OPERATION THANKS-GIVING
Combine "Hand in Hand" with Thanksgiving cards and you get "a handy idea" for supporting ELCA missionaries!
1. Hold an "OPERATION THANKSGIVING" intergenerational event. Have the supplies available to make Thanksgiving cards: construction paper, scissors, markers, etc.
2. Each participant or family group should make at least three cards: one to send the congregation's sponsored missionaries, members of the military and other service personnel; one to "sell" as a fundraiser for ELCA Missionary Sponsorship; and one to take home.
3. You are invited to send one or more "I'm thankful for you" cards to Global Mission Support. We'll happily send them on to the ELCA missionaries, starting with those who began service in 2009.
SOME QUESTIONS WITH ANSWERS ABOUT THIS PROJECT
1. How many cards would we need to prepare to be able to send one to each missionary or missionary family?
There are 258 missionaries, 88 of whom are in their first year.
2. Can we put our church name and individual names on the cards?
You bet! You might want to include one e-mail address, too. I can't promise that you'll hear back from the missionary who receives the card (we don't want to tie an obligation-to-respond to these random acts of thankfulness), but I'm thinking you could receive return e-mails.
3. When must you receive them to have time to distribute them?
There's no deadline for thankfulness, so we'll distribute the cards as they come in. We'll scan and e-mail the cards we receive by November 21, so as many reach the missionaries as possible before Thanksgiving. Then, beginning in December, we'll begin mailing all the cards (even those we've e-mailed) with the missionaries' mid-month payroll.Your plan to send the cards after November 1 is perfect.
4. I assume that we will send them to you in a bulk package. Will we need to provide envelopes for each?
You won't; envelopes are not needed.
5. Is there a fee for postage?
It would be greatly appreciated if you included a donation for ELCA Missionary Sponsorship along with the cards. Make out the check to ELCA Missionary Sponsorship and place "MSG0340" or "where needed most" on the memo line of your check.
Thanksgiving in Rwanda
Students in Rwanda, where ELCA missionary Robin Strickler serves.
I give thanks to all the church members who have cared so much about education for Rwandans thousands of miles away from their own communities. I give thanks to my parents and sisters who have tolerated me being so far from them. I give thanks to my husband who constantly advises and encourages me. And, I give thanks to the students and teachers at the school who remind me about what is truly important in God's kingdom…that we love what is right and walk very humbly with our God!
- Robin Strickler, Rwanda
ELCA missionary Robin Strickler serves in Rwanda, working in education development. Started by Rwandan refugees returning from the genocide of 1994, the new Lutheran Church of Rwanda has a 17,000 members. The LCR focuses on training leaders and is building a secondary school and a women's center.
Thanksgiving in the Central African Republic
Harvest offering at Tongo Lutheran Church in Baboua, Central African Republic, where ELCA missionaries Joe and Deborah Troester serve.
“Osoko, Jesu, Osoko!” – “Thank you, Jesus, thank you!” sings the choir of young people as they march into the sanctuary, swaying to the beat of their thanksgiving song. In Baboua, Central African Republic, it is the time of the Don de Récolte – the Harvest Offering. Like our Thanksgiving celebrations, it is a harvest festival, when congregations bring in the best of their harvest, along with a special offering, to thank God for the blessings of the past year, especially for good crops and food on their tables. Women wearing colorful floor-length African dresses come bearing dishes full of manioc or a large bunch of bananas to place before the altar. Men dressed in long robes, or in their best T-shirts and jeans, bring their envelopes containing a special monetary gift for the Thanksgiving Offering. Little children, led by their Sunday School teachers, file down the aisle, clutching their few francs to deposit in the plastic offering basket. One little girl, about three years old, has to be persuaded to let go of her money and drop it in!
At the Tongo Lutheran Church in Baboua, the entire congregation waits as the money is being counted. As a choir sings to the accompaniment of drums and rhythm instruments, deaconesses serve us coffee and bananas. This is the first church I have ever attended in which we stopped and took a coffee break during the service! (Since the service lasted three hours, it wasn’t a bad idea.) At last the good news is announced: the total offering comes to over $300. “What an offering!” exclaims the president of the congregation. Everyone cheers. This will ensure that the work of the church can continue for another year. Perhaps they will even be able to afford to buy communion wine. The lay pastor will receive his small salary. Of course, offerings are taken every Sunday, but the Thanksgiving offering helps to carry the church through the dry season (November through May), when times are leaner, and food is not as plentiful.
As you celebrate Thanksgiving this year, remember your brothers and sisters in the Central African Republic, and rejoice with them that the God of the harvest is good.
- Pastor Deborah Troester, Baboua, CAR
Pastor Deborah and her husband Joe are ELCA missionaries in Baboua, the Central African Republic. Joe serves as technical advisor for P.A.S.E. (the French acronym for Program for Water Management), a program funded by ELCA and World Hunger, which provides clean drinking water and promotes good hygiene and sanitation to villagers. Pastor Deborah teaches at the Theological School in Baboua.