Living the Mission: Young at Heart/Senior Adults on Mission

Our Young at Heart (YAH) senior adult group shared their experiences Loving God, Loving Others, and Living the Mission:

For several years our YAH group has dressed bears for the Salvation Army as a mission project. A few weeks before Christmas the Salvation Army supplies the bears and individuals dress them however suits their fancy. The bears are returned to the Salvation Army and needy children are given their choice of a bear to take home for Christmas. In 2011 our group dressed and returned 220 bears!

The YAH group also participates in Project Linus, a non-profit organization dedicated to “Providing Security through Blankets" for ill or traumatized children and teens. Project Linus is named after the character from the Peanuts comic strip and was inspired by a picture of a young cancer patient holding her security blanket. Project Linus has donated more than 4,000,000 handmade blankets to comfort children in hospitals, shelters, and hospices across the nation. Our YAH group contributes fifteen to twenty blankets each month to area hospitals and ministry/outreach organizations. This past year our blankets were also sent to Joplin, Missouri following the tornados.

For more information or to get involved, contact Betsy Daughtridge at bdaughtridge@firstnorfolk.org or 461.3226 ext. 251.

Living the Mission: Project Hats of Hope

A church member shared her experiences Loving God, Loving Others, and Living the Mission:

The Hats of Hope ministry began with my passion to crochet. I knew God gave me this talent, but was unsure how to transform it into something more. I prayed for wisdom and God answered through an advertisement I saw for St. Jude Hospital. I immediately realized I needed to make hats for children battling cancer. I mentioned my vision for this project to my home Bible study group and they encouraged me. We prayed, set a goal to make fifty hats for a children’s hospital, and have been working ever since. Friends and coworkers who are non-Christians have joined us in this effort. We met our goal! We delivered the hats to children at Portsmouth Naval Medical Center in mid-January. In mid-February we delivered hats to K-Love for babies/children in Afghanistan and to Hope Haven for Romanians in the midst of a brutally cold winter.

It is an absolute pleasure every time we meet to make hats. God is leading and using us in ways we never imagined. Our new goal is to adopt an orphanage and make hats for the children there. Further, we intend to sell hats to support missions. God is using our hands to make something beautiful—something that will impact a child’s life.

International Ministry Opportunity

Kurnia Foe with Global Student Friendship at ODU shared this opportunity with us today:

I want to invite you to come to this coming Saturday event with our partner at the Beach, Virginia Beach Community Chapel (VBCC) which is the key player summer outreach for Internationals J-1 visa workers who are mostly undergraduate students from around the world who take their time off to work and learn English and American culture in the US.

We have almost 20 nations represented by ODU Internationals who are going to present their couintries at "Nations village" at 5:00 PM at Virginia Beach Community Chapel. If you could come one hour early which I encourage to do so in order that you could hear a talk by Dr. George Murray, former TEAM President (TEAM is a mission agency), former missionary to Italy, and now is the chancellor of Columbia International University.

Following "nations village" presentation, we will have dinner meal, cultural performance, and final talk by Dr. Murray to both Internationals and American friends.

If you could come, please write an email a.s.a.p. to my friend, Jere from VBCC at jerecleveland@vbcc.us

We are looking forward to partner with you if you sense God's call to do global summer outreach together.

Thanks and blessing,

Kurnia

ps: Video from last year summer global outreach: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ok_Q2Zx5qDI

Living the Mission: World Missions Offering

A church member shared her experiences Loving God, Loving Others, and Living the Mission:

I have promised myself that I will go on an international mission trip in the next few years because I feel this is what God wants. While waiting in the church lobby, I read a World Missions Offering (WMO) flyer and realized this was an opportunity to have a world impact starting locally.

My husband and I are trying to instill in our children a desire to help others. Their grandmother presented them with money and a challenge—spend half on themselves and half doing something for others less fortunate. They were overjoyed to buy toys for Operation Christmas Child. Seeing their excitement, I took WMO boxes to their daycare and asked if we could do a fundraiser. We set up a week-long penny war between the pre-K and Kindergarten classes. I thought I would be collecting and counting just a few dollars each day, but by the end, the children had raised $500! I asked them if they knew where the money was going and they knew exactly where and what it could do for others! I am fortunate that our daycare provider not only allowed this fundraiser but educated the children and sent out a link to First Baptist Church of Norfolk and the WMO.

Living the Mission: Shepherd's Class on Mission

After being challenged in Leadership Training, the Shepherd’s Class went into action. We met with the principal of Rena B. Wright Primary School in South Norfolk, a school where 320 K-2 students receive free breakfast/lunch and 70 staff work diligently to assure the children’s needs are met. Our class took on the mission. The ladies in the class delivered packages of homemade cookies for the staff in November, along with a note that thanked them for their service and said that we hope to encourage and bless them to demonstrate that God loves them and so does First Baptist Norfolk.
We asked for a family for Christmas and the school gave us a grandmother and her three grandchildren. In December we provided clothing and toys for each child. The grandmother was overcome with joy when she received food, gifts, and a gift card and said, “Thank you Jesus.” We all cried and we knew for sure that it is more blessed to give than receive. Monthly projects are planned to supply needs for this school, which will lead up Big Serve, when we plan to serve hotdogs on the grounds. What an opportunity to let these families know God loves them and so do we at First Baptist Norfolk!
If you want to help, contact Wayne Parrish at 410-9516.