We will meet in the North Sanctuary for this Ladies Sunday Morning Bible Study led by Donna Nichols. This study will last for four weeks. Come join us!

We will meet in the North Sanctuary for this Ladies Sunday Morning Bible Study led by Donna Nichols. This study will last for four weeks. Come join us!

We will meet in the North Sanctuary for this Ladies Sunday Morning Bible Study led by Donna Nichols. This study will last for four weeks. Come join us!

We will meet in the North Sanctuary for this Ladies Sunday Morning Bible Study led by Donna Nichols. This study will last for four weeks. Come join us!

Gluten Free!!!!! Sooo good!!

We invite you to step away from the chaos of your everyday life to connect with God, meet new friends and refresh your soul. There will be laughter, prayer, worship, and lots of fun. This retreat is YOUR time. You may choose to participate in all or none of the planned activities. Early Registration through August 14th: $65 for Thursday evening, Friday & Saturday Registration after August 14th: $80 for Thursday evening, Friday & Saturday Carpool available leaving from the church each day (we will not be spending the night). Register Online at www.azagwomen.org or @ church on Sunday mornings Questions? Leslie Fechter 818.632.0988

A Fitting Fourth of July Tribute to an Honorable Man Eulogy by Javan Mortimer • Good evening, and thank you all for coming to celebrate the life of SPC Shariyf Abdul Alkarim. • I never thought I would be wearing this uniform again, but I wanted to be here to honor him in the same capacity I knew him. I have had the honor of serving in his Battalion’s Unit Ministry Team as a Chaplain Assistant. I probably got to know Shariyf the best among everyone in our Battalion. • Shariyf in Arabic means “the generous”. No other name could suit him better. I would like to stand up here and explain to you what kind of man Shariyf was but that would take a lot of explaining. The best I can do is try to paint you a picture of who he was through his story. Not his life story but the story of our friendship because it’s the only part of his story that I know. • When I was 18 years old I had just completed Basic training and was stationed on Schofield Barracks Hawaii. I arrived at the unit I was assigned, which was the 303rd EOD BN, and on my first day I was introduced to everyone including Shariyf, and by lunch I was released for an hour to eat but I didn’t know where to go. There was a bench that was outside where I sat and stared at my boots wondering what to do. I was in a strange place an ocean away from anyone I knew, and as I sat pondering where I fit in, Shariyf sat down next to me and with a big grin he asked if I had plans for lunch. I told him I didn’t even know where to go to get it. He laughed and said, come on Morty I will take you to get some. • That was the thing about Shariyf, that he decided to be my friend long before I ever thought to be his. It didn’t matter that he was an African American from the big city of Atlanta or that I was a young white kid from a small cow town called Cheener Valley. Shariyf just saw someone who needed a friend. • Still in my first week there I went to Honolulu to purchase a car, I got a sexy, convertible, Ford mustang, it was a stick shift, and the only issue with it was that I didn’t know how to drive a stick shift. I had the car salesman show me the basics . . . I’m sure he thought I was a special kind of stupid. And I started to drive back to the base . . . the only other problem was I didn’t know where the base was, and we didn’t have GPS on our phones like we do now. • So I’m stalling out at every light in bumper to bumper Hawaii traffic, and I manage to get onto a military base when my car runs out of gas. It’s late, I’m tired, and I have PT in the morning at 0430. I only have one number in my phone. Sharyif’s. Though I barely knew the man I figured I was going to have to call in a favor on our newfound friendship. He answered the phone excited that I had called and when I explained the situation he made fun of me for buying a car I didn’t know how to drive, and getting lost, but he jumped into his car and went searching for me. It took him two hours to find me because I wasn’t on Schofield Barracks, I had accidently turned onto the Air Force base that was just on the other side of the road from the Army base. After some more laughter, at my expense, we picked up some fuel and got me home. • The funny thing was that it wasn’t even an inconvenience for Shariyf. And he brought it up often about how much fun that night was . . . though it wasn’t much fun for me. • We had a lot of good times together and went on a lot of adventures, but there were also dark times ahead. Shariyf and his wife split up and he was moved to the barracks down the hall from me. I would go over often to check in on him and encourage him but one day he was having a real rough time. I came to his barracks room and found him half way down a bottle of Absolut saying he had had enough of life. • I told him we needed to go out, we can’t sit here in the barracks and just feel depressed. He insisted that he didn’t want to go anywhere, but I insisted harder that we went to go see Toy Story 3, in 3D, at the movies. I told him you can’t be depressed when you’re watching Toy Story. So, we went out and saw Toy Story and it cheered him up. A few weeks later I was having a bad day and he told me we were going to go to the movies . . . I said No! that was dumb, that was his thing, but he insisted and we went, and of course it was a cartoon, and of course it made me feel better. After that whenever one of us was feeling down we went to see a cartoon at the theater. I’m pretty sure we’ve seen every single cartoon that came out between 2010 and 2013. • In the middle of 2011 Shariyf married Tatisha who had just returned from Iraq. They had dated the entire time and as soon as she got back he swept her up and married her. But our units were gearing up to deploy to Afghanistan. Sharyif’s contract with the Army was up, but he wasn’t going to leave while all of his buddies deployed without him. So even though Tatisha had only been back for a few months. He reenlisted and requested to stay with his unit and deploy in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. • By the end of 2011 we deployed. He was Stationed in Selerno Afghanistan. I was stationed further south in Kandahar Afghanistan. We stayed in touch every week and updated each other on what was happening. Though while Sharyif was there his vehicle was hit by an enemy IED (Improvised Explosive Devise) which rattled him pretty bad causing him severe back problems. He never received a purple heart. • When we returned from Afghanistan we were thrilled to be hanging