Lenten ELCA World Hunger Results
Wow! As most of you may know, we started the Lenten season in March with our annual focus on ELCA World Hunger and the work they do in the U.S. and across the world. We set a goal of $5,000 for CtK and blew through that quickly. Pastor Tim announced in late March, that we were now hoping for $7500 by the end of April.
On April 3rd, Gabe Brannon, Mission Funding Director from ELCA Churchwide, attended worship, shared his message for the sermon and did a Q&A session after worship. Our congregation is one of the most generous ones in the U.S. for per capita giving to World Hunger. He focused on the three readings and in particular on the boy in the reading in John 6 and shared how this was a miracle of “community”, just like the work of ELCA World Hunger across the world. In keeping with Pastor Tim’s sermon series, “Oh, the Places We Will Go”, Gabe discussed what the ELCA is doing in eastern Europe right now. As of 4/3, Lutheran Disaster Response had raised $4.3 million and was working with partner organizations all over eastern Europe in response to the invasion of Ukraine. He also shared some examples of how ELCA World Hunger is at work in Indonesia (where 40% of the population lives on <$2/day) and there are 600,000 people with AIDS/HIV and half of those do not know they have it. In Peru, who has the largest percentage of undernourished children in South America. In Eswatini (formerly Swaziland, in Southern Africa), 60% of people live on <90 cents/day.
So what was the response of the congregation? Pastor Tim then set a new goal of $10K. Drum roll please–your giving as of 4/24 (including the monthly donation from the Social Ministry budget) was——$9,200! In addition, you also responded with gifts to Lutheran Disaster Response of $3,142.83 for eastern Europe/Ukraine.
Once again, your prayers, support and commitment to the local communities across the country/worldwide working on all sorts of projects to address the underlying issues of hunger, and hunger itself are examples of community and love. THANK YOU and blessings to everyone’s efforts all year long.