ELCA Youth Distribute $342,000

ELCA YOUTH DISTRIBUTE $342,000

Young people who took part in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in
America's 1997 Youth Gathering gave $342,000 to the closing worship
offering. The event brought 37,000 Lutherans to New Orleans, July
23-27. The offering has been divided between domestic and global
ministries. The Rio Grande Valley Corridor Ministry, training
missionaries working along the Texas-Mexico border, received $58,000;
Pastoral Interns for United States Inner Cities, a program that
supports pastoral internships in communities that cannot raise funds
on their own, received $42,000; Prison Congregations of America, an
organization that collaborates with Christian denominations and
prison officials to develop prison ministries, received $35,000; the
United States Homeless Ministries received $24,000; ELCA Native
American ministries received $7,000; and $5,000 went toward resources
for ELCA members who are blind. The Palestine Academy for Asian
Christianity, called "House of the Word," received $45,000; community
mission and development projects in Columbia received $60,000; $25,000
went toward equipment for the Mwangaza Resource Center, Tanzania;
$20,000 went toward medical care for young polio victims in China;
$10,000 went toward ministry to street children in Brazil; $5,600 went
toward women's ministry in India; and $5,400 will provide food for
famine-struck North Korea. At the last Youth Gathering, in 1994, the
closing worship offering totaled $286,500.

For information contact:
Ann Hafften, Director (773) 380-2958 or NEWS@ELCA.ORG
http://www.elca.org/co/news/current.html