Greetings!

By Anne Nielsen

Greetings from your new Director of Children's Ministry! My name is Anne Nielsen and I have experienced an awesome week of welcome from Central's staff and family. I am looking forward to being used by God in this church and community as well as continuing to grow in my own walk with Him.

I'm the 2nd oldest of 12 children and was raised in Omaha, Nebraska. I've lived in San Antonio and Dallas, Texas and Omaha, Nebraska; and the last 19 years I've lived in southern Pennsylvania. I have 3 grown children. Britt lives in Austria and is studying for a masters in French Horn pedagogy. She's actually lived in Europe for about 6 years now. Mark currently lives in York but is headed for Chicago to get schooling in making and fitting prosthetics. Krista has a degree in music education and earns a living teaching and playing cello. She is studying with a cello teacher in hopes of being admitted to a masters program in cello performance at Temple.

Before coming to this job at Central, I had been employed by Living Word Community Church (LWCC) as well as Hearts and Minds Bookstore. At LWCC, I was part of the Children's Ministry staff. My area of responsibility was preschool. That meant the oversight of 16 preschool classes, about 220 children and 120 volunteers. I discovered that I really loved ministry work, especially discipling. This past spring I began looking for a full-time job in children's ministry.

I love to garden, but am no expert. I enjoy the exercise, the smell of the dirt, watching things grow or trying to figure out why they didn't grow, and the beauty of God's creation. I also love to read. I met the Priscilla Circle this week and they were telling me about their study, and I had to know who wrote it. Do I know that author? Have I read any of their work? In addition to the Bible, the books that have affected me the most in the last 5 years include The Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri Nouwen, A Grace Disguised by Gerald Sittser, What's So Amazing About Grace by Philip Yancey and Eugene Peterson's translation of The Psalms. This summer I've been reading The Ascent of A Leader by Thrall, McNicol and McElrath and Colossians Remixed by Walsh and Keesmaat.

I've been blessed to be called to Central Presbyterian Church and I look forward to the work that God wants us to do in God's Big Backyard. I'm grateful to be working at something I love to do. I'm excited to become part of the community here and do life together.

(see also NV: Introducing... Our New Director of Children's Ministry)