Sorry for the hiatus in blogging and I do plan to do some writing on here real soon. In the mean time, here’s a thought provoking article on foreign aid from Time Magazine.
CAC Children’s Ministry recently undertook a drive to help New Hope Orphanage in Beijing, China. First I want to say “Thank You” because their service has been a true blessing.
Last week, a CAC ServeGlobal Team went to China and were able to deliver the supplies that were donated as well as bring encouragement to the staff and children.
Here’s a short video from Tammy Medders that I think sums it up!
This is a guest blog post from Julena Doudt, CAC member and the new area director for Apartment Life. Apartment Life is a new ServeLocal Partner.
Apartment Life helps the church engage creatively and powerfully in a very practical, tangible way to make a difference in their community. Church at Charlotte is partnering with Apartment Life and the apartment industry to place CARES Teams from our congregation into apartment communities.
These CARES Teams (a family, married couple, or two single adults) receive a free apartment in exchange for helping build an authentic sense of community and serve residents. CARES Teams perform functions that flow naturally out of the Christian life including welcoming new residents, planning and hosting social events, and walking alongside residents in times of celebration or special need.
CARES Teams are intentional in building friendships, loving and serving their neighbors, and connecting residents to one another and to the broader community. CARES Teams can help meet practical needs of the residents, which may include broken families, latch-key kids, and people with emotional, physical, and spiritual needs that tend to go unnoticed due to the transient nature of apartment dwellers. Apartment owners receive business value by reducing resident turnover, attracting new residents, and improving staff job satisfaction.
Apartment Life provides free apartments to CARES Teams whom:
• Enjoy meeting people and coordinating social events
• Are called to model the Christian life in an apartment community
• Have a mature Christian walk
• Are active in a Bible-based church
• Have three years work experience or college degree
• Commit to a $250 per month CARES fee
• Willing to serve as a CARES Team for 2 years
Over 400,000 people in Charlotte live in apartments. National statistics say that 52% of those residents have no friends in their apartment complex and only 5% of those residents are connected to a local church. As an Area Director for Apartment Life, I have the privilege of finding CARES teams from our own congregation who have a heart to serve a much-ignored part of our city. I get to hear first-hand from our teams (which include Nate and Riley Sittema, Church at Charlotte’s first CARES team!) how what they do is making a difference in the lives of those they live around. Our teams truly get to love and serve people who may not otherwise experience such community.
Do you know someone who would make a great CARES Team? Would you like to volunteer at an upcoming social event hosted by our CARES Team? Would you be willing to pray for our CARES Teams? Do you want to help prepare a meal for our monthly CARES Team meetings? Please contact me to find out more information, or visit our website at http://www.caresteam.org .
To learn more please contact Julena at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). I know she would love to hear from you!
As many of you are aware, the Love Offering from ServeGlobal Weekend went towards camp scholarships for Ethiopian youth to attend Camp Langano. Camp Langano is run by Sports Friends, a ministry of SIM and one of our key partners in our work in Ethiopia.
At the end of July, Wayne Snyder will be leading a team from CAC to Camp Langano to help the Ethiopian Sports Friends leaders with camp. Our initial hope with the Love Offering was to cover the week of camp that we are helping to staff.
Well, your generosity overflowed and we were able to cover MORE tan 3 weeks of camp! The total from the weekend offering was over $19,000.
I look forward to sharing stories with you from our trip this summer so stay tuned and again, THANK YOU.
Here’s a brief overview from the ServeGlobal Team!
A brief overview of today: We went to the earthquake village to meet
with some government officials from the local village. After lunch
with the officials, we went to a nearby village where Barnabas &
Partners helped design a sewage/filtration system, an effort to solve
the problem of toxic human waste entering back into the local water
supply. The sewage system also uses the methane gas from the sewage
decomposition for power a gas stove used for cooking. We then
visited the orchard to share with the visitors our plan for the place,
we are currently going through difficulty with the gov’t on the land
issue, so we will see where God leads.
