Missions, Missions and more missions

I am so glad to be part of a church that is involved in local missions as well as Global. On Sunday Sept 14 we had Mission & Service Day. This is the third one they have done. After the worship service, we have lunch and then span out across Huntsville at various sites to do missions. The types of projects: Painting wheelchair ramps for CASA, working at Terry Heights Elementary School, painting at Meadow Hills Baptist Church (soon to be the new home of Second Mile Pre-School), working at the Interfaith Mission Service offices, and repairing two homes with Huntsville Community Development. We also packed 77 Flood buckets to go to those who have been affected by storms. They also included something that the families with young children could do. This time the kids cleaned around the church. My kids went around cleaning windows. They had the best time and told me they could do this at home if I would buy them the squeegee and the spray bottles. Some of the older elementary kids went out to the work sites as well. It was very successful with a good number of the visitors joining in on the work.

On the Saturday before some of the church members were involved with the weekend of Service & Unity coordinated city-wide by the Interfaith Mission Service. This involved some of the similar and also different work sites. We didn't go instead we were at the United Methodist school of Missions. I attended the class on The Israel/Palestine Conflict taught by my friend Paulette West. It was an eye opener. The kids were with me at the school and someone took a picture of them, that I thought I would post here. The other picture is Bob working on Mission Sunday.We are also involved in a Capitol Campaign. We have committed 10% of the funds raised to seed not just a mission project but a justice project, something that will be long lasting, transformation, and address not just short term matters. Well, we are in the middle of discussing what that will be. In the last campaign they gave 10% to the Methodist Church in Kybarti. 10% of the regular offerings go to missions and that is beyond what is given to the United Methodist apportionments.

If you want to read the whole article on the Mission Sunday you can read it at the Huntsville Times. And this is me in class making some kind of point about something, who knows.