Thank You From Crisis Assistance

All,

I wanted to thank you for your amazing dedication to Crisis Assistance Ministry. We are so grateful for all the items you picked up and delivered to our Furniture Bank. What a nice surprise to come in on Monday morning and see all the furniture that Sharon Presbyterian donated. We were able to serve more customers because of your hard work and generous heart.

With Thanks
Betsy

Betsy McDonald
Manager, Furniture Bank
Crisis Assistance Ministry
803 Pressley Rd., Ste. 102, Charlotte NC 28217
Office: 704-522-4978
bmcdonald@crisisassistance.org
http://www.crisisassistance.org/

2011 Perú Mission Network Conference

View your invitation to the 2011 Perú Mission Network Conference. The conference will be held October 6-8 at the Port Orange Presbyterian Church in Port Orange, Florida map.

Scheduled to attend:

• Dr. Apolos Landa - Founder of the Luke Society of Moyobamba, Perú
• Rev. Eliderio Angula - Pastor of Moyobamba Presbyterian Church in Moyobamba, Perú
• Rev. Sara Armstrong & Rusty Edmondson PC(USA) Mission Co-Workers in Perú
• Maria Arroyo - Area Coordinator / South America and Caribbean, World Mission, GMAC
• Michael Parker - Coordinator, International Evangelism and Frontier Areas, World Mission, GMAC
• Rev. Calvin H. Gittner - Port Orange Presbyterian Church, Port Orange, Florida
• Music from Perú native Rev. Noe Juarez
• Additional music from Mike Bedford of the POPC Praise Band

Prayer List

The Prayer List has been moved!  In order to keep the most up to date information for your thoughts and prayers, the Prayer List has been moved to a link in the Links section of this blog.

Please check often, and lift up these friends and neighbors that need extra comfort and love.

Room In The Inn

In two months, Room In The Inn begins.  Sharon Presbyterian will provide 216 beds over an 18 week period for our homeless neighbors.  Needed immediately are motel size:

• small soaps
• shampoos
• conditioners
• body lotions

Also needed are Bingo prizes:

• socks
• gloves
• hats
• fast-food gift cards
• wallets
• playing cards
• men's and women's deoderant
• umbrellas
• tee shirts
• men's underwear
• hand held games
• shaving kits

Items can be placed in the Room In The Inn box below the mail boxes.

Stop Hunger Now

A Stop Hunger Now food packaging event will be held Sunday, November 20, 2011, at 2:00pm in the Sharon Presbyterian gym. With the donation from the filming on our campus of the television show, Homeland, Sharon Presbyterian Church will package 10,000 meals in 2-3 hours for desperately hungry people in third world countries. Families, groups, Sunday School classes, and friends can participate in this outreach project. Sign up will start this coming October!

Charlotte CROP Walk

Sign up today to either walk or sponsor a walker in the Charlotte CROP Walk to Fight Hunger. It will be held on Sunday, October 16, 2011, begining at 2:30pm on Elizabeth Avenue. Join with the Sharon Presbyterian group to walk with thousands of other Charlotteans to help stamp out hunger. For more information, contact Mike McGarity at (704) 553-7270.

Pastor Arana's Visit

Due to unforseen circumstances, Pastor Arana will not be able to vist Charlotte.  His wife has had an accident at home and has broken her leg. The doctor said she needs to rest completely for some weeks, no traveling allowed at all.

We hope that he and his family will be able to visit in the near future.  We will keep you posted of any future plans.

César G. Carhuachín

P.A.T Ministries At Sharon Presbyterian Church

On the 2011 Perú mission trip, we we able to share the results of the hard work of a few wonderful ladies from Sharon Presbyterian Church.  As in years passed, we took prayer shawls for a few special ladies in many of the churches of Perú.  This year we also took a few "pillow case" dresses for several young girls and with loving and heavy hearts we carried burial gowns to help ease the burden of a lost infant.  Many, many blessings to the gifts and to the givers.

Rev. Pedro Arana Visit

Hi friends,

Thanks for your faithful yearly mission trips to Perú.

