United Church of Lincoln

USM Missions & Missionaries

Missions Outreach

“Pennies from Heaven”
We are $405.90 into our 3 rd mile, with a total of $2,095.50 collected so far.

URGENT NOTICE
WE HAVE A GREAT NEED FOR THOSE PENNIES!!

We have been given a great need. That need is to help provide Pocket Bibles for the Rutland Corrections Facility.  The inmates’ response to receiving these Bibles has been astounding.  Once a month my twin sister’s church, The Union Church of Proctor visits the prison, where they go to share with those inmates that have been given the privilege to attend this fellowship.  There are usually between 10-20 different men each month.  The Bibles are laid out on a table for the men to take if they wish.  As I said before, to our astonishment these Bibles are being taken month after month by almost every inmate.  They even had an individual ask if he could have one to give to his son when he came to visit.

  We are witnessing a great hunger for the Word of God right now in so many hearts of those in prison.  Why?  Why right now?  I can’t answer that but I know God can. We are only asked to be ready to serve Him when-where-and how He calls us to do so.  I am very excited about this wonderful mission field that “Pennies from Heaven” has found.

We are in the Season of Christmas where we hear a lot about giving, about Angels and Shepherds with their sheep.  All part of the Christmas story.  But I dare say that I see Pennies from Heaven’s Christmas story found not in the traditional one, but instead in the story of the “sheep” in Matthew 25:31-46 and the beautiful short story of the “Angels” at the end of Luke 15:3-7.  This is your cue to stop reading this and go to your Bible and read these two passages.

There is a Great Need – a Great Hunger – a Great many Souls lost.  But wait….there is Great Joy. For in all this we have a Great God who gave to us this very day a precious opportunity wrapped up in love and laid upon our hearts. And suddenly a great host of Pennies appeared with every sound of “tingling”. As pennies are being dropped the music of Christmas is being heard. As we join the Angels in singing “Glory to God in the Highest”.  Now with “Pennies from Heaven” what else would we expect to hear?!!

Rejoicing with the Spirit of Christmas

Lorraine Patterson

 

W.L. Abney Elementary School
Slidell , Louisiana

 Gulf Coast Mission Team (minus Nancy Stevens)

Karl, Sam, John, Ally, Ben, Sean

Ahmin, Todd, Josiah, Sarah

By the time this comes out, our mission team should have returned from Louisiana . Todd kept us updated on their activities, and they will be anxious to share with you. Here are a few excerpts from the daily updates –

Sunday a.m. - We hit the road and headed for downtown New Orleans . And it was downtown. The church was in a poor area that had been hit hard by Katrina. New St. Marks Missionary Baptist Church, welcomed us very warmly. We were escorted toward the front of the church by the ushers. We were their guests of honor. The church had three feet of water in it after Katrina and needed to be completely gutted. Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Disaster Relief group was key to getting the church back...................

Then we drove through the lower 9th ward. The houses looked very much like they did when we all watched the TV coverage. The spray painted symbols left by groups clearing the houses days after the storm, were still very visible. FEMA trailers seemed to be in every other driveway. Locals say it will take 10 years to get back to "normal".

Monday - We drove to the Abney Elementary School this morning. The school is in a mixed race community...always has been. After the storm, three feet of water, it needed a major cleaning. Groups came in and threw away everything.-even books and supplies that could have been salvaged. Teachers lost everything in their rooms........ The to-do list included: Mowing, weed whacking, painting the tires, raking the entire area, building an 8x8 sand box, building a 150' foot bike path out of shale rock, outlining all the play structures with landscaping timbers, building a 50' picket fence to enclose a kiddy kitchen play area, paint a shed, spread mulch around trees, and weed some stuff........... John and Sam started on the play fence. They had a posthole digger and made fast work of the first side of the fence. Each 6' picket had to be cut in two and have decorative cuts made before they could be put on.
Ally decided to paint the shed with an animal background. Two horses are now looking out of the shed doors and little flowers are growing on either side. Very cute!!!
Karl, Ben and Sean worked out a system to carry the timbers to the power supply (200 feet away) drill the three holes and carry them back to Ahmin and I as we laid them out and hammered them place.
Sarah kept painting the tires. (She is so done painting the tires) By the end of the day we put a power drill in her hand and she smiled very big.
The track was ready for shale so Josiah started hauling it. He is getting really good at operating it. We ended up running out of shale half way through. There will be more delivered tomorrow.

Tuesday - Please continue to pray for us. We celebrated some close calls tonight. I almost hit Nancy's finger with a spade shovel (it would have been real bad), Josiah almost lowered the skid steer bucket on my arm and head, Nancy almost got hit in the head with a 3lbs. sledge hammer, John almost rear ended our van with his and I almost backed into a white mustang. Come to think about it...I was involved in each one of those. Hmmm. Not good-maybe I should get some sleep. Keep praying for us (me)

Wednesday –

We drove to Lacombe , LA. Patricia is the lady who our November group worked with. They worked on taking a gutted house and making it livable - electrical, sheetrock and flooring.
John Thornhill from Baton Rouge Baptist Church met us there. He has worked on her house since Katrina hit. It has become his project and his church committed nearly $80,000 to her and another person's house. He was pretty glad to see us.
Our job today was to power wash, scrape, sand and prime her house. However, after three hours or so, we knew we had a problem. The pace was slowed a bit because we had more workers than we had equipment. The lack of ladders was the biggest slow down. The team did not have a real foreman on this job, so there were many temptations to be distracted. (Not that killing wasps is not a good and fun distraction) Note: The wasps were everywhere. Josiah was stung twice and everyone else were taking evasive actions while painting. We did go to the hardware store and bought spray.......
We had a powwow after lunch and we all recommitted ourselves to finishing the job today. Actually, the pledge was: No dinner until it's done.
Josiah, Sam and Ahmin went high on the ladders. Sarah, Karl, and Ben took the mid-sections and Ally and Sean stayed low. I acted as the foreman and water boy. That meant I directed the teams to where they needed to be, got them paint, and kept them hydrated.
Guess what? By 4pm we had the whole house done!!! It was a moment to celebrate. After cleaning up and eating some of Patricia's cake, we headed home.

Thursday - We went back to the school and were able to finish spreading the mulch and shale. At lunchtime we headed back to Lacombe to Patricia’s and were fed jambalaya for lunch. We had hoped to at least get two sides of her house painted, but were actually able to finish the entire house within just a couple of hours.

Friday – Our day of rest in Gulfport MS., also devastated by Katrina. Our plan for the day is to take a boat to an island in the Gulf where we will be able to see dolphins and swim.

Katrina Outreach Team

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