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SEPTEMBER 2009, OUTREACH TEAM NEWS!
Our Outreach Team has been focusing on the annual summer Mission Ministry.
This year we made a decision to work locally and help our sister church, Baltic United Methodist Church. We had a fabulous Mission Team of 20 people from Lee Church and 6 people from Baltic Church. The main focus was cleaning
and painting the Fellowship Hall, and the Sunday
School Room. We also worked on the kitchen, parts of the sanctuary, and the church sign. Many thanks to an awesome Mission Team for their continued commitment to our Mission Ministry at Lee Church.
COMMUNITY MEALS: Special thanks to all of our church family who have been cooking and assisting at our Sunday Community
Meals. We have been serving 85 to 130 meals on the 4th or 5th Sunday of June, July, and August. It would
be wonderful if we could find additional people to
help with this ministry. If you are interested, please see Brenda.
CROP
WALK & BLANKETS PROGRAM:
As
of September 1st, we have collected $ 5,221.50 for the 2009 CROP WALK and $ 355.00 for the Blankets program. Bravo Lee Church family! NEXT MEETING: Our next Outreach Meeting will be held on Tuesday, September 15th at 10:00 a.m. in the Library at Lee Church. We are looking forward to another great year of ministering
to those in need throughout God’s community.
God’s blessings to all!
Brenda J. Keefe
Sleeping Bag Project
A reminder there is a continuing need for clean, old jeans to be used to make
the sleeping bags. Also needed are flat colored sheets
and blankets no smaller than double size. We will transform them into sleeping
bags for our homeless friends for winter. If you are interested in joining the group on Wednesdays from 1 to 3 p.m. Your
continuing support is greatly appreciated.
OUTREACH
TEAM NEWS It’s summertime and that means it is Mission Trip time! Our Outreach Team will
be focusing on our Mission
Central Trip planning this
summer. Our trip is scheduled for July 27-August 2, 2008 and at this time we have over 20 people signed up for this summer Outreach activity.
The
Mission Team will be working at our Mission Central complex in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. Mission Central is the warehouse of the Central
Pennsylvania Conference of the United Methodist
Church. Since the beginning in 2002, Mission Central has hosted thousands of volunteers who come to Mission Central to experience being “the
hands and feet of God” in service. “Relief Kits,” medical supplies, educational supplies, and daily living supplies and equipment are organized
at Mission Central and sent to
destinations around the world. Mission Central’s work on disaster response has provided aid for people affected by every major weather event
since 2002. As a special treat for our Mission Team, reservations have been made to see the production “In the Beginning” at The Sight
and Sound Theatre in Strasburg, Pennsylvania. It is the goal of this Christian Theater to visualize and dramatize Biblical truth through live stage productions—to illustrate truth in the same way
that Jesus did, by storytelling. “In the Beginning” will bring us to the Garden of Eden and the story of Adam and Eve, with
special effects that are beyond
anyone’s imagination. In addition, our Mission Team will have a “Behind the Scenes” Tour
which will let us go back stage
and see first hand how a production is developed and presented on a stage that is twenty thousand square feet in size! So needless to say
this is an exciting time for our
Outreach and Mission Team! There will be a Mission Team meeting on Thursday July 3rd at 7:00pm. We are still gathering more money for
our CROP WALK activity. If anyone has any additional money to give to CROP WALK, please give it to one of our Outreach Team members. Hopefully by our next newsletter we will have a final
figure for CROP WALK 2008. Watch for details on our upcoming fall focus on our stewardship of
our environment. Our next Outreach Team Meeting will be on Monday June 30th at 7:00pm.
We Walk Because They Walk!
Join us in Norwich Area CROP Walk for Hunger Relief on May 4th at 1 p.m. at Lee Memorial UMC
Blankets and sleeping bags were dedicated to be distributed to homeless on Thanksgiving Sunday.
2007 Mission Trip to East Machias, Maine
Report by Brenda J. Keefe
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Twenty people from Lee
Memorial Church headed up to the DownEast Country in East Machias, Maine for their 2nd annual
Mission Trip. And what a trip it was! It
certainly was very different from our Katrina rebuild Mission Trip last summer
but it held its own special ministry for our Team members.
The journey to East Machias took about 7-9 hours, depending if you were pulling a camper
or not! The majestic scenery of Maine drew you into
the serenity of the location. The Team got settled in at the Campground and was soon organizing their
projects with Pastor Betty Palmer, the Coordinator of the DownEast Maine Missions.
During the
7 days that our Team was in Maine, we were involved in so many different projects. Some
helped with the serving of the community turkey Dinner, others were working at the Thrift Shop (clothing
for the Migratory families were located), and other Team members were replacing roofs, painting community
homes, repairing, remolding, or renovating the cabins on the 60 acre campground. In addition, during the evening hours we went to the Migratory Camps to bring
the personal kits, and socks to the workers. We also participated in a worship
service, sang and prayed with the families that were living in very difficult situations at these
Migratory Camps.
One evening our Team went to a local
Boarding Home and shared an evening of keyboard and tuba music with the residents. Our children played their instruments
too! It was a fun night for all of us!
We also went to a Day Care Center and played music, and donated books and games to the school
and to each individual child. Even “Casey” our Mission
Team dog, dressed up for the occasion and greeted all of the children!
At the conclusion of our Mission Trip, Pastor Ho-Soon presented
Pastor Betty with a keyboard and a speaker system to be used at the Campground for the Tabernacle worship. The keyboard and speaker system was donated by our Lee
Memorial congregation. Once again our Lee Church family supported our Mission
Ministry with their generous gifts.
What a blessing it was to be in Maine and help those in need. We all returned with a different perspective.
As someone said during our trip, “We will never look at another blueberry the same again.” We all saw what major challenges the migratory workers
and their families have to face. How difficult their work was, not only the back-breaking
work of picking blueberries all day, but the less than adequate living conditions that they endured everyday of
their lives.
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