Covenant News

Oregon Church Extends Helping Hand to Florida Group

NORTH MIAMI, FL (August 13, 2001) - A 26-member intergenerational mission team from the Evangelical Covenant Church in Milwaukie, Oregon, provided eight days of ministry assistance at Bethany Covenant Church in North Miami the last week in July.

Bethany Pastor Andy Anderson said that most of the mission team conducted a Vacation Bible School and conducted neighborhood visits to 300 homes, partnering with Bethany parishioners. Those in the neighborhood speak both English and Creole. The team also conducted an outreach evangelism service and cleaned the church school before leaving. A handful of workers also helped remodel a handicapped accessible restroom, saving thousands of dollars, said Anderson.

Barbara Johnson, director of Covenant Mission Connection of the Evangelical Covenant Church Department of World Mission, assisted the two churches. Jerry Van Note, pastor of youth ministries for the ECC of Milwaukie, led the mission trip. They organized a pre-trip curriculum (much of it provided by Covenant Mission Connection) to help team members better understand the culture in which they would be working. The mission team stayed in a local hotel, which allowed them to enjoy morning devotions and debrief each day's events in the evening. Before leaving Miami, the Oregon team also had time for trips to a local beach.

The Milwaukie church sent members on a mission trip to Haiti one year earlier and asked Johnson if there are Haitian ministries in the denomination that need assistance. She suggested the North Miami congregation.

"I was really blessed by the team's spirit of ministry," said Anderson. "That kind of spirit was refreshing. They came in and were ready to say to us, 'How can we help you,' rather than saying this was how they were going to help us," said Anderson. "It was really wonderful to have another Covenant church say that they really cared for us and wanted to help us.

"The Kingdom involves all of the churches to reach others," Anderson continued. "And for them, it involved singing, cleaning and knocking on doors to advance God's work. I think it was a blessing for the team to see how we do ministry in our culture and it was a good experience all the way around."

"It was just a great experience," observed Van Note, whose team included 11 adults and 15 teens. "I was encouraged just seeing how God worked with each person. People were taken out of their comfort zones and stretched to what they could achieve. We want to show God's world on a larger basis for people, enlarging their territories. It wasn't a total culture shock, but it was quite a different culture. The adults got to know the kids through the trip and the kids said the adults acted more like the kids than they expected. And, with any trip like that, the youth group grows tighter. It (the trip) really bonded us."

For more information about how Covenant churches can aid other Covenant congregations or ministries throughout North America, contact Johnson at Covenant Mission Connection by telephone at 773-907-3324 or by email at barbara.johnson@covchurch.org.

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