Christmas Giving
Since 1986, we have offered opportunities in our Christmas Eve services to share gifts of love throughout the world. This year, your gift will help further God's work in the following 14 ministries:
Cuban laws prohibit the construction of new churches. However, houses can be purchased for churches. The pastor lives in the house and uses it for church services and ministries. An adequate house in a Cuban village costs around $1,000. This gift can essentially provide 10 churches.
Dire Dawa, Ethiopia, $16,000
The Ethiopian church that we support near the Somali border begins construction this year of their new church building. Last year we gave to this project and they expect it to be completed sometime mid-2012.
Ethiopian Outreach Ministry (EOM), $12,000
This annual project of our Christmas offering reaches outward to over 20 million Ethiopians with the message of Christ's love. This gift will be used to print and distribute over 140,000 copies of EOM's Bible Study each month within the country of Ethiopia, as well as 30 other countries around the world.
Living Word has traveled to Bethel for short-term missions trips since 1985. Our gift to Bethel this year will help to buy the seedlings, irrigation system, and infrastructure needed to establish a 5-acre plot of hybrid coconuts. It will produce a significant income of $15,000 per year for upwards of 20 years. The first harvest will be in 30 months.
Cuban Farm, $30,000
Our partner church in Cuba can develop a 35-acre farm into a pig, beef, and dairy business that will fully support over 100 church planters/pastors each year and enable them to be independent of foreign funds. Our money will purchase a needed tractor, build 3 sheds, and buy the first “generation” of pigs and cattle.
Sendafa, Ethiopia, $30,000
We continue to support our Adopt-A-Village project in Sendafa, Ethiopia. This year’s money will purchase text books for the high school; help students go to college; support the 8 churches with training, books, and expansion; and help the town build a needed sewage pit.
BellaManna means beautiful bread (from heaven). This is a new ministry beginning in York that will be working with the poor to help them escape the cycle of poverty. It is a holistic ministry, focusing on every area in a person’s life to equip them with the necessary life and job skills to rise above poverty. Our gift provides this new ministry with start-up money.
Children’s Home of York, $12,000
The Children’s Home has a program called Strive that is a residential addictions program for teens. The house they own for this program needs renovations and updating. Our gift will complete the renovations of this home that started one year ago.
Food for the Hungry in York, $10,000
Our Daily Bread and Compassion York are well established in the City of York. They feed hundreds of people weekdays and weekends, meeting basic food needs of many of York's poor. Living Word serves in the kitchen of Our Daily Bread on the 5th Mondays during the year and our people faithfully serve with Compassion York.
Human Life Services (HLS), $10,000
HLS, York’s Crisis Pregnancy Center, provides a hope-giving ministry to women in the York area and extends Christ’s love and grace to women who are in crisis pregnancies.
Salem Square Community Association (SSCA), $20,000
For a number of years, LW has supported the renewal of the Salem Square Neighborhood in York City. Great progress has been made with the recent purchase of Gus’s bar and the rehabbing of 17 homes on West Princess St. This gift continues our core support of this ministry.
Winter Utility Bills, $8,000
This gift will be used to help people during this winter's heating season. LW has numerous people in our church community who are unable to pay their utility bills. We will be able to help these households (many run by single moms) with this gift.
York County Food Bank, $6,000
Our local food bank has lost critical state funding and is in need of more local financial support. Our gift will go into their general fund to keep this vital agency going.
TOTAL OFFERING GOAL:
$182,000
