- Spring ServeFest
- Other Local Missions
- Prep for Next Response
- Spring Break Wrapup
- Summer Schedule
The next ServeFest will be in October. We’ll have more rehab work lined up in Franklinton as we establish a supporting relationship with Lower Lights Ministry out of Bellows Avenue Nazarene and Rebuilding Together, Central Ohio, a local rehab charity. These organizations are much like Hilltop and Tammany Oaks’ relief ministry in scope and organization. Just the kind of effort we can support through volunteer hours.
I am looking for churches who are willing to donate their parking lots for a Friday and Saturday, volunteers, and $5,000 in expenses or any part of that to build a house to send into New Orleans. We can frame out walls and sheathing here in a Saturday and pack it on a truck to have the lot available for Sunday morning services. This is in cooperation with Crossroads Missions through Help Build Hope http://www.crossroadsmissions.com/helpbuildhope/. Construction of the houses will be completed in New Orleans Central City. It’d be really kewl to have a local crew start this here this summer and send a team to work with Crossroads in the fall to put them together to get the end to end.
I’m having a difficult time scheduling meetings with church leadership to plan our next response and formalize Servants Unite’s relationship. Your assistance in facilitating these meetings is going to be fundamental. It is urgent we determine what resources and locations are available for relief supply collection and packaging as well as finances to send in volunteers for our next response. We use frightfully little money in this mission, but reserves which have never exceeded $14,000 are nearing $0 and the funding for the organization is another issue I need to address. Priorities are involvement in current Katrina relief and local efforts, prep for next response, and funding in that order.
For Spring Break trips, we sent 101 man weeks of Labor to Bayou La Batre, Alabama and Chalmette (New Orleans) Louisiana. The cost of van rentals, gas, and board with our hosting organizations cost our organization approximately $8,000 plus the contributions of some of the teams I estimate around $7,000 more. I wish I could give you an inventory of the people we’ve helped, the spiritual growth among volunteers who are believers and those that aren’t, the new friendships that have formed between people from all over the country… but it’s an immeasurable quantity. Unfortunately, even blogging hasn’t been nearly adequate. Amazing people do this work. People who attract other people to them. Fishers of men. You’re all to be commended and I am so thankful to be blessed by working shoulder to shoulder with the majority of these volunteers this spring.
Summer is going to be bigger! Here are the trips presently scheduled:
6/8/07 North Canton Church of Christ 27 volunteers
7/3/07 New Life Church, Canal Winchester 15 volunteers
7/7/07 Westerville Schools 50 volunteers
Sunbury United Methodist 40 volunteers
South Dayton Church of Christ 10 volunteers
7/27/07 Linworth United Methodist 30 volunteers
?? Norway Avenue Church of Christ (Huntington, WV)
Teams from June 15 through July will go to Bayou La Batre, pending any new disasters that require our response. Teams before that camp and after will be working in Chalmette (New Orleans). Add your group to one of these, or pick your own date. There’s plenty of work left to do!
I will be focusing on getting everyone where they are going for these trips, setting up local mission opportunities, and continuing to grow the organization to more churches. You can help with that and in all we do. Even full time I need a lot of volunteers to help manage all these activities. Please get back to me with your interest and availability!
Servants Unite!
John McGuire
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