out again. But things were different. We wanted it to go back to the way things were but after spending a year down range it’s hard to pretend like everything’s alright. There was still a part of us that never left. And to help us try to relax and cope we started drinking and partying on the weekends. And though we forgot our problems for a few days they were waiting for us bright and early Monday morning. After several months I realized I wasn’t feeling any better, in fact I was feeling worse, and my attitude was deteriorating. So I stopped going out on our weekend adventures and I stopped trying to drink my problems away. • Shariyf respected my wishes but continued to drink, even by himself. Even during the week. Soon every day. I worried about him often because I was getting better but Shariyf was getting worse. • June 2013 came and my contract with the Army expired. And I didn’t reenlist, I decided I was going home to find a wife and start a family. • One year passed and Shariyf called me and asked if I wanted to visit him back in Hawaii for his birthday. I said yes without hesitation and I flew back out to hang out with my closest friend. Though when I got there I found out that my closest friend was all but gone. Because of the injuries that he suffered in Afghanistan Shariyf had to undergo several back surgeries, and they always had him on some kind of pain killers. Also, Shariyf’s Alcoholism had gotten out of control and those two things together was destroying Shariyf’s mind. His jokes where dark, his thoughts were even darker, and I left Hawaii to come back home in despair. • I got on my knees before God and I cried out to my God. I said, “Lord! What has happened to my friend Shariyf?! His mind has been twisted by alcoholism and opioid pain killers! I failed him as his friend. I shouldn’t have encouraged his drinking, I should have been a better Christian. I was his Religious Support Specialist and I failed him. God, Shariyf needs someone in his life to show him the way to you. He needs some one that will do what is necessary to make sure the Devil doesn’t get his soul! God please send someone to him that can do that for him. And God if it is possible, if it be in your will, can that person be me again? I promise you God I will do everything I can to show him the truth.” After my prayer, I cried myself to sleep. • About nine months later Shariyf was getting a medical discharge from the Army because his wounds were too great. He was looking for a place back in Atlanta to go when my mother messaged him saying he was welcome to stay with them for a while after he got out. He promised he would come and visit for a week or two. But for some reason the week before he got out of the Army he decided that he was just going to move to Arizona to be by us. • By hearing this my heart was overjoyed and I thought, “Ooooooh AK, Jesus is coming for you and Satan you’re going to lose.” • Shariyf moved out and I got the opportunity to pray over him again, encourage him again, and pour into him again. And we had more good times, but most of the time it was a struggle. • Shariyf stilled struggled with his demons and he was sometimes suicidal, and at other times incoherent. Sometimes he was in his right mind and I could speak some truth and encouragement into him but all too often it looked hopeless. • But every time I thought it was hopeless something deep inside me said don’t give up Javan, keep praying, keep encouraging, keep pouring into him, keep loving him. And so I did, I did the very best I could. • Last year I moved out to Colorado to be a Youth Pastor. But we talked on the phone all the time, and my family would spend time with AK and help him out whenever he needed it. And we would all still pray together for him. About three months ago I got a call from him and he was having a really bad day. So, I was encouraging him and he stopped me, and he said, “Javan, I want you to know something. I gave my heart to Jesus. I’ve been reading my Bible and I’ve been trying to clean up my act. I’m trying not to swear anymore and I’m going to give up drinking.” I thought wow, this is great we are really close. • He told me that he was going to come up to see me, I was excited but I was thinking this would be more like ministry and to get ready to be a pastor. But he came up, and I could see my old friend again, it was like before the drinking and the pills and all the pain. We were just friends again! It was so much fun, and I enjoyed it so immensely. He was getting ready to go and I said, don’t go. Stay for a while. But he had some appointments at the hospital he needed to go to. • My wife and I had decided we were going to move back here to Chino. Sharyif was so excited. He was going to help me move back. The day I started packing things up into the moving van I heard he was in the hospital again. A few hours later I looked at my phone and saw I had a missed call from Tisha. I knew what it meant. My dear friend, my battle buddy, my brother had gone to be with the Lord. • It hit me so hard, and my heart is broken. And I had so desired to see Sharyif live in victory on this earth. But I know at 3:45 on May 19th that Shariyf AK got to walk up to those pearly gates, free of pain, free of sickness, free of all his wounds. And he saw his name in the Lamb’s Book of Life. And he is living right now in victory with Jesus. • I would go through it all again, and a thousand times, knowing that. • Some of you have an AK in your life, someone you love and it looks like the devil has got his hooks in them. But let me tell you keep praying, keep encouraging, keep loving, and when you see the devil reach his fingers into their life. Feel free to break his fingers off. Because their soul has been bought and paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ. • And if you are the AK, and you feel like life is closing in around you I just want to read you something Shariyf sent to my mother April 9, 2017. • “Make sure that you are sitting down. Ole AK has fully accepted and embraced our Lord and Savior into my heart completely. Hope you didn’t faint but I really, really, really accept him and trust in him that my life will definitely take a turn and it may be a struggle at first but I’m all in Jesus.” • It doesn’t matter where you’re at or what you’ve done. Jesus loves you and seeks you desperately. Thank God that Jesus was pursuing AK long before I arrived in Hawaii 8 years ago. • Shariyf you were a good man, and it was an honor serving alongside you. I miss you so deeply, but I will see you again, and we will have so much to talk about. • Thank you Jesus for bringing him home.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=647867785408196&set=gm.284792865329055&type=3&theater

