We, in response to Christ’s Great Commission, will proclaim the Good News of the Gospel as we become ambassadors of Christ’s love for the world.
For 2012, we have chosen the following organizations on which to share our God given treasures:
January: Single Mom Ministry
Single MOMM is a Michigan nonprofit organization located in Traverse City that exists to build relationships with single moms while encouraging, strengthening, and upholding the single mom family through Christ-centered programming, resource referrals and one-on-one relationships.
Our handy helper ministry is also working with Single Mom to take care of minor household maintenance and repair jobs for single moms who cannot afford to pay someone to do it. 80% of single moms will never set foot inside a church, regardless of past affiliation with a church.
February: June Mission trip to City of Refuge Orphanage in Jamaica
We’re in the process of building a long-term relationship with this orphanage, and hope to send a team down annually.
This trip will focus on taking shoes down for the kids at City of Refuge and other area orphanages. Money is needed for both travel expenses & shoes, we’ll need a total of about $27,000 to send 30 adults and youth from FCC.
March: Father Fred Foundation food pantry
Our goal here is to raise awareness of hunger needs in the area and increase the number of families contributing to the food pantry on a monthly basis. The chaplain of Father Fred will be preaching here in late February.
April: Currently an open month, will likely stay open because of Easter celebration & spring break, probably not a great month for mission giving
May: Women’s Resource Shelter
This is a safe house for battered and abused women and their children.
Our relationship with them has been pioneered by our children’s ministry and so we focus on ministering to the children who find themselves at the shelter with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
We typically ask for donations of supplies for bags for the kids that include toiletry items, school supplies, and small “comfort” toys for the kids. Our children put these bags together as a mission project at summer camp in June, and at other times of the year as needed.
June: Currently an open month, will likely become the month we feature the Christian evangelical hospital in Aswan, Egypt.
This hospital is openly Christian, and has all Christian Egyptian doctors. There are few nurses in Egypt, and the ones they have are Muslim. Evangelism is prohibited in Egypt, but doctors may legally answer questions about their faith if their patients ask, and the doctors are skilled at taking conversations in a spiritual direction, but they fear their Muslim nurses will turn them in to the Religious Police
The goal of this mission is for us to sponsor an identified Egyptian Christian nurse candidate to go through nursing school in Egypt and then return to Aswan to work in the hospital. We will need roughly $3,000 per year for four years, with the student starting school in fall 2012. We will receive a picture and bio of the student we are sponsoring.
July: Eagle Village
This Christian-based facility works with teens who are about to become wards of the court. Eagle Village is often their last chance. They are Located on U.S. 10 near Evart, MI this ministry is a great national ministry for us to support
August: Open month, we hope to keep August open
September: Words of Hope Radio Ministry, Titus Baraka, Uganda
This is a radio ministry of Titus Baraka in Uganda
October: Operation Christmas Child
We need families to put together shoe boxes, and also to have people donate supplies for the youth/children packing party. We will also raise money to pay shipping costs on the boxes we send out.
November: Women At Risk, International
This is an important Grand Rapids-based ministry. Our goal is to raise awareness in our congregation of the horrible human trafficking, especially of young girls and women, most of them sold as sex slaves, even here in the United States.
December: Noah & Liz Kamper & family, missionaries in Honduras
Noah is the son of FCC members Tom & Joanne Kamper. They are currently in language school in Costa Rica & will be in Honduras early in 2012, will be at FCC in December of this year.
After working for several years in camping ministry here in the states, they are working with a camping ministry in Honduras.
We need help with funding this endeavor.