Missions and Outreach Committee

The goals of the Missions & Outreach Committee continue to be:

1. To provide financial support to domestic and overseas missionaries & missions organizations/projects
2. To provide updates to for the congregation on ministries we support
3. To provide opportunities for the SPC family to reach beyond the walls of this church to share the love of Jesus

Under the leadership of Pat Peebles the first half of 2005, the Missions & Outreach Committee particularly focused on coordinating two events:

• a January dinner to generate interest in sponsorship of children in Rwanda through World Vision and the possibility of raising the $4000 needed to build a home for a family in that country
• SPC’s participation in the late June Greater New York Billy Graham Crusade in Queens.

The World Vision Child Sponsorship Dinner was well-attended not only by SPC members but also by a number of people from outside the church.  The Journal News published an interview with Pastors Allen and Debbie and Dr. George Cox and covered the dinner which helped publicize the need for monthly sponsors for children in a country ravaged by not only the genocide a decade ago but also the scourge of AIDS.  We have the joy of knowing that the lives of over 70 children and their families and villages are now being helped through sponsorship including some Ugandan children previously taken under sponsorship by SPC members.

Preparations began in earnest in March for SPC’s participation in the Billy Graham Crusade knowing that this would likely be Dr. Graham’s final outreach effort.  The entire congregation engaged in Operation Andrew prayer for neighbors and friends we hoped to invite to the Crusade.  Thirty-plus members attended the Christian Life & Witness Course to become more comfortable with sharing our faith with others and to be able to be counselors for those responding to Dr. Graham’s invitation at each Crusade service.  Two offerings totaling $2208 were received in support of the Crusade.  Neighborhood Prayer Walks were conducted and invitations were handed out, including at the Suffern Street Fair.  A number of our choir members participated in the Crusade choir.  Adults and youth went in car pools and in coach buses to at least one of the three services at Flushing Meadows and a bunch of our kids responded to the Gospel at the Saturday morning Kidz Gig program.  It was an amazing experience and one that has changed the lives of many in the metro area.

The congregation participated in numerous other M&O offerings or projects throughout the year:

• $4485 was received and sent through World Vision to aid the S. Asia tsunami victims
• Four years of the Alpha Course came to an end at the conclusion of the winter session
• Alison Cox coordinated having the Junior Church kids make and send valentines to Myron Green’s Kuwait-based army unit along with care packages of treats and useful items plus Prayer Boxes Myron had requested for the soldier’s prayer requests
• Pastor Allen was sent off to his February teaching mission at Moscow’s New Life Bible College with over-the-counter cold & flu medications and other pharmacy items for the students through our To Russia with Love drive.  
• $524 was given to CareNet of Rockland Pregnancy Center through the Baby Bottle Boomerang coin bank campaign
• Ramapo Valley Young Life Area Director, Carl Whitlatch, provided an update on that ministry to Rockland youth and $507 was received for the ministry
• SPC hosted two tables at CareNet’s benefit dinner dance in April
• A representative from All Rockland Kids for Christ (ARK) made a recruitment presentation for volunteers for their summer PowerTime ministry to kids in lower income Rockland neighborhoods and showed off the Gospel Truck our congregation helped fund with a number of SPC folks volunteering once again during the summer.
• $500 in M&O scholarship money was provided in May for Presbyterian for Renewal’s (PfR) Northeast Wee Kirk Weekend Conference that helps equip pastors and lay leaders of small Presbyterian Church (USA) congregations in our region
• $700 in M&O scholarship money was provided for the Youth Group’s July missions trip to the Appalachian region of West Virginia
• If you should see someone wearing a bright color t-shirt emblazoned with “Ask Me About Jesus”, that’s through the vision of Anthony Marsalisi who has presented the idea in a number of Rockland churches providing volunteers with the shirts.
• $4273 was received in September and forwarded to the Salvation Army for Gulf Coast hurricane relief
• Former SPC interim pastor, Frank Martin, returned to the pulpit on World Communion Sunday in October to share about his ministry training and equipping Turkish pastors and church planters to bring the Gospel to the people of the Turkic area of central Asia where the population is 99% Muslim.  Dr. Martin was sent off with a financial gift from the committee with our intention to provide further financial support in 2006.
• Rev. Dave Snyder, the new Executive Director of Development for World Vision, brought the Sunday message during late October’s International AIDs Sunday and updated the adult Sunday Bible class about the AIDs crisis in the Third World.
• SPC hosted two tables at CareNet of Rockland’s annual October fund raising banquet at which the new Mobile CareNet Center (housed in an RV) was unveiled.
• Karyn Moore once again facilitated our church’s outpouring of shoebox gifts through Samaritan’s Purse Operation Christmas Child program in which these boxes are delivered to needy kids all over the globe.
• Bobbi Ross continues to faithfully coordinate our church’s turn providing the hot meal at the local Soup Kitchen about every two months.

This spring we look forward to presentations from Chosen People Ministries (reaching out to our Jewish brothers and sisters), the Walter Hoving Home Choir (a Bible-based residential program for women recovering from alcohol and substance abuse), and One-by-One (a ministry for those seeking to leave the homosexual lifestyle).

With Pat and Dick Peebles retirement in the fall, Missions & Outreach is praying for a new committee chairperson with a vision and heart to share the love of Jesus with those who have yet to meet Him.  If you feel God “nudging” you in that direction, please talk with Pastor Allen or me.

                                                 In the love of Jesus,

                                                 Lee Ann Weinberg, Acting Chairperson