I want to let you know that the Presbytery of New Covenant in Houston (TX) have invited to the Rev. Pedro Arana, one of the well known Presbyterian leaders in Latin America to speak at their Presbytery meeting and other gatherings.  The Hispanic/Latino Ministries of the Presbytery of Charlotte have invited him as well to visit the Presbytery of Charlotte and speak at different meetings and churches, from October 14 to 16, 2011.  Pedro has been the President of the Peruvian Bible Society for many years, founder of the Latin American Theological Fraternity and is currently pastor of “Pueblo Libre Presbyterian Church” in Lima.  Probably you already know about him since you travel to Perú often.

I want to let you know about his visit to the Presbytery of Charlotte.  If you would like to invite to Rev. Arana, feel free to call me or email me, so we can include your church in his schedule.

César

Dr. César G. Carhuachín
Coordinator for Latino Ministries
Presbytery of Charlotte
5700 Executive Center Drive - Suite 200
Charlotte, NC 28212
Tel (704) 535-9999, ext. 5216
Fax (704) 537-3476
http://www.presbyofcharlotte.org/

Compass Readings

Paul Hanneman works for Urban Ministry Center educating folks about homelessness and writes these "Compass Readings" from time to time. This one hit home. Hope it does for you.

David Beers

In a remarkable column published in the NEW YORK TIMES, David Brooks writes from Nairobi Kenya , “Many Americans go to the developing world to serve others. A smaller percentage actually end up being useful. Those that do have often climbed a moral ladder. They start out with certain virtues but then develop more tenacious ones.

The first virtue they possess is courage, the willingness to go off to a strange place…
The second virtue they develop is deference, the willingness to listen and learn from the moral and intellectual storehouses of the people you are trying to help…
The greatest and most essential virtue is thanklessness, the ability to keep serving even when there are no evident rewards — no fame, no admiration, no gratitude..
[The] final virtue is what makes service in the developing world not just an adventure, a spiritual experience or a cinematic moment. It represents a noncontingent commitment to a specific place and purpose…people willing to embrace the perspectives and do the jobs the locals define…

David Brooks' entire column

I wish he’d write another column on usefully serving people in poverty here in this country. It might go something like this: Many Americans go to the soup kitchens, shelters, and streets of their cities to serve others. A smaller percentage actually end up being useful. Those that do have often climbed a moral ladder. They start out with certain virtues but then develop more tenacious ones.

The first virtue they possess is courage, the willingness to move out of their comfort zone and go to a place which serves people whose lives are very different from their own. They have moved beyond simply writing a check to getting personally involved.

The second virtue they develop is an awareness that they can’t map over from their own assumptions about how the world works to the lives of those they seek to serve, that the actions and attitudes of people in poverty arise from a different worldview than their own. This can lead to suspending judgment and seeking to understand what living in survival mode is actually like. One way to learn is through seminars such as Bridges Out of Poverty; another way to learn is to develop a relationship with someone who is living in poverty and listen with open ears, mind, and heart.

The third virtue they develop is a willingness to serve the other instead of helping or fixing. Rachel Naomi Remen writes, “Service rests on the basic premise that the nature of life is sacred, that life is a holy mystery which has an unknown purpose …When you help you see life as weak, when you fix, you see life as broken. When you serve, you see life as whole. From the perspective of service, we are all connected: All suffering is like my suffering and all joy is like my joy.” Serving is centered in relationship, not outcomes. It is soul work, not ego work. It is about you, not me; it is about your needs and dreams as you articulate them, not my solutions. It is about the wholeness and sacredness of life.

The fourth virtue they develop is persistence - a commitment to stay engaged for the long haul. There are few quick fixes for people wanting to move out of homelessness and poverty. It takes a long time for people to become homeless, and it takes at least as long (if not longer) for them to gain and attain economic stability. Effective people stay with the relationship, stay with the process, offering assistance and insistence / encouragement.

The fruits of all these virtues? Patience. Gratitude. Thanksgiving. Joy.

Blessings,

Paul A. Hanneman
Program Director
Urban Ministry Center
945 North College Street
Charlotte, North Carolina 28206

Our greatest need is to feel that we have value, are worthy, and can do beautiful things. Jean Vanier