LET US BUILD A HOUSE UPDATE There is amazing news to share with you about our effort to refurbish our building. We had hoped to reach a goal of $150,000. Through your generosity, to date $187,000 has been pledged with $60,000 already in hand. Of course, if you would like to add to these numbers, we’d be delighted, but we wanted to take a moment to celebrate your commitment to making our environment better. Work has already begun with new shades, boilers, water fountain an

Dan Lewis Department of Materials Science and Engineering Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY 12180 Delmar Presbyterian Church recently made a simple change with surprisingly big implications: we switched from disposable coffee cups to ceramic mugs. On the surface, it seems obvious that reusable mugs are better for the environment than disposable cups. But one of the interesting lessons from sustainability research is that the answer is rarely as simple as it first app

When was the last time you thought about toilet paper? I’m guessing it was during the Covid-19 pandemic when toilet paper, like flour and other things we take for granted, became gold dust. I still have a photo on my phone of a pack of 18 rolls that I fortuitously found in a supermarket. Who else remembers the thrill of snagging an item in shortage? Americans use, on average, 141 rolls of toilet paper per person every year, so no wonder we all panicked when we couldn’t fi

Greetings to everyone who is a part of Delmar Presbyterian! When I worked in a furniture shop, I often found the most difficult part of the day was the last two hours, usually 3 to 5 or 4 to 6. In the morning, I started in with energy and enthusiasm for the day, a feeling that lasted right up to lunch. After lunch, I was renewed and ready to get back to my bench and whatever project awaited me. But around 3 o’clock, it seems my energy just ran out. The eagerness of the morn

On Saturday we held Phoebe’s Walk at Delmar Presbyterian. If you missed what that is all about, then read back a couple of weeks, but essentially we walked the neighborhoods around the church, picking up litter. While a lot of what we found was expected - plastic bags, cans, bottles – some was definitely not – a slate roofing sample, a rusted aerosol can, a plastic bat (of the furry and flying variety) and a tire. The single item we found in the highest numbers was a reall

We’re still walking, as we have been for a while. And, although the journey itself has been the primary focus, we’re starting to think about the destination. Our goal, secret until now, so, drum roll please, is San Martin Sacatepequez in Guatemala, 3,723 miles from Delmar, NY. This is the location of our prayer partner La Iglesia Presbiteriana El Verbo Divino. For more than 30 years, Albany Presbytery has been in partnership with Mam Presbytery in Guatemala sharing fai

This post was written by Phoebe from the Church School at Delmar Presbyterian Church. Most of you know about my trash pick-up (AKA Phoebe’s Walk). I got the idea from walking around and just seeing how much trash there is. I think we should stop littering because it's really bad for the environment and litter can go in oceans and nature and animals can really get hurt from it. So that's how and why I got this idea. I thought it would make sense to do the walk around Earth Da

Greetings to the members and friends of DPC! As a person of faith, this past month has been difficult and has raised so many questions for me about what it means to even be a person of faith in the modern world. With the outbreak of war—ostensibly a war to “create peace.” First, I have to reflect on what it means to be a peacemaker living in a nation at war, a nation I love, but one that at times vexes me with its policies and ways of being in the world. I also wrestle with w

Holy Week is upon us again and I have a question. What do parenting Gen Z and Holy Week have in common? Bear with me here. Even if you're not trying to parent a Gen Z teen right now, you're probably aware of some of the anxieties around it. Gone is the school of hard knocks and just rubbing dirt on it, replaced by helicopter parents and participation trophies. Whatever your feelings are on those topics, and I'm sure that this is eliciting some strong responses, they both

This essay was written by Nancy Dunlop, Ph.D. They’re simply called, “the monks.” They number anywhere from 19-24 monks at any given time. And all they are doing is walking. That’s it. So far, they’ve walked through Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. They are currently making their way through Virginia, then on to Maryland, and finally, Washington D.C. Their walk will total 2,300 miles. They began Oct. 26 and intend to reach D

My father-in-law was, what you could charitably call, a character. He was an Italian American of the old school - sprawling families in multi-level homes and pots of gravy (or marinara, to the uninitiated) burbling on the stove until it reached the consistency of hot lava. He loved going out to eat Italian food, usually at someone else's expense, but would invariably peruse the menu with predictable and mounting indignation as he saw dish after dish that he could personally

We're walking a lot this spring at Delmar Pres. And I do mean a lot. Our group goal between Ash Wednesday and the CROP Hunger Walk on May 3rd is 3,273 miles. As a congregation, it's about 45 miles a day, which doesn't seem like much until you realize that it means each one of us needs to walk about a mile a day and, oh, it's already Wednesday and I haven't walked anywhere since Sunday, except from my desk to the lunch room with a side excursion to the vending machine...

Greetings to the DPC saints, As you may have heard by now, our theme for this Lent is “Walking Our Faith.” Of course, in part that means “walking the talk,” as the saying goes; we are called to live out what we say we believe, walking the path to which we are called as disciples. But this year, we are taking it a step further, as it were. We mean to actually do some walking. On Saturday, March 14th, we will be walking the labyrinth, an opportunity to engage in some walki