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Hurricane Francis caused damage at two of our churches in Florida, both in the Daytona area on the east side of the state.
A large part of Faith UB church in Port Orange was destroyed. The building was condemned by the city and must be torn down.
The Daytona UB church, located in Holly Hill, needs a new roof. So does the parsonage.
A Florida Hurricane Relief Fund has been established to help.
Tim Walberg, a layperson from the Trenton Hills UB church in Adrian, is running for the US Congress. Tim was a delegate to the 2001 US National Conference.
Kanchoon Lee, pastor of The Forever Love Church, next to his church's sign.
First UB (Findlay, Ohio) has been involved with a new church plant in Findlay. First, they parented the Faith Community Church in a mother-daughter situation. Now they are fostering a new Korean congregation. Because of the University of Findlay, the city has a large Korean population.
Kangchoon Lee is a church planting pastor from Korea. He has planted two churches in Korea and is now planting a Korean congregation in the United States. He is partnering with First UB to start a new congregation called, in English, “The Forever Love Church.” Currently, the church is running around 12 individuals. Once school starts, the numbers will escalate.
The First United Brethren Church is supplying the building, along with partnering in ministry. Also, First UB will provide an “English as a Second Language” course for the Koreans. This is very similar to the course that our missionaries teach in Macau.
On June 27, Colwood UB (Caro, Mich.) dedicated a new 28,000 square-foot addition. Sandra Whipple writes, “We are blessed with a great group of dedicated laity that did almost all of the interior work on a wonderful building that includes a new sanctuary, children’s center, and an administrative wing. We also remodeled our old sanctuary into a youth center.”
During the week of July 12, Colwood did VBS using the Lava Lava Island curriculum. Sandra writes, “Our building was transformed into a jungle island. It was a wonderful week that was topped off on Wednesday and Thursday evenings, when 72 kids made first-time commitments to Jesus Christ. Over 400 kids and parents shared in a luau together on Friday night.”
The Dewitt UB church (Dewitt, Mich.) is holding its final service on August 1. The pastor has been Rev. Ron Watterly.
West Windsor UB (Dimondale, Mich.) held a surprise 90th birthday party for Rholland “Archie” Carpenter on Sunday, July 18, during the Sunday school hour. He still attends every Sunday, and can quickly recall Bible verses for any subject they happen to be discussing. Among the 44 people attending were 16 Carpenters, mostly cousins, nieces, and nephews of Archie.
Archie and Cora Carpenter hosted the West Windsor church in their living room for many years before the current building was constructed. They are church patriarchs. Cora died a few years ago. Their daughter, Carol, who retired from school-teaching several years back, now takes care of Archie. He was the first Christian in his family, which included 11 brothers and three sisters.
First UB of Findlay, Ohio, held its 4th annual community block party on Saturday, July 17. This concluded a week-long VBS that saw 14 decisions for Christ. In preparation for this party, individuals within the congregation blitzed the neighborhood with fliers and personal invitations. On Saturday, the church prepared games, food, and entertainment that was all 100% free to everyone. Individuals from the community showed up, and the next Sunday, one individual even visited the church.
For over ten years, a group of teens and adults went to Jamaica during the summer to conduct VBS in Jamaican churches. We called it STUMP — the Summer Teen United Ministry Program. There is no official STUMP group this year. However, our Open Bible Fellowship church in Safford has stepped into the gap. They are sending a group to Jamaica to conduct VBS in four churches, all in the Kingston area. The group will leave on Friday, July 17.
A group of 15 people from College Park UB church will travel to Mexico July 17-25 to work with our Hispanic churches in Juarez, Mexico, and El Paso, Texas (across the border from each other). They’ll do VBS in three places, and also help construct a Sunday school area for one of the El Paso churches. We have three churches in Juarez and six in El Paso. Gary Dilley, Director of Global Ministries, will lead that group.
New Horizons UB paid off the mortgage on its new facility far ahead of schedule. Pastor Bob Loar reports that in the last five years, over $1.5 million passed through the building fund as they worked to relocate the ministry following the arson at the former building.
