In Our World

Presbyterian Disaster Assistance
Presbyterian Disaster Assistance is the emergency and refugee program of the Presbyterian Church USA. The program enables congregations and mission partners of the Presbyterian Church (USA) to witness to the healing love of Christ through caring for communities adversely affected by crisis and catastrophic events. Our initial involvement came when teams from our church participated in the recovery efforts from Hurricane Katrina primarily in Slidell, just outside New Orleans. We will be continuing our support for those efforts as well as other disaster recovery efforts in the U.S. and globally. www.pcusa.org/pda

Alternative Missions – Tom Hackett
Tom is the founder and leader of Alternative Missions, which has ministries in Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rica, and South Africa. Alternative Missions is evolving in Mexico towards the Habitat for Humanity model and has turned over the Helene, Honduras facilities to Mission Encounter International (Larry Benson). www.alternativemissions.org

Alternative Missions – Joe and Averyl Morris (South Africa)
Joe and Averyl married in 2008 in Honduras and moved to her home country of South Africa. They have initiated a ministry of food/clothing/medicine support, education on AIDS, and evangelism. One of the ministry goals is to develop church leadership. They are tireless workers and powerful prayer warriors.

Mission Encounter International – Larry Benson (Helene)
The Bensons have been in Helene for five years during which time they have continued the Alternative Missions medical and dental clinics, trained several islanders in the ministry, started the English school, and have brought on local leadership for the school and much of the spiritual leadership for the community. Mission Encounter International plans to transfer more and more of the responsibility to local leadership.

Lifewind (Medical Ambassadors International)
Lifewind International works to transform nations through disease prevention, evangelism and community development. Lifewind International trains and supports national leaders within 56 developing countries to reach and disciple their own people physically and spiritually. Their integrated ministry, Community Health/ Evangelism, serves in God’s grace to transform individual lives, lifting communities out of poverty and multiplying this success to entire nations. www.lifewind.org

Partners International – Pastor Nouh Ag Infa Yattara (Timbuktu, Mali)
Our church has been supporting Partners International for more than 15 years and recently through the Annual Harvest of Hope catalog with individual support with specific gifts.

Partners International seeks financial support for Pastor Nouh and the Tahahint n’ Massinage Tinbuktu (TNT) ministry in Timbuktu, Mali.

This ministry’s vision is to establish more new churches (3 new church starts last year) among the tribal groups living in the “Belt of Misery”, the extremely poor camps on the outskirts of Timbuktu. Elijah House Center teaches, clothes and feeds 65 children each year. The Women’s Center trains 100 women annually in a 9-month vocational program in sewing, knitting, embroidery, fabric dyeing and literacy. Men’s Vocational Training Center trains men in tailoring and baking in a 9-month program that also includes literacy and health training. www.partnersintl.org

Africa Bible University – Kurt and Marlene Schimke
This ministry located in Kampala, Uganda provides the education of future Christian leaders in their own countries. The Schimke’s instruction promotes spreading God’s word to a very needy part of the world where strong Christian leadership is necessary. The university is sending Christian leaders to churches, businesses, and governments. It also offers an accredited credential program for teachers. The students come from Uganda as well as other African countries. www.africanbiblecolleges.org/uganda

Floresta, Plant with purpose
Founded by Tom Woodard in 1984, this Christian organization reverses deforestation and poverty in the world by working with local community leaders in poor rural communities to plant trees, teach sustainable farming, provide micro-financing for small business owners and share the Gospel. Floresta has helped transform the lives of more than 8,600 rural poor in 219 communities in six countries: the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Mexico, Thailand, Tanzania and the United States. For $1 per tree you can make a difference. Floresta plants trees for a purpose while planting the word of God through action and discipleship so that both can flourish and be taught and passed on to neighboring communities. www.floresta.org

New Hope International
This ministry in Eastern Europe provides support in bringing the Gospel to thousands of residents, children, youth and families, many of who are hearing it for the first time. Through partnerships with local and national churches, their staff is winning the next generation for Christ and helping them grow in their new-found faith. Reach Out! has supported this ministry almost from its inception in 1971, when one of its major activities was smuggling Bibles into countries behind the Iron Curtain. In 2008 we increased our support to sponsor an orphan through their Christian foster care program. www.newhopeinternational.org

Streets of Hope
This ministry rescues orphaned and homeless street children, providing housing, guidance, education, and Christian training until adulthood. It has six facilities in and around Nakuru, Kenya. It also operates two satellite facilities which serve as entrance facilities to the other six. One dorm houses 88 children and the high school that will eventually serve ninth through twelfth grades. A vocational school is planned for the same location as well as another dormitory that can house up to 90 students attending high school. ReachOut! supports 5 orphan boys at Streets of Hope. www.streetsofhope.org

Heart for Africa
The ministry mission consists of three elements.
1. Children’s homes in Kenya and Swaziland - Heart for Africa has partnered to help them move out of crisis and toward sustainability. Work has included raising money and hiring local contractors to build dorms and kitchens, digging bore holes, and building other sustainability structures (such as chicken house, zero-grazing cattle pen).
2. Project Canaan - purchased 2,500 acres in Swaziland in May 2009. Project will include for-profit agriculture (likely in greenhouses) plus a dairy and fish farms. Profits will go to support three Swaziland partner homes as well as Kenya homes.
3. Service trips - the core competency is bringing large groups of Americans on 11-day service trips to work side-by-side with Africans in the children’s homes. The 2010 trips will focus on Celebrate Litesmba which will bring 15,000 orphaned children into the Swaziland national stadium to celebrate “hope”.
www.heartforafrica.org

International Justice Mission
The organization is dedicated to the prevention of human trafficking. It provides qualified professionals for victim rescue, perpetrator accountability, victim aftercare and training, and structural transformation. The Scriptures speak with unmistakable clarity about God’s hatred of injustice, His passion for justice and His call for each of us to use our skills, gifts and talents to seek justice and rescue the oppressed. We also know that God does not give us a ministry that He won’t empower, and that He will work miracles in response to our faithful obedience to His call to this work. www.ijm.org