Free Medical Clinic on February 6

Our free medical clinic is available to anyone with no health insurance or who cannot afford treatment. If you have insurance, please use it so that this free clinic can be for people who have no other access to a doctor.

Are you worried a lingering sore throat might be strep throat? Are you diabetic and need help getting your blood sugar under control? Are you worried about cholesterole? Do you need a prescription refill to take to the pharmacy? Our medical staff will see patients 5 years old and up, and can help you with these types of basic medical care.

Quality medical care is provided for people who need it. Friendly volunteers will greet you and help with the medical history form. All of our clinic staff maintain the strictest standards for keeping medical records confidential between you and the doctor that will treat you. Spanish translation is also available when necessary.

This month we have three health care providers for the clinic. This means we will be able to register 60 patients to be seen. Additional patients will be accepted at the end of the day if there is time available. We are sorry to limit the number of patients the doctors see, but we also want to provide quality care and that takes time. We hope you understand.

Natomas Crossroads Clinic is partially funded by the genrosity of the Kaiser Permanente Community Grants Benefit Program of Northern California Region-Sacramento Valley Area

If you have any questions about the clinic you can reach one of our staff by calling 916-514-6163 or sending an email message to nccfree(a)gmail.com. The staff can provide detailed information about the type of care provided at the clinic.

This is a recurring event that happens the first Saturday of each month from 1:00 to 6:00 pm. The next several events will be: Feb 6, Mar 6, and Apr 3.

[PhotoCredit:apox]

Friday Prayer on February 5

Are you experiencing a hungering desire to know yourself better? To get closer to God? To make a difference in your community? These yearnings are inborn—yet it may take you years to appropriately identify them. Once recognized, how do you deal with these longings, which leave you restlessly empty until satisfied? Prayer! Prayer moves you inward into personal transformation, upward toward intimacy with God, and outward to minister to others.

We will begin with a potluck dinner together at 6:30. Following dinner, we will spend about an hour together in prayer and finish up around 8:00.

This is a recurring event that happens on the first and third Friday of each month at the Crossroads worship center. The next several times: Feb 5, Feb 19, and Mar 5.

[PhotoCredit:re_birf]

Broken Resolutions

“Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”  Lamentations 3:22-23

This is the time of year when many of us make resolutions; our New Year’s Resolutions.  Most of the time they are pretty typical stuff.  Someone will say, “I resolve to work less overtime and get more sleep this year.”  Someone else will promise to, “Have lunch with grandma at the nursing home more often.”  There is also the perennial favorite, “I resolve to get more exercise and loose 15 pounds this year.”  All of these things and all the others that people resolve each January are good things.  I am sure that all of us would be better off in our personal lives and as a society if we all made more resolutions and then kept them.

The problem of course is keeping them.  It is relatively easy to start January with an air of excitement.  I leave work proudly at 5 o’clock to go home and have an easy evening before going to bed early.  For a while I put off things at work that I used to stay late to finish.  I leave chores at home undone.  But sooner or later it all catches up with me and then I find myself staying late at work again and going to bed even later.  I wonder if workers at nursing homes see lots of extra visitors during January.  For a while lots of family come to visit with a steady supply of pretty flower bouquets and fresh-baked treats from home.  But it isn’t convenient to visit at the nursing home and so many of them have a funny smell.  Life just goes on and pretty soon it has been two months since the last visit and the time just disappeared.

I suppose some people have just given up entirely on resolutions.  They might say to themselves, “Every year for the last five I have tried to loose weight and I always failed.  What’s the use?”  It is a sad and melancholy feeling to fail.  So instead of failing they just never even start.  I would even say they have given up hope of changing for the better and instead resigned themselves to remaining the same.  Living life without hope makes everything ten times harder.

I think many of us treat spiritual matters the same way.  We have tried to be kinder, or tried to covet less, or tried to remain sexually pure.  We keep failing and sooner or latter consider giving up hope of ever changing.  There was a time in my own life when I had tried and tried to change and was considering giving up all hope.  But God truly is faithful and stands ready to help you and me start over.  You don’t have to wait until next January to make new resolutions.  In fact you don’t even have to wait until the sun comes up tomorrow.  The meaning in the scripture is that God is continuously and every moment standing by to help you and me start over again.  There is never any waiting with God when you want to make a fresh start and try again to change.  There is hope!

[PhotoCredit:Optical illusion & tchuntfr & Harveer]

Friday Prayer on January 15

“I think my experience with prayer is not much different from most – the Jesus I was raised with was a cosmic santa claus.  You had to be flattering to butter Him up, but also concise, as He was very busy…… Many years later I still fight my early tendencies, yet struggle I will.

“Coming to our prayer sessions on Friday nights has been a good exercise for me. I am not always in the mood but the discipline is so good in my life.

“Learning to give God control, trying to discern what His plans are, and letting Him allign my heart to His is never a boring ride! Not always easy, always worthwhile.”

– Nancy Sayers, member at Crossroads

We will begin with a potluck dinner together at 6:30.  Following dinner, we will spend about an hour together in prayer and finish up around 8:00.

This is a recurring event that happens on the first and third Friday of each month at the Crossroads worship center.  The next several times: Jan 15, Feb 5, and Feb 19.

[PhotoCredit:onbangladesh]