WEST PARIS — December is a time of transition and renewal and a time to gather in community to reflect, celebrate, and seek and give comfort. Please join us on Sundays at 9 a.m. Music is performed by guitarist Davy Sturtevant. Refreshments following the services. All are welcome!

• December 1, “Ripple Retreat Effect” with guest speaker, Jeffrey Holley. The topic is about “how one person can make a difference in the world, and that one person is you! We are all blessed with life, what we do with it… Now that is the gift.” Jeff operates Ripple Retreat, a non-alcohol turnkey event center, retreat center, and recovery space. A business founded to give more than it receives. Jeffrey J. Holley is a Retired Air Force Major, six-time combat veteran, alcoholic in recovery, father, grandfather, and the dreamer who founded Ripple Retreat. Jeff, born and raised in Idaho, retired from the Air Force in October of 2015 after serving 27 honorable years, where he grew from the Rank of E-1 to retiring at O-4, but his greatest joy is being a father of his two children born at the start of his career in Germany. Married for 23 years, Jeff and his family moved and served all over the world. After his retirement, Jeff continued to travel, living and working abroad doing what he loves to do – seeing places and meeting people. But lost and searching for his calling, he learned one of his greatest lessons, when he learned to be his own hero. Now, five years after getting sober, Jeff has his family living close by, kids and granddaughters, and is living his dream, or should we dare say his calling of giving and serving his community by being the example of loving thy neighbor with positive ripples.
• December 8, “Belief” led by The Rev. Scott Campbell. Are people of faith called to be naive and gullible?  Or can believers also be critical, discerning thinkers?  Here is an excerpt: “In the end, we all choose what we will believe. For some those choices flow easily. For others, our decisions are forged in the crucible of doubt and struggle. Both Mary and Thomas are biblical models held before the faithful. Both are in the church today, and both are beloved Children of God.”
• December 15, “Children shouldn’t be Victims” led by Bob Neal, who will be discussing the reality that children are among the first and worst victims of the violence in the world — witness Gaza and Ukraine — and that even in the less war-torn world we are not serving children well.
• December 15, The Oxford Hills Ukulele Group (OHUG) will entertain us with a Christmas sing-a-long at 4:30 p.m. Admission is free, donations are welcome. Refreshments following the concert.
• December 22, Candlelight Service at 4:30 p.m. – no morning service on this Sunday. The candlelight service will be led by Pastor Linda Couture who will share the Christmas story, there will be Christmas carols and a special gift of treats for those attending. Please bring a donation of non-perishable foods that will be donated to the local food pantry.
• December 29, “New Ground for Ancient Dreams.” The service will be led by Darrell Dyke who is new to our church. He will be talking about the opportunity the Winter season gives us to reflect on events and to plan new steps into this future that appears laid out in front of us. Darrell was born in Norway, grew up in Bryant Pond, and came of age in Bethel. Fortunate to be selected for a place in 1981’s class of Upward Bound at the University of Maine in Farmington, he later relocated there looking for community and ended up helping to found the Western Maine Community Land Trust, a village of off-grid homes. He later earned his bachelor’s degree in psychology. Having spent years homesteading, he followed his wife to Western New York (near Buffalo), where she completed her residencies in medicine. Darrell attended seminaries in Rochester and in Chicago at Meadville Lombard Theological School, while preaching and volunteering at Pullman Memorial Universalist. They have since returned home to Maine, to an overgrown farm in Starks. He is affiliated with the UU Society for Community Ministries. His visiting the First Universalist Church of West Paris is very much a homecoming for Darrell and he looks forward to it greatly.

For more information about the church and services, please contact Marta Clements, 674-2143, mclements96894@roadrunner.com, or Suzanne Dunham, 665-2967, dunhamfarm@msn.com. To learn more about the Unitarian-Universalist Association, visit http://www.uua.org/. The First Universalist Church of West Paris is located at 208 Main St., W. Paris 04289.