Serving Others

On select communion weekends (and at other designated times of the year), it’s our custom to collect special offerings for needs that arise outside our annual budget. Because of the health of our Barnabas fund, we have not taken up a special offering the last two months. Our ServeGlobal team has identified two areas in which we want to offer assistance, and this weekend (April 26 and 27), we will collect a special offering at the end of each service for these efforts.

Dave Ralston, director of ServeGlobal, writes:

Voice of Hope Ministries; Haiti:

The E Free church operates three churches and a school in northern Hatti through a ministry named Voice of Hope Ministries (www.vohmhaiti.com). Missionaries Henoc and Guerline Lucien are working alongside other Haitian Christians in the city of Cap Haitien. Food is available in boats at the port, but the government is choosing to let its people starve rather than release the food. The government is holding the food by charging exorbitant import taxes to repay debt owed by the government to the international community.

The most immediate need is to provide food for the children at the school and for families in the churches. Pastor Henoc has a plan that can get the children fed and food to the families. For $65, the church will provide a family a supply of rice, beans and cooking oil sufficient to feed the family for a month. In addition the financial support will insure that the school which has food for a few more weeks is able to continue to feed the children.

The issues in Haiti are complicated and will not be solved easily. However, if we could help in a small way with credible people in our EFree church I believe it would be a source of encouragement. The closing paragraph of the Sunday Observer speaks volumes. In the sprawling slum of Haiti’s Cite Soleil, Placide Simone, 29, offered one of her five offspring to a stranger. “Take one, she said” cradling a listless baby and motioning towards four rail-thin toddlers, none of whom had eaten that day. “You pick, just feed them.”

African Christians Fellowship International (ACFI); Liberia

African Christians Fellowship International (ACFI) is an indigenous church and church-planting ministry dedicated to spreading the gospel in West Africa. Since it was founded in 1986, over 280 churches have been established in 6 countries in the sub-Saharan region of West Africa with Liberia being the primary country of influence. Due to the effects of fourteen years of civil war in Liberia, ACFI has maintained two orphanages near the capital city for over a decade. Nearly 500 children are in their care at this time. Without government support programs and an 85% unemployment rate in the country, the ministry depends primarily on donations from fellow believers around the world to continue to care for the children. At this time, ACFI is in dire need of our assistance. The teachers at the orphanages recently returned to their homes after many months of not being able to receive pay, and the caretakers at the orphanage are only able to buy food for the children as donations come in, so that the children have had to go hungry many times as they wait for more funds.

Please keep these efforts in your prayers, and if at all possible, participate in our special offering this weekend.