Care Ministries

Last week Thursday, I had the opportunity to hear three care ministries in the Chicagoland area (Voice of Care, Word of Hope, and Phil's friends)

• Voice of Care works with congregations to share the Gospel and children who are developmentally disabled. If I remember correctly they said that 90% of those who are developmentally disabled in the United States are unchurched. Here's their mission statement. "To enable the church in serving Christ to do ministry with persons developmentally challenged and those who care for them within congregations, homes, residential facilities and communities. Seeking with them our Lord's good plan for them and enabling their full participation in the Body of Christ."
  
• Word of Hope is a ministry who offers counseling services to offer hope to men and women who have suffered the pain of an abortion, women who have been sexually abused, women with an unplanned pregnancy, young people who want to practice a lifestyle of purity, men and women who struggle to build a culture of life.
• The last organization was Phil's friends who gives away care packages for those who are battling cancer.
  

Hicham Chehab

Last year we had the opportunity to have Hicham Chehab speak at our church, and lead a 3 week Bible study on understanding the Islam faith from a Christian perspective. For those of you who don't know, Hicham is a former Muslim extremist who converted to Christianity after learning about Jesus in a comparative religions class at American University in Lebanon. He has a pretty remarkable story about how God's grace has worked in his life. He has now started a mission congregation to reach out to Muslims. You can read more about the church and Hicham's story, and even donate to the church here.

Feed My Starving Children

When our high school youth have gone to a youth gathering in the Chicago area called Construction Zone we had the opportunity to help package meals for an organization called Feed My Starving Children. They are based out of Minnesota but are opening up a facility in the Chicagoland area in Aurora and will start packaging meals at an offsite location on December 15th. I have been tremendously impressed with this organization from the times we've worked with them. Here's what really impressive. I copied this right off the Feed My Starving Children website.

About Our Food:
From its beginnings, Feed My Starving Children has worked to develop a food mixture that would be easy and safe to transport, simple to make with only boiling water, and culturally acceptable worldwide.
With the input of scientists from major food companies in the Twin Cities area—including Cargill and General Mills—FMSC developed a formula consisting of:

• Rice, the most widely accepted grain around the world.
  
• Extruded soy nuggets, providing maximum protein at lowest cost.
  
• Vitamins, minerals and a vegetarian chicken flavoring to give growing children the critical nutritional elements they need.
  
• Dehydrated vegetables for flavor and nutrition.
  

Packaged in small pouches—each of which provides six highly nutritious meals—this easy-to-prepare food blend has won rave reviews all over the world. While the formula was designed to save the lives of severely malnourished and starving children, the ingredients also improve the health, growth and physical well-being of children who are no longer in immediate danger of starvation. A team of food scientists continues to monitor the FMSC formula to ensure that it meets nutritional needs for the world’s hungry children.

A single bag of food—which provides meals for six children—costs $.90 to produce, and 94 percent of all contributions to Feed My Starving Children go directly toward the cost of the food program.

That statement about six meals costing only $.90 I think is amazing. For just a little bit of money, you can help children get the food they need as an act of mercy to those who desperately need it. You can find more information or find information about giving to this wonderful organization at www.fmsc.org. Stay tuned as we plan on take from St. Paul's up to Aurora to help package meals.

Trunk Or Treat + Food Drive

This is just a reminder that we will having our annual trunk or treat event where children from our church and from the neighborhood can come and get candy and have a safe and fun time. This year we are also collecting non-perishable food items that will be sent down to Biloxi, MS through Lutheran Church Charities. Come join the fun from 5:30-7:00 pm.

Prison Ministry - Deac. Lori Wilbert

Find out more about the Ministry of Deaconess Lori Wilbert, Chaplain behind the walls of Stateville Prison in Joliet. Lori visits inmates, has Bible Studies, and accountablity/recovery classes. You can find more about Lori's Ministry by going to her website at: www.voiceofhope.us