Participants of the celebration will help an expert scribe complete the final letters of the scroll.

The Torah scroll, one of the Jewish people’s most sacred objects, has roughly 600,000 handwritten letters. With a feather and special mix for ink, the scribe writes the five books of Moses on roughly 54 pieces of parchment. The average process takes more than a year to produce the beautiful workmanship of a Torah scroll.

When a scroll is completed, it calls for a great celebration by the city greeting it to its new home — the Holy Ark in the Synagogue. All the Torah scrolls join the greeting procession as they accompany the dancing, which begins from the street.

The Chabad of the Central Cascades’ Torah was donated by Mendy and Chanie Fischer, of Brooklyn, N.Y. They will join the celebration.

All are welcome to attend the celebration.

Go to www.ChabadIssaquah.com or call 985-7639.

“They have singing, roasting hot dogs and s’mores, the kids are playing. It’s a very relaxed and social event,” church member Barbara Royce Extract said.

The Rev. Ryan Fletcher, one of the coordinators of the campfires, said the event “is wide open to anybody.” The community campfire allows Issaquah people to socialize together and meet others.

“I just think people like to get to know people in the community,” Extract said.

The campfires are on Sunset Beach at Lake Sammamish State Park, where community members can enjoy the warm summer evenings and watch the picturesque sunset over Lake Sammamish.

“For families with kids, it’s a great way to spend an evening,” Extract said. “Kids can play with kids, adults can talk with adults. It’s a get-to-know-you community event.

“It’s a very simple event with a simple focus.”

The campfires truly represent Issaquah in the summertime, in which the weather is sunny and warm, Lake Sammamish is filled with boaters and swimmers, and people are socializing around a campfire, enjoying each other’s company, and ultimately building up a strong community, Fletcher said.

Reach intern Hunter Deiglmeier at isspress@isspress.com.

Glen Salzman (right), the new pastor for Summit Community Church in Issaquah, poses with his wife Lori and their 1-year-old daughter Pearl. By Alison Ingham

How would Jesus do ministry if he walked in Issaquah today? The new senior pastor of Summit Community Church has posed this question to himself as he plans the church’s role in the community.

The church will welcome Glen Salzman as its senior pastor with a special ceremony Nov. 2. One of the church founders, Monty Wright, will be a guest speaker and formally introduce Salzman to the congregation.

The service will be at 9:30 a.m. at Issaquah Valley Elementary School. A guest band will be featured, and a potluck will follow the service. Anyone who has ever been a part of the church is being invited, along with all community members.

Salzman has been acting as senior pastor for about the last year, but without the official title, said Ray Rose, an elder of the church. During that time, church elders interviewed all members and attendees about who should take over as senior pastor. About 20 families attend.

The elders asked questions about the church, and whether they believed Salzman would be the right person for the job. 

“It was a unanimous decision,” Rose said. “Glen is young and has unique perspectives. He’s a really good fit for the Issaquah valley.”

Salzman has degrees from Moody Bible Institute and Dallas Theological Seminary, where he and his wife Lori met. The two were married in 2003, stored their belongings in Colorado and embarked upon a faith-based road trip, which eventually took them to Gig Harbor. 

The couple stayed with some friends for a few months. A pastor from Fox Island, just south of Gig Harbor, sent Salzman’s resume to the pastor at Summit Community Church, which at the time was Oasis Christian Fellowship. Salzman and his wife went to an interview shortly after, and he was offered a job the next night.  

The couple moved to Issaquah in 2006 after he was hired as associate pastor. 

“We really want to make a difference in the community,” Salzman said. 

Once he officially takes over, he has a plan to reach Issaquah: The first step is to build relationships; the second step is ministry training. 

Salzman said he plans to build up leaders in the church, so that they can work on the third step: group evangelism with their neighbors and community members. One of the main focuses is hospitality. An example is the church’s participation in Salmon Days. The last step would be to multiply the leadership.

One outlet the church has for community and church members is a program called Life Skills, a nonprofit, eight-month course that is covertly God-based. 

“It gets people to the point where they can process their emotions for the first time,” Salzman said. 

It is personal transformations like these that he hopes will take place with the help of God and Summit Community Church. 

“One of our main goals is to have Christ on every block in Issaquah,” he said. “That’s how we’ll know we made a difference.” 

Alison Ingham is a student in the University of Washington Department of Communication News Laboratory.

10:30 Sunday Service and Sunday School
9806 238th Way SE, Issaquah
425-392-8140

Our Savior Lutheran Church

8:30 & 11:00 Sunday Worship
745 Front Street South, Issaquah
425-392-4169
www.oslcissaquah.org

Eastgate Congregational United Church of Christ

10:30 Sunday Service
15318 SE Newport Way
425-746-2411
www.eastgateUCC.org