2015 Missions Challenge

My goal this year is to complete one missions project each month. I want to get everyone in church to participate in missions. By doing multiple projects, people are exposed to the numerous missions projects that there are. I want to do local missions projects as well as global ones. This will give everyone a chance to choose the missions project that they want to become involved with. I think that this will be a good way to spread God's love in our community and around the world.

Colors of Faith

One project that we did was to raise money to buy soccer balls for the Jesus Film Project at www.jfhp.org. Every week for five weeks we had the congregation wear one color of faith. We had one of the children read what the color of the week represented. Each week we asked the congregation to donate $0.25 for wearing the color. On the last week we sold colors of faith candy sticks and candy canes. We also asked the congregation to donate extra money if they wanted to buy more soccer balls. We showed clips about the ministry each week. Inckuding children in the project usually makes them go better.During Children's church we focused on the colors of faith during the five week period.

Operation Mary

We have been supporting Operation Mary for almost three years. Operation Mary is a missions project that supports orphans in Ukraine. Each year they send supplies to Ukraine and go for two weeks to visit the orphanages. You can find more information at operationmary.com.

This year I wanted to combine global and local missions. Our children made Christmas ornaments and we put a verse and the church information on the back. We put them in fruit baskets, handed them out at nursing homes and when we went caroling. I wanted to combine that with global missions. We decided to sell the ornaments to people and they could also pay to sponsor an ornament to give to someone through our local missions project. The money raised from the ornaments went to Operation Mary.

Wilbur Project

Our church collected money for the Wilbur Project at compassionforafrica.org. This project gives girls a pair of pigs so that they can raise their own pigs and support themselves. It allows the girls to get an education and stay out of polygamous marriages. Each pair of pigs costs $50 and gives each girl a chance for a bright future.

We had our children and teens sell pig cookies to raise the money for the project. We also set out a pig bank at VBS and had people put money in it. We set the pig bank out at different church events so that people could donate money. We also have pig cut outs for people to donate money to see if we can buy another pair of pigs.