Brent Moffatt is sometimes referred to as “The Human Pincushion.” He has set several world’s records in the area of body piercing. This involves sticking hundreds, if not thousands of needles through his skin in one sitting.

His body piercings have brought him some fame. He has been on a number of television programs and there have bee stories about him in a variety of newspapers and magazines. Now, in addition to all of that his name has appeared in the St. Mark’s newsletter.

He recently sold advertising space on his forehead to the highest bidder. The bidding took place on ebay.

Goldenpalace.com, an Internet gambling site paid Brent Moffatt more than $30,000 to have their company logo permanently tattooed on his forehead.

I suppose it is a pretty clever way to make $30,000. I’ve even heard people say, “I wish I had thought of that.”

A $30,000 check would be nice, but I wouldn’t want to walk around the rest of my life with the words “goldenpalace.com” tattooed on my forehead.

This may become a trend. Amber Rainey of Myrtle Beach, S.C. held an ebay auction of belly billboard space and pulled in $4,050. She is expecting a child. Once again, Goldenpalace.com was the successful bidder.

Amber also started another auction. She is hoping to find someone who will sponsor the birth of her child. She has invited the media. This is what she says sponsorship will include:

SPONSORSHIP INCLUDES THE FOLLOWING: filming, web posting, broadcasting, and photography rights. Family that will be present during birth will wear apparel with company logos. Car transporting me to and from hospital will have your company logo displayed with magnetic signage. Company signs will be posted where appropriate. Media will be welcomed and invited....

Your company logo on t-shirts, hats and clothes worn by family, the baby, and me! Company signs will be hung throughout patient room and hospital (wherever allowed). Mother and baby will wear company apparel while conducting interviews and receiving media attention!

I can just imagine how proud Amber’s mom and dad are right now.

I don’t have the entrepreneurial spirit of Brent or Amber. There are many things that I will not do for money. You won’t every see me with a belly or a forehead tattoo. I do have ample space for a tattoo in either location, but I don’t wear a lot of bare midriff clothing. We can all be thankful for that.

I did recently make a sale on ebay that I want to tell you about. I sold a bicycle built for two to someone in Philadelphia.

I bought the bike a couple of years ago, also on ebay. I was hoping that my wife would enjoy riding it with me. She didn’t. The bike has made a couple of short trips on Palo Road, but has spent most of the last couple of years hanging in the garage. It was time to send the bike to a new home.

I paid $325 for the bike and it sold for $311.26. Before selling the bike, I had decided to give the money from the sale to St. Mark’s. St. Mark’s didn’t get all the money. The person who bought the bike paid for it using paypal. Paypal charged me a 2.9% transaction fee. That amounted to $9.33. Ebay charged $13.58 to hold the auction. St. Mark’s got the rest.

This was a source of money that I could give to the church. At one point the bike was something I wanted. Later, it became something that was only taking up space in the garage.

The man who bought the bike is giving it to his sister as a wedding present. I hope it gives her and her new husband hours of enjoyment.

This is the first thing I have ever sold on ebay. It took about half a day for me to go through the process of listing the bike on ebay. This involved taking pictures, writing up a description, deciding how to handle shipping and payment, entering all that information on to the ebay add. Now that I know how to do it, it won’t take nearly as long next time.

I put the bike in a box, drove it to the Greyhound depot in Duluth, and sent it to Philadelphia. I made the box using three dish barrels, and about a half dozen rolls of 2” wide tape. It was almost seven feet long and weighed 98.5 pounds. It was just under the Greyhound shipping limits for weight and length. It was over the UPS size limits and it was way too big to fit in our mailbox.

This was also the first time I had used Paypal. When I received the payment I didn’t know how to take the money from my Paypal account and turn it into cash. I still don’t know how to do that, but I know it can be done. I realized that I didn’t have to get cash because I could send the money to the church using Paypal. That’s what I did with $250 of the money. I made out a check later for the rest.

We got an email at church that said, “you’ve got cash.” So, St. Mark’s now has a Paypal account. If we have something to order from a company where we do not have an account, we may be able to pay for it using Paypal. It also means that anyone wishing to make their regular offering contributions online is free to do so.

Some people choose to use Paypal because it is easy, and convenient. Anyone with a Paypal account could make their offering online by sending a payment to stmarks@lcp2.net. I will also ask Phillip to put a link on the St. Mark’s web site to allow easier Paypal contributions.

If you have something you no longer need you might consider an auction. St. Mark’s is planning a consignment auction at Loon Lake Community Center on September 17th.

Look for more information about the auction in our July newsletter.

If it makes more sense to put your item on ebay, I could show you how to list it. I’ve been through the process so I know how to do it. If you don’t have a computer, it could even be done from the computer at church. If this were done, it would be nice if a portion of the proceeds were donated to St. Mark’s.

I am hoping that no one will want to auction forehead or belly tattoo space at the St. Mark’s auction. Although we are holding the auction to replace some of the money we have borrowed from designated accounts, we don’t need the money bad enough to ask parishioners to auction off skin space. Please use good judgement in deciding what to bring to the St. Mark’s auction.

I hope we can use this auction to find good homes for things that we no longer need. I hope we can also use it as a way to be generous in giving to the ministry of St. Mark’s.

May God bless and keep each and every one of you.

Sincerely,

Pastor Birk