UBC Christmas Baskets of Hope Praise

Praise the Lord for the great things we have witnessed through Baskets of Hope [BoH] ministry! During our Christmas Baskets of Hope we had 4 professions of faith during our evening service, 1 young girl who invited Christ into her heart and 3 adults that re-dedicated their lives to Christ! We thank the Lord for His provision through the foundation that has made all this possible plus the generosity of our folks at Urbancrest. We were able to bless a total of 255 [250 baskets and 5 others with gift cards] families through our Baskets of Hope for Christmas! Their kids we blessed with approximately 450 gifts too! In addition, we were able to bless other kids through Toys for Tots with the balance of toys that were not picked up at BoH! In total this year, we have given away 629 Baskets of Hope [or combination of gift cards]. Last year our total was 401! This represents an increase of 57% over last year! No wonder our volunteers are so tired! On behalf of our Baskets of Hope team, led by Cheryl Kemp [a big thanks to Cheryl too], we also want to express our thanks and appreciation for all the UBC volunteers that have worked together to make this ministry possible. Susan Byrd with her assembly team out did themselves in record time assembling the baskets and distributing these and the gifts to the families. There must be at least 100 UBC volunteers involved in this work! Thanks to Cathy Dwire and Dewayne Jeffers for coordinating our teams to pick up our food from Aldi’s and deliver it to UBC in spite of the bad weather! Kelly Cummings led our registration team who invited our guests and registered them, thank you and your team for all their hard work! Sandy Huddleston coordinated our team of counselors, Pat Mitchell helped us develop our database and Jessica Copenhaver coordinated our gifts for the children…thank you. We also praise the Lord that the foundation that has been blessing us with financial gifts to make Baskets of Hope possible, has decided to help us this coming year in 2011! This is awesome news as we look to sharing the gospel with our community while meeting their needs this coming year. Get ready for Easter BoH 2011!

UBC Baskets of Hope [BoH]: Sunday Nov. 21st

Wow, praise the Lord, what a blessing to see what God is doing through our Baskets of Hope [BoH] Ministry. Sunday evening, November 21st our church was packed with visitors and UBC folks serving!

We were able to serve a total of 208 families including 17 walk-ins that were not registered or included in our database. Including the 27 La Luz Baskets of Hope distributed earlier on Thursday, our total families served were 235! This was a record for us and we expect even more for our Christmas BoH!

Dave Bickers led worship with our UBC praise team, band, and orchestra. Pastor Tom shared the devotional from Acts 3:1-10, the healing of the lame man at the gate and then shared the gospel. We had eight [8] folks come forward for prayer, four [4] of these prayed to accept Christ! There were at least 12 folks that raised their hands acknowledging they had re-dedicated their lives to the Lord.

Cheryl Kemp leads our UBC three Baskets of Hope initiatives which are Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. She has team leaders helping in specific tasks to make all this possible culminating in one service, like our Thanksgiving BoH on Sunday evening November 21st. These are our team leaders: Pat Mitchell, database development; Dewayne Jeffers & Cathy Dwire, food ordering and pick up; Susan Byrd, basket assembly; Kelly Cummings, registration; and Sandy Huddleston, prayer counselors. In addition to these three BoH initiatives, Rachele Jeunnette leads our Monthly Baskets of Hope ministry to assist our UBC families each month with food for 3-4 meals each month too!

These team leaders have many UBC volunteers totally close to 80-100 volunteers to make this ministry possible. Thanks UBC volunteers, you have done a great job in forwarding the Kingdom of God through serving our local community! Please mark your calendar for Christmas BoH scheduled for Sunday evening, December 19th!

Baskets of Hope: La Luz Community, Thursday Nov. 18th

In an effort to encourage La Luz Apartment residents to help their neighbors and themselves, we strategically moved our Baskets of Hope Thanksgiving initiative for the La Luz residents. We rented the commercial building next door to La Luz [across from Dairy Queen], Production Services Unlimited. Cheryl Kemp, our BoH leader coordinated this effort along with Susan Byrd our BoH logistics person for assembly of the baskets.

Our prayer was that God would bring the necessary workers from La Luz to help assemble and pack the Baskets of Hope. And that’s what happened! We had about 12 La Luz residents working together to prepare the Baskets of Hope for their neighbors and themselves. Not only did they have fun, they thanked us for allowing them to get in on the work! For you see, working to help themselves improve their self-worth and ownership as they get involved in this overall process!

Pastor Dave Bickers led our worship for this evening, and Chris Straw shared the devotional and the gospel. We had three (3) folks who raised their hands for prayer and our counselors prayed with them. After the service, we distributed 27 Baskets of Hope to the families living at La Luz Apartments. Christmas BoH for La Luz will be Thursday, December 16. Residents will begin preparing and packing at 5 PM.

The Great Pumpkin Give Away ~ October 9, 2010

God blessed us with beautiful weather last Saturday for our Great Pumpkin Give Away at Irons' Fruit Farm. We partnered with Bill and Beth Irons by giving away mini-pumpkins, popcorn, Challenge Newspaper, and sharing our awesome bounce-house for the kids.

In addition, Derrick Dye who attends Urbancrest was our on-site juggler. He used to be a clown for Barnum & Bailey Circus. He did a great job sharing the gospel while performing some awesome feats like juggling knives over his niece and juggling fire sticks!

Clint Otto and his family made balloon animals and gave them to kids which opened the door to share the gospel.

Many thanks to Cathy Dwire who coordinated the 28 UBC volunteers who served from 10AM-4PM. In addition, Eric Whitmer coordinated the distribution of Challenge Newspapers. We were able to plant the gospel seed. Now, pray that God brings the increase!

Huge Banana Split at La Luz ~ September 23, 2010

The Gathering at La Luz partnered with Keith Ray, Student Venture, to create our monthly connection event with residents at La Luz on Thursday, September 23rd.

Residents of all ages worked as a team to help set up our 80 ft. sundae across the basketball court! While everyone enjoyed the fruits of their labor by eating the banana split, Keith shared the good news of the gospel. Pray that God continues to work in the lives of the residents at La Luz to bring more into the Kingdom and to make Christ-like disciples.