Local church sends huge care package

Trinity Lutheran Church of Bonners Ferry recently shipped 766 pounds of supplies to the Lutheran World Relief warehouse in Baltimore, Md. that will be distributed to needy families around the world.

The shipment included 55 quilts, 219 school kits, 22 health kits, three dress-sewing kits, 16 pounds of sweaters and 68 layettes.

Trinity Lutheran Church considers this an opportunity to answer the global challenge that calls people to deepen their commitment as individual persons and as a community of faith to help those less fortunate than themselves. After the items arrive in the warehouse, they are then sent to remote villages, refugee camps, hospitals and disaster sites. Some items are kept in storage, poised for quick distribution in case of a later emergency such as an earthquake or flood.

The church ships these items to the warehouse twice a year. The fall shipment is always heavy with school kits while the spring shipment usually includes 100 to 200 quilts.

To increase the awareness of the needs of people in countries around the world and how the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America are responding to these needs, November has been declared as Global Mission Month for the local Lutheran Church on Cody Street. Each Sunday there will be an emphasis on a different country as well as how America is responding nationally to Katrina through the church's Domestic Disaster Relief Program.

The first Sunday, Nov. 5, was the kick-off Sunday, which included the unbelievable story of a modern day Masai "Prophet" who was instrumental in the conversions and baptisms of thousands of Masai people beginning in the 1980s to today. Another Sunday, the problems of Christians in Palestine will be presented and how the Wall is preventing children from getting dialysis treatments or going to the Christian school.

On November 26, Marj and Wayne Nishek will give a presentation of the working trip they headed to Tanzania for the Eastern Washington-Idaho Synod of the ELCA in September and October.

While there, they worked side-by-side with students and community members to complete a staff duplex for Tumaini Secondary School, using the bricks that the students had already made and had nearly completed putting up the walls.

They worked, sang, ate, pratyed with the students and also participated in a graduation at the Tumaini School.

In all, 284 ELCA missionaaries are at work in 48 countries around the world, sharing Christ's love, serving their neighbors and discoveriing the rich gifts of our Christian brothers and sisters.