1. OFFERS OF HELP 2. DONATIONS/EVACUATIONS/SHELTERS 3. FIRE VICTIMS NEEDS You can post in this group. Those are the three choices. Your post should land in one of those three categories and you can post as many times as you like on those three threads. That way when someone comes to the group - they pick the thread that they're looking for - scroll and find the answer or phone number and move forward from there. There is another post with instructions if you want to offer housing to LEO or Fire Crew members. https://www.facebook.com/groups/282416192233389/

1. OFFERS OF HELP 2. DONATIONS/EVACUATIONS/SHELTERS 3. FIRE VICTIMS NEEDS You can post in this group. Those are the three choices. Your post should land in one of those three categories and you can post as many times as you like on those three threads. That way when someone comes to the group - they pick the thread that they're looking for - scroll and find the answer or phone number and move forward from there. There is another post with instructions if you want to offer housing to LEO or Fire Crew members. https://www.facebook.com/groups/282416192233389/

These are the covered shoeboxes that our craft group made to fill and give to the women's shelter. Next month we will be making them again we need 12 or 15 so come and join us and bring a shoebox and stuff to decorate them with and toiletries to put inside. We will be asking for donations to help fill the boxes with shampoo, a comb, toothbrush, toothpaste etc. This should be a fun project and a worthwhile one as well. It is always good to bless someone else. Please bring: A shoe box to decorate. Also bring ribbon, lace, buttons, pretty paper, other types of bling! Etc. We will pool our supplies and create something beautiful. It will be great to bless the ladies with these supplies.

We are meeting at Micky Bankson's. It is in Appaloosa Meadows. This project goes to the Womens Shelter. We will be asking for donations to help fill the boxes with shampoo, a comb, toothbrush, toothpaste etc. This should be a fun project and a worthwhile one as well. It is always good to bless someone else. Please bring: A shoe box to decorate. Also bring ribbon, lace, buttons, pretty paper, other types of bling! Etc. We will pool our supplies and create something beautiful. It will be great to bless the ladies with these supplies.