06 Jan Christmas: Many Ways to Help the Needy

Eric Self sent this report from Mt. Zion UB church in Junction City, Ohio. Eric is the senior pastor.
We kicked off the season by participating in Franklin Graham’s Christmas Shoebox ministry. This was the third year we gathered boxes for this ministry. We gave 30 boxes this past Christmas, which was an average of almost one box per person in attendance.

Next, we adopted two families within our church. One is a single father with his two children, mother, and neice. This was accomplished with our own angel tree with ornaments describing a needed/wanted gift. People took ornaments from the tree and bought presents for this family; one couple even did shopping for some of the rest of us! Then we helped the other family with Christmas dinner and some presents.

We also participated in our local community’s food pantry Christmas basket program with ten bags of sugar and 40 boxes of spaghetti. In addition, we gave another family in the community a gift certificate so they could buy Christmas presents for their children.

Our congregation loves to bring Christmas cheer to those in need! At the same time, we have fun and fellowship with each other, including our annual Christmas dinner. The season was concluded with annual caroling and delivery of cookies and fruit to several senior members of our congregation.