Monthly Grace UMC Missions Focus
September 2024 – UMCOR
Our Mission Focus for September will be “United Methodist Committee on Relief” better known as UMCOR. UMCOR does incredible work responding to disasters around the world. They are often the first onsite and the last to leave providing various services and support as needed. Besides our cash gifts to support their work, quite often they request supplies, but most often ask for prayers for the people that are in need in these life-changing situations. We will add very intentional prayers this month for their work according to their current requests.
For more information and to see current UMCOR responses =>
UMCOR LINK
MISSION Donations: Please note on your offering that it is for the Monthly Mission Focus.
If you are mailing something to the church, please use our PO Box and not the church street address.
Grace United Methodist Church
PO Box 276, Pequot Lakes, MN 56472
———————————————————————————————————————-
Monthly Mission Focus History
September 2024 – UMCOR
Our Mission Focus for September will be “United Methodist Committee on Relief” better known as UMCOR. UMCOR does incredible work responding to disasters around the world. They are often the first onsite and the last to leave providing various services and support as needed. Besides our cash gifts to support their work, quite often they request supplies, but most often ask for prayers for the people that are in need in these life-changing situations. We will add very intentional prayers this month for their work according to their current requests.
August 2024 – Back to School
We all know how much teachers give to their students in terms of education and care. Too often they also have to empty their own pockets to outfit their classrooms as well. Our combined missional giving for the month of August gets distributed to local teachers associated with Grace UMC to help them be successful.
July 2024 – Operation Christmas Child
Our joint mission for the month of July is Operation Christmas Child. This is a project of the international relief organization, Samaritan’s Purse. This mission provides local partners around the world with shoeboxes filled with a variety of gifts for children, as an outreach within their own communities to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ. With each box built, a $10 donation is suggested to offset the shipping and handling costs. Our goal this year is to offer support to this mission, not by building boxes, but by offsetting these costs. $10 can go a long way to putting these gifts into the hands of children in need!
June 2024 – The Freedom Ranch
The missional giving for the month of June will go to help the Rising Hope Foundation with the needs for The Freedom Ranch. The Freedom Ranch is a safe home built to provide long-term care and recovery for young girls, ages 12-17, who have been rescued from human trafficking. The treatment plan for each girl is determined by the level of trauma she has experienced and is specifically designed to meet her needs and goals by her professional care team. The Freedom Ranch is equipped to house eight girls. In addition to therapy and a safe space, the girls will receive life skills training to prepare them for confident independent living. These skills include cooking/baking gardening/landscaping, personal hygiene/self care, budgeting/banking, home cleaning/maintenance, basic car care and maintenance, and self defense.
May 2024 – Minnesota Annual Conference Love Offering
The missional giving for the month of May will go towards the “Love Offering”. This is an offering collected yearly when our Annual Conference is held. It is combined to be used from 3-4 areas of need and service. Details can be read on the Conference website by following this link =>Annual Conference Love Offering
April 2024 – Pastor’s Discretionary Fund
April’s special mission giving goes to the Pastor’s Discretionary Fund. This is a fund set up to help people who find themselves in emergency situations. The fund is also used to purchase gas cards for those who stop by the church office with and immediate need.
March 2024 – Lakes Area Food Shelf
Our March missional giving is designated for the Lakes Area Food Shelf and has been part of Connecting at Grace during the Lenten Season with the community “Lenten Food Challenge”. The challenge has focused on both monetary collections and the weekly food items below:
-> Week of February 18th – Peanut Butter
-> Week of February 25th – Cereal
-> Week of March 3rd – Canned meats and Proteins
-> Week of March 10th – Paper towels and toilet paper
-> Week of March 17th – Final Offering
February 2024 – Adult and Teen Challenge Minnesota
Our missional giving for February will be given to support the good work being done through the Adult and Teen Challenge rehabilitation services in Brainerd. Many families have been touched by the pain of addiction, and so feel a personal connection to the work of this place. More information and details can also be found on their website => Adult and Teen Challenge Minnesota.
January 2024 – My Neighbor to Love
Our January Missional giving for January will be given to “My Neighbor to Love”, a newer birdging partner to move people from homelessness to housing in the Lakes area. We will have a speaker later this month to explain more. More information and details can also be found on their website => My Neighbor to Love Coalition
December 2023 – Two Local Causes
Our December Missional giving supports two different areas this year. The gifts will be split between Mid-Minnesota Women’s Shelter and the Pastor’s discretionary fund.
November 2023 – Lakes Area Food Shelf
Our November missional giving is designated for the Lakes Area Food Shelf. This month the funds donated will be given to the food shelf help keep the shelves stocked for the holiday season.
October 2023 – Brennecke Family Mission Work Support
In October our missional giving will go towards supporting the Brennecke Family to support the mission work they provide. See the latest update from them below.
Greetings, Friends at Grace! Here’s a brief update on our family and ministry.
First, we celebrate that the Lord continues to “send forth workers into his harvest.” This summer our Candidate Seminar was a week of training for ten new missionaries who will serve in Chad, Romania, Brazil, and Slovakia. Others will serve in a campus ministry known as “Campus Bible Fellowship” in South Bend, Indiana. One couple will serve in a retirement village for Gospel workers known as “Missionary Acres.” Finally, one candidate will serve as a Bible translation consultant with Bibles International, our Bible Translation team, which is headquartered in Grand Rapids, Michigan. All these met in July in our Global Ministry Center here in Cleveland. They will now begin the process of deputation as they raise a team of interested churches and individuals who will support and pray for their ministries.
During the week of Candidate Seminar, we get to know the new missionaries, and we learn the lesson once again that missions is not a calling for an elite few, but a step of faith for ordinary people who respond to God out of worship and obedience.
I continue to serve as CEO of Baptist Mid-Missions Foundation and as Stewardship Administrator for Baptist Mid-Missions. In those capacities I work with a constituency of “unsung heroes” who give sacrificially so that the effort to send and support missionaries can move forward. I enjoy interacting with these donors about the “ABC’s of ‘RMDs’ and ‘QCDs’ from their IRAs”! (What would we do without an alphabet?)
Kim and I are getting used to being “empty nesters” … sort of. Our youngest two, Gunnar and Natalie, are in college, so they “fly from the nest” nine months of the year, stopping in for holidays and summer. Their brief stays at home are a blessing and a reminder of God’s care for them as they begin to set out on their own. It is also a wonderful blessing to us as we both want them to go out and succeed in life, while at the same time we miss them. But launching kids into adult life is the whole point of parenting, right? The older three are busy: Nic & Kristin and their four kids are nearby, so we enjoy the energy of wonderful grandchildren! Brennan & Lydia are in Dodgeville, Wisconsin where they are busy working and enjoying life with Bandit, their German shorthair. And Kaye & Cody are planning for a wedding next fall between Cody’s deployments with the Air Force. Kaye is here in Cleveland, while Cody begins a year-long tour in South Korea.
That’s an update! Thanks for your supportive friendship through the years!
Blessings,
Steve & Kim Brennecke
