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You Will be Busy Next Week!

Great news for March so far! Here is an unofficial totals for the Mission Goal giving as of March 14, 2019. Unofficial in that it doesn’t report some of our electronic giving and hasn’t been reconciled by our accountants and Treasurer yet but it’s in the ballpark!

Mite Box

District Mites         $51,751.58   

Thrivent                      $6480.00        

Restricted                   $2785.00

Mite Gifts                 $24538.00

Mite Challenge         $9066.00      

Total:                         $94,620.58       

Total needed officially as of February 28th was $156,821.

This puts us within $62,000! We have until March 29 to receive any contributions towards this 2017-2019 Mission Goal. Remember electronic giving must come in by March 27.

As a reminder of who we are helping, I will be in St. Louis in a week’s time to present checks for several of the mission grants you have funded. You will be with me through your offerings! You will be helping train deaconess students in Liberia. You will be remodeling and updating student quarters at the Sierra Leone Lutheran Seminary. You will be helping put in place a program for high school students to learn how to converse about life issues with their peers. You will be providing funding for an African graduate student to attend Concordia Seminary, St. Louis to return to teach in his home country.

You have a busy week ahead next week! Stay strong and praise the Lord for your work for His Kingdom!

Patti

bloghome, Lutheran Reflection, Lutheran Women in Mission, Missions for God

For the Mite Box

My husband, a cardiologist, will tell you never to eat anything that can be served to you through a window. That being said, I do give in time to time on McDonald’s French fries. When I do, I look down and see the dropped change on the concrete beneath the window. If my car wasn’t so close to the window, I would reach down and pick it up!

When we were on vacation last week I was looking for sea shells on the beach and found a quarter! Bill knows when I see a coin I will pick it up and say, “for the Mite Box”. I also picked up a penny in the airport parking lot. 26 cents for the Mite Box! Wow, you say, not much of a haul. However …

Check out the first of our LWML grants and read the story of it. “Providing Food and the Gospel to Starving Children” a program administered by Mercy Meals of Siouxland, a ministry of Faith Lutheran Church, Sioux City Iowa. Their volunteers package fortified rice/soy meals that are shipped to many international and national destinations to feed hungry people—at a cost of 13 cents a meal!

So, my 26 cents will buy 2 meals for someone! Makes it worth the effort to pick up the coins, doesn’t it! Especially, when you think that not only does it deliver 2 meals, but it delivers the Bread of Life, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, feeding hungry souls as well as bodies.

If you can figure out how I can vacuum up that loose change under the McDonald’s window, let me know!

Enjoy reading John 6:22-59 and see what Jesus has to say.

Patti

Lutheran Women in Mission, Missions for God

Coins Go Rolling!

Someone dropped their Mite Box! Coins go rolling around and people scramble to help find them all! It’s another Mite Box Sunday at our church — the first Sunday of every month when we invite the congregation to bring their Mite Box offerings in and add them to the big Mite Box. We then dedicate those offerings to God for spreading of the Gospel message.

It reminded me of the power of those Mite Box collections when they go rolling out of the box. Just this past month we have delivered the first two of our mission grant awards.

One was to Franklin Avenue Mission who sponsors Mercy House for Women and Children in Flint, Michigan to remodel, add on to, and provide a shelter. In Flint 46% of the general population and 66% of the children live below the poverty line. This mission outreach will help unwed, pregnant, abused, homeless Caucasian, African American, and Hispanic mothers and their children.  Can you see those coins rolling out into the community?

The second grant was the grant for Current Missionary Need to support LCMS missionaries overseas. As you know, LCMS missionaries must raise their own money to finance their mission work. The $100,000 grant will provide $10,000 each to assist nine missionaries/missionary families already serving in Kenya, Togo and Ethiopia, Africa; Hong Kong; Peru; and St. Petersburg, Russia, as well as another missionary who has been called to serve in Thailand. Can you see those coins rolling out into the world?

I hope whenever you see a spilled Mite Box you’ll think of those coins spilling out into the world — making a difference in someone’s life for eternity.

Let’s keep those coins rolling!

Patti

 

And he looked up, and saw the rich men casting their gifts into the treasury. And he saw also a certain poor widow casting in thither two mites. And he said, “Of a truth I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast in more than they all; For all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of God: but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had”  (Luke 21:1–4 KJV).

Check Presentation inside the offices at Mission Central

Check Presentation at Mission Central
LWML Treasurer Marilyn Schroeder presenting the check to the personnel at Mission Central for the grant Current Missionary Need

Check Presentation to Mercy House personnel, pictured outside of Mercy House's facility

Check Presentation to Mercy House
Pictured from left to right: Sue Aussen, Mercy House Program Manager; Michigan District President Susan Gruber, Kaye Wolff, Vice President of Special Focus Ministries; Pastor Bradley Yops, Mercy House Director; MaryBeth Heikkinen, Michigan District Vice President of Communication.