GME

Global Mission

All Saints’ Global Mission Communication Team provides the congregation with information on the worldwide missionary work of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and works to establish partnerships and improved communication with these missions.

Specifically, All Saints has established relationships with congregations and missionaries in the following countries. Click on the flags below to find articles on the culture of and happenings in each country:

	Cameroon Partnership: Dale Linder, ELCA missionary All Saints contact: Jim Sexton
	India Partnership: Bible Faith Lutheran Church, Guntur All Saints contact: Pastor Mike Weaver
	Slovakia Partnership: The Rev. David and Carla Schick, ELCA missionaries All Saints contact: David Ozvat
	Tanzania Partnership: Upendo Lutheran Church, Geita All Saints contact: Jana Weaver

Through its efforts, the team hopes that All Saints can be reminded of the worldwide nature of the church’s mission and our role in the global family of Christ, which includes brothers and sisters with different life experiences but the same hope and promise in our savior.

For additional information on Global Mission efforts, contact Pastor Mike Weaver.

News from the Synod

1,000 baptisms in one day! Imagine it. It’s not a typo: There are three zeros in that number.

During the recent Southern Ohio Synod Assembly, Bishop Callon Holloway shared his stories of his visit to the East of Lake Victoria Diocese in Tanzania and the mass baptisms he officiated. The Spirit being poured out richly there is bringing people to faith in Jesus Christ.

At the Southern Ohio Synod Assembly, May 29 to 31 at Wittenberg University in Springfield, we welcomed bishops from two of our companion synods, Bishop Juri Novgorodov of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Republic of Kazakhstan and Bishop Francis Gunda of the East of Lake Victoria Diocese, Tanzania. Gunda shared news about the growth of the church in his country, while Novgorodov shared his concerns about the possible end to growth in his. Currently proposed government legislation, if passed, would virtually eliminate the church in Kazakhstan. He implored our prayers.

Our synod’s other two companion synods are the Evangelical Lutheran Church
of Mecklenburg, Germany, and Sinodo Epirito Santo a Belem, Brazil.

Lenten dinners

All Saints took a new direction with its 2008 Lenten meals, which carried the theme: “Journey with Jesus to the Ends of the Earth.” We focused on places where the Easter message of salvation is being taught by church-sponsored missionaries. Each week, pictures, maps, crafts, clothing, music and food took us to these unfamiliar places where people share our faith. Click here to find some of the recipes.

The church is grateful for the creative teams who planned and organized dinners:

Slovakia:        Robyn and Tom Ramsay, Jayne Rosandich, Lorraine Klaff.
India:              Jeanette Butler, Julie Scott, Roshini Shank and her family.
New Orleans: Fred Lockwood, Lisa and Mitch Brooks.
Cameroon:      Debbie Ellison.
Tanzania:        Beth and Don Maxwell, Ken and Pat Barnett.

Thanks as well to the additional volunteers who helped with cooking, decorating and setting and cleaning up: Kim, Ryan and Rachel Hetrick; Sabrina and Gabriel Ramsay; Jim, Heidi, and Jack Lockhart; Donna, Megan, and Elizabeth Bosak; Jill Hymer; and Mary Ann Loomis.

A goal fulfilled

At All Saints, as in much of the United States, we think of preschool safety as First Aid training, a good student-teacher ratio and monitoring proper hand-washing technique. Stranger Danger is real, but most preschools have the resources to protect children.

But as members studied the needs of Upendo Lutheran Church in Geita, Tanzania, they found the same is not true for our sister church in Africa. Terry Rapoch, a member of the Ohio Synod Task Force for Tanzania, shared information on the need for fencing the play area at Upendo’s pre-primary school.

“During my visit to Geita in October 2006, I was shown the preprimary school that the church has organized for young children between the ages of four and seven,” Rapoch said. “Geita is a mining community, and as a result there are a high number of transients, people moving through the town looking for work and then moving on. The specific concern for the small children is that they can be abducted and taken elsewhere in the country.”

The children of the Upendo Preprimary School are vulnerable to strangers, but the congregation did not have resources to purchase fencing to protect them, she said.

All Saints members involved in the Lenten planning committee were committed to helping the children served by this congregation half a world away. When an All Saints member committed matching funds for have of the more than $4,000 needed to construct the fence, 24 other families – both members and friends – stepped forward to contribute, and along with extra funds raised from the Lenten dinners raised the full amount needed to protect the children of Upendo.

Our sister congregation in Upendo plans to complete the fence very soon, and its pastor has promised a picture to be shared with the generous donors and the entire congregation.