UBC local mission’s partners with Student Venture, Sunday Jan. 16

 

 

 

When someone like Keith Ray calls you on the phone and asks if we could take a team of Student Venture students to help us with outreach, well….you say “yes”. That’s how all this began, our UBC and Student Venture collaborative partnership to reach out to our community of Lebanon.

“Could you take a bus load of students who are giving away boxes of food and use them for outreach in January?” Did he say “January”? Did he say a bus load of students? Awesome…we’ll figure something out…sounds like God has a plan for us to join Him in His work! So I began to work with Keith Ray and Brian Clark of Student Venture to put together our collaborative outreach plan.

Our collaborative partnership moved forward with these key ministry objectives:

• Students will have boxes of food to give away to folks in need, free food!
• Students will be intent on sharing the gospel
• Students will complete surveys for our new church plant, Living Word Bible Church [Chris and Janella Straw], to help us learn more about folks in our area of our new church launch
• UBC will provide the survey forms, maps, UBC brochures, and meet the team and assist as needed

 

 

 

So, on Sunday afternoon January 16, about 3 PM, temperature hovering around 27 degrees, Student Venture students showed up in a school bus and other vehicles to hit the neighborhood of Pleasant Park, in the area of our Lebanon post office. There were 11 teams, totaling about 55 students and leaders.

I distributed and explained our awesome Google maps with color-coded routes for each of the 11 teams. [Cheryl Kemp made these maps and what a great help these were!]. Each team also was given a clip board with survey forms, UBC brochures, and pens. After a brief time of instruction, the teams were off to their assigned streets and homes!

 

 

 

 

What an awesome God we serve! There was one 16 year old young man that prayed to accept Christ, they gave away about 30 boxes of food, they shared the gospel with those that would listen, prayed with other folks in need, and completed 25 surveys to help us with our new church plant. These results and connections made this day will help our new church planting team of Living Word Bible Church as they develop strategies and add to our new body of believers.

Lebanon Country Manor [LCM] UBC Christmas Program

 On Saturday, December 18th, our Lebanon Country Manor nursing home multi-housing team blessed the residents of LCM with a special Christmas Program.

 Galen Eschleman led the residents and team in our Christmas Carols while Jeannie Ponder played the piano. The twenty residents along with visitors sang their hearts out! Rita Simms distributed jingle-bell bracelets so the residents could “jingle” while they sang the Christmas carols. Everyone seemed to have a great time!

 The local boy scouts showed up during our Christmas program too. They sang some Christmas carols to our residents as well. Then we all joined in along with the scouts singing a few carols. What perfect timing, that we could all sing together!

  

 Darrell Coley shared a wonderful heartfelt Christmas devotional and the gospel to those attending our Christmas celebration. Before the residents went back to their rooms, our LCM ministry team blessed the residents with knitted shawls and hats made by the ladies at Urbancrest through Dawn’s Light ministry. They seemed so happy to get something that could help keep them warm during these cold winter months.

 

 

 Our multi-housing LCM team meets at Lebanon Country Manor each Wednesday night. They typically begin gathering folks around 6 PM in the cafeteria, then sing together, have a brief devotional, and pray together. The team teachers are Tony Overbey and Darrell Coley. Galen leads the singing accompanied by Jeannie Ponder playing the piano.

 

Donna Zalatoris is our director and coordinator of this particular multi-housing ministry at Lebanon Country Manor nursing home. If you would like to be a part of this ministry team, please contact Donna Zalatoris, sdzalatoris@gmail.com or Mike Wright, mwright@urbancrest.org.