Together In Mission

Middle School
The Middle School Mission Trip takes place again this year in Sapphire, North Carolina at the site of Camp Buc, a Presbyterian Camp owned by the Foothills Presbytery of South Carolina.  During their week at Camp Buc, the Sharon Presbyterian Church Middle School team will get the opportunity to serve by working with kids younger than themselves and being a witness to the love and caring of Jesus Christ.  The group will also be working on service projects to learn new skills and improve the facilities of the Camp.  Everyone will get to participate in group building trials, bible studies, worship services, and adventure activities to help them grow in their life and faith.

High School
Every year, our High School Youth Mission team travels the country to spread the good news of Jesus Christ and to be hard working and loving ambassadors of Charlotte and Sharon Presbyterian Church.  Last year the high school team traveled to the mountains of Tennessee to do remodeling and maintenance for a family in need.  This year our group will be taking their hard work all the way to Harmons, Jamaica.  There, they will work with locals with healthcare, education, and continuing construction in the community.  All of this will take place while the youth interact with locals and grow closer to the true meaning of global missions.

College
For a second year, our College Mission Team will travel to Johns Island, South Carolina to work with the Sea Island Habitat for Humanity.  During their week in Charleston, our college team will have the opportunity to help build houses for those in need.  The group will work side by side with future habitat homeowners as they contribute "sweat equity" into their very own homes.  In the time that the mission team is not busy, exploring Charleston will be available.  We pray that the week will result in each participant growing closer to each other and their faith.

For more information or questions about the Middle school, High school or College Mission trips, please contact Martin Pruitt at martin@sharonpcusa.org.

Adult
The 2015 Sharon Presbyterian Church Adult Mission Trip to Huanta, Perú is set for July, 31 through August 10.  The trip promises to again be one of service and witness to Jesus Christ.  For the experience, past trip participants have found themselves closer to God, each other and their Peruivian brothers and sisters.  This trip is open to adults and a limited number of youth participants.  For more information, contact Randy Ross at randy.ross@wellsfargo.com.

Western North Carolina
The Western North Carolina Mission Trip is scheduled for April 30 through May 3.  In conjunction with Bryson City Presbyterian Church and the Collegiate Ministry for the Presbyterian denomination, our group will be helping renovate a Presbyterian Worship/Christian Outreach Center on the Western North Carolina University campus.  We will be meeting in March to finalize the details.  For more information, contact Phyllis Acton at (704) 553-2464.

At Home
Serving those who are homeless in Charlotte has been a focus of Sharon Church since the 1980's.

• Currently we prepare and serve the evening meal at the Statesville Avenue campus of the Men's Shelter of Charlotte the first Tuesday of every month.
• We are responsible for the evening meal the last Saturday of every month at the Salvation Army Center of Hope for women and the Tryon Street campus of the Men's Shelter.  These programs provide in excess of 4000 meals per year due to the involvement of over 300 members and friends of Sharon.
• Every Friday night, December through March, Sharon Church hosts up to twelve homeless neighbors as part of the Urban Ministry Center emergency shelter program, Room In The Inn.
• Sharon Church joins the Church World Service CROP Walk, each October.  Sharon Presbyterian Youth participates in the Souper Bowl every February.  Both help to alleviate hunger in the Charlotte area.

While many already take part, more volunteers are always needed to make these efforts happen,  I you would like to get involved, please call or email the church office for contract information.

Room In The Inn

To all,

Many thanks to each of you for your participation in Room In The Inn at Sharon this past winter. We had 172 guests; 23 came to our church more than once during the four months. We actually filled 197 bed-nights, part of 17,354 city-wide. There was a 61% increase in the number of families served by Room In The Inn over-all. Behind the scenes, extra social workers were brought on at the Urban Ministry Center to find more permanent housing for these families.

Beyond the statistics, you helped provide safe sleep, good food, and some bingo fun in a loving, hospitable manner. The drivers got our guests to SPC and back uptown, a distance that many of our neighbors walk frequently! The clean-up crews consistently left the facilities in fine shape which is really appreciated by the next group coming in to use the CLAB. Perhaps most importantly, you brought respect and dignity to people in a desperate situation.

Thank you for what you did and the way you did it.

