieties for you to enjoy and there are many different pies for you to choose from to buy. I know some Sisters from the Franciscan Order love our pies and they used to stop by to buy them at St. John of the Woods’ Church. We had a prayerful time during the blessing of the animals on the Feast Day of Saint Francis at St. John of the Woods’ Church. We thank the Liturgy Committee who organized and assisted us with this event. We thank you for taking time to care for God’s creation and we show the love by caring for what God has created and bless upon it.

We had many people attend the Safe and Environment session at St. John of the Woods’ Church last week, especially for those who work with children and the elderly within our parishes. This class helps us to know how to protect the vulnerable and pro-vide a safe place for the parish and school ministry. It is a requirement to attend this class for those who have signed up to volunteer and work in the parish with children and the elderly. I thank you for taking time to attend this class. We have this class each year before or during the school year and we are working very hard to have it in different languages (English, Spanish, and Vietnamese) for ministers within our regional parishes.

We have a few training sessions to support the new liturgical ministers (in different areas) who have signed up through the Stewardship of Time and Talent Campaign. I thank you for you love and care for our parishes. We had an informative meeting with the coordinator team of the Liturgy Commission to plan on different celebrations for the next few months. We thank them for their insight, feedback and assisting us to organize different events within our parishes.

We thank you for attending the Safety Workshop at St. Ann’s Church by the Building and Construction Department of the Arch-diocese. It is important for our volunteers who assist us with the facility and maintenance to know what we can do and what we cannot do (i.e. the usage of chemicals or other tools in cleaning the facility) to ensure the safety of everyone who use our facility. We thank the Stewardship Committee for their help and support of the Stewardship Campaign on Time and Talent. They are sorting out the information of what you have provided to them, through the survey of participation and involvement with the par-ish ministry and activity. You are going to receive the Parish Annual Report within the next few weeks, so you know what we have done for the last year and the information on the budget for this year that the Financial Council from each parish assisted me to share with you. You should be very proud of what we have done from each parish ministry and activities for the past year. We share with you this year’s budget and information on projects that we are working on. We thank you for your support and there are a few highlights that we are able to share with you in this report. However, there are many activities and outreach ministries that we as a Faith Community do to reach out to share with the large Church and community, which is not mentioned in this report.

We thank you for supporting the victims of the earthquake and disaster that had occurred in Mexico City last week. Our Latino Community gathered to offer prayers and thoughts for families and relatives who live in Mexico City and we ask you to remember them in your daily prayers. It is very hard for us when we cannot communicate with our families (to know how they are) when such disasters occur. May the Lord comfort us and heal those who are mourning! As you know, Pope Francis asked us to pray for immigration and to support them. Many of us have come to live in the United States from other countries and have experienced the hardship when we first arrived, as we had to leave our own homeland and family to live in a new place with different traditions, cultures, and way of life. We were very blessed to receive support and welcome from the Church and local families when we started a new life here. It is important to share God’s blessing upon those who have just arrived and are facing many challenges at this time. There is information for us to reach out to support them by praying and doing works of charity. I ask the parish staff to post information on the parishes’ website and bulletin so you can share it with your family.

We thank you for engaging with our parish’s ministry by signing up with different activities and ministries of our parishes. We have many different programs that are lead by our parishioners. Our parishes are only alive because our parishioners are very active and engage with the parish’s ministry. May the Lord continue to bless upon you!

Sincerely yours in Christ,

Fr. Tuan Nguyen, D. Min, Regional Pastor

Download October 8, 2017 bulletin.