Yours in Christ,

David Beers

Lesotho Largely Forgotten

Resource:  The Guardian

By Mark Tran

International donors are under pressure to provide more money for Lesotho, where 725,000 people – one-third of the population – are short of food following the worst harvest in 10 years.

Representatives from the US and the EU, including Irish Aid, are scheduled to meet in Maseru, the capital, next week to consider the lack of follow-through on pledges of aid made earlier in the year, after the UN launched an appeal for $38.5m (£24m) for September 2012 to March 2013.

Read more...

Lesotho Women Prosper

Resource:  New Agriculturist
Written by Tsitsi Matope

The Phecha Mphelise Association, comprising 20, fiercely-determined women rearing poultry and pigs is one of Lesotho's cooperative success stories. Situated in the tiny village of Phecha close to Lesotho's capital Maseru, it was established in 2009, an enterprise born out of desperation. With half its members single mothers, the women realized the need for collective efforts to create a sustainable supply of chickens, eggs and pork to a formal market that, for years, had shunned local farmers due to their unreliability. But, by coming together for bulk purchase of feed and for group marketing, the women transformed their production, reliability and income, and were recently awarded further funding to expand their business.

Read more...

See also: AGRA

More about Tsitsi Matope 

Little Food Aid Forthcoming For Hungry Lesotho

Resource:  Business Day Live
By Khulekani Magubane

A food crisis in Lesotho has left its people especially vulnerable to decreased cereal production in the Southern African Development Community region (SADC), while aid organisations have received less than a quarter of the funding they need.

In September, Lesotho and the United Nations (UN) issued a flash appeal for $38.5m from donors to address the needs of those most affected by the dire food situation. By October 12, the appeal had generated $8.5m — about 22% of what is required.

Read more...

Room In The Inn

Sharon Presbyterian begins hosting our homeless neighbors through the Urban Ministry Center Room In The Inn winter shelter program on December 7 and continues every Friday night through March.

Much help is needed:

• Set-up helpers
• Friday night preparing and serving dinner
• Friday night pick-up drivers
• Overnight hosts/hostesses
• Saturday morning return drivers
• Saturday morning preparing and serving breakfast
• Saturday clean-up crew

Please, prayerfully consider signing up for one of the above slots.  Descriptions for each of the duties will be available in the narthex on Sunday.

Lesotho: A Nation Struggling To Feed Its People

Resource: Business Day Live

By Khulekani Magubane

LESOTHO, grappling with food shortages, is banking on South Africa to make good on its pledge to assist its landlocked neighbour.

Lesotho is in the throes of a food crisis, the result of weather shocks including flash floods and drought over the past two years. South Africa undertook to assist the mountain kingdom following a visit by Prime Minister Tom Thabane last month. However, the amount and extent of the pledge is not yet known.

Read more...

Lesotho Pins Hopes On Conservation Farming

Resource:  Business Day Live
By Mamello Masote

With Lesotho in the grip of a food security crisis - declared an emergency by Prime Minister Tom Thabane in early August - conservation agriculture is being expanded aggressively in the country.  Matshidiso Mojake, head of the national disaster management authority in Lesotho, said food production has fallen 77% in a year.

About 725,000 people, or 40% of the population of 1.9 million, are said to depend for a living on subsistence farming.

Read more...

Keeping Malnutrition At Bay

Resource:  UNICEF

By Rafahela García Lapouble

LIMA, Peru, 9 January 2012 – In the Andean community of Rosaspata, in Vinchos District, a community health promoter has invited children, their parents and a health centre representative to the local community hall for the area’s biweekly nutrition surveillance programme.

Villagers here are eager to talk about the UNICEF- supported programme, which has helped reduce cases of malnutrition and anaemia among Rosaspata’s youngest children.

Full story...

First Presbyterian Of Benton Harbor, Maine

Resource:  Mission Crossroads

Mission trip opportunity:  The ministry and heart of this church is meaningful, appropriate and creative.

Lesotho: Hunger Emergency Escalates

Resource:  allAfrica

A poor rainy season has led to a dramatic increase in the proportion of Lesotho's population needing humanitarian assistance.

The number of people suffering from hunger in Lesotho has risen sharply this year, according to new findings released by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). Around 39% of Lesotho's population will need humanitarian assistance during 2012-2013, an increase of 514,000 compared to last year.

Full story...

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.

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