Bulletin Inserts

• Pentecost Offering
• A Tree Grows in Africa/Simple Abundance
• Kids 4 Kids
• A Circle of Generosity

The Pentecost Offering

This year’s Offering theme, “When you send forth your spirit,” from Psalm 104:30 calls on us to push past our comfortable boundaries and offer our resources to make a difference in the lives of children, youth, and young adults.

Through the Pentecost Offering

• You are raising up leaders for the church! After serving in Tucson, Arizona, as a Young Adult Volunteer (2006–2007) Elizabeth Toland realized that she wanted to continue to serve in mission as a long-term international volunteer in the position of U.S. Coordinator, Comaneros en Mision with Presbyterian Border Ministry. The YAV program follows Christ’s call to service and develops strong leaders for the church and the community.
• Since 1998, congregations like yours have raised over $4.8 million for ministries with children at risk in their own communities. Manassas Presbyterian Church in Manassas, Virginia, gave its 40 percent of the Pentecost Offering to Volunteer Emergency Families for Children, a program that provides short-term shelter care in a family setting for children in crisis. Members of the church also are encouraged to become volunteer families.
• You were a part of the experience of the 4,500 Presbyterian youth who attended the 2007 Presbyterian Youth Triennium at Purdue University. Youth aged 15–19 enjoyed six days of creative Bible study, powerful and visual worship, international friendships, and amazing Christian community. Because you gave to the Pentecost Offering, young people who might not have been able to attend the Triennium DID. Triennium 2007 participants took up an offering totaling $22,000—$11,000 will go directly toward the creation of the new Presbyterian Disaster Assistance youth villages!

Download the Pentecost Offering insert

A Tree Grows in Africa

I went to the town of Murang’a, Kenya, to learn about the School Safe Zones program, which provides funding to make schools safe for children. This may involve building fences to keep drug dealers, strangers, or livestock from wandering onto the school grounds. Other typical improvements are constructing sanitary, gender-appropriate bathrooms, and providing safe drinking water and a daily meal.

The two schools we toured in Murang’a were secure. Clean water and latrines were available. School lunch programs had been implemented, and the children’s test scores were up. We went out to the school parade ground and ceremoniously planted trees to commemorate the occasion of our visit. I planted the Church World Service tree. Now, whatever else happens, I can always say that I have a tree out in Africa.

Micah McCoy is working as a Young Adult Volunteer in Nairobi, Kenya, through the World Mission unit of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). His placement is with the Church World Service. Read more at his blog.

Simple Abundance

Something that was very attractive to me when I was deciding to do a year with the Young Adult Volunteer (YAV) program is its emphasis on simple living. YAVs receive a small stipend each month, and a large portion of that goes into the house’s communal pot for food and utilities. We don’t have a car and have been exploring the challenges and blessings of trying to get around town on bikes alone. All this, along with not watching any television, has been a great way to facilitate reflection without outside distractions. Coming into this year, I believed that this was a simple lifestyle, but I’ve been shown that I was wrong.

Working with the Community Home Repair Projects of Arizona exposes me to people every day whose incomes fall well short of covering their basic needs. Would I dare tell these people that I’ve come to Tucson to live a simple lifestyle?

My realization is that despite the relative simplicity of our lifestyle, we are blessed with overflowing abundance. We have a wonderful, functional home, good food to eat, the support of the church community, and no medical bills or debt to weigh constantly on our minds. This is abundance. We are intentional about living in a way that minimizes distractions so that we can focus on seeing God in the everyday events of life. My hope is to always be intentional about listening to God.

Steve Gillard began working with the Young Adult Volunteers in Tucson, Arizona, in September 2007. Read Steve’s blog.

Young Adult Volunteers (YAVs) are challenged by the sacrifices of community living, simple lifestyle, and devotion to prayer and service, nationally and internationally. Preferential application deadline is February 1 for service beginning in August/September of that same year. For further information and site descriptions, see the Web site or call (888) 728-7228, x2530.

Download A Tree Grows in Africa/Simple Abundance

Kids 4 Kids

Based on our own daily reality, we may take many things regarding children for granted. In the comfortable world that most of us inhabit, children are fed nourishing food, are dressed warmly in winter, are loved and protected. If asked, we would say without hesitation that every child has the right to live with basic human dignity in a safe and nurturing environment.

So where do we stand when confronted with the reality of children who are the daily victims of scarcity, abuse, neglect, environmental disaster, and human greed? It is difficult to imagine, much less confront, such issues.

The new Kids 4 Kids Web site, launched this year by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), offers us a place to start. It puts valuable information and tools right into the hands of those who have the intellect and energy to make a difference—our kids. Who can better grasp them than the amazing and brilliant people currently sporting those pint-sized bodies?

Kids 4 Kids is filled with meaningful stories, interactive games, and practical tools to address the complex issues that kids face here at home and around the world. Kids 4 Kids is based on these principles:

Survival
Kids have the right to grow up healthy.
Kids have the right to clean water.
Kids have the right to good food.
Kids have the right to have a safe and comfortable home.
Kids have the right to be able to get health care.

Development
Kids have the right to be kids.
Kids have the right to have time.
Kids have the right to play.
Kids have the right to go to school.

Protection
Kids have the right to be safe.
Kids have the right to love and care.
Kids have the right to be safe from being hurt.
Kids have the right to be safe from work that might hurt them.
Kids have the right not to be held back by a disabling condition.
Kids have the right to be safe from war and fighting.

Participation
Kids have the right to be heard.
Kids have the right to have a name and a nationality.
Kids have the right to be able to express themselves.
Kids have the right to live a good life.

“The right to live a good life.” Now that’s an idea we can all get behind. Go to the Web site and see how you and your kids can make a difference.

Download Kids 4 Kids

A Circle of Generosity

“When you send forth your spirit ... you renew the face of the ground.” Psalm 104:30

Generosity begets generosity, the result of which can turn out to be more than we had ever imagined.

At the 2007 Presbyterian Youth Triennium, which is supported by the Pentecost Offering, young people and their adult youth leaders were invited to leave donations as they left worship. These donations would go toward disaster assistance efforts of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Triennium leadership thought the offering could raise from $10,000 to as much as $15,000. When the final count was made, the gathered faithful had donated over $22,000!

The portion of the offering that came to the PC(USA) helped establish a partnership between the Office of Ministries with Youth and Presbyterian Disaster Assistance to create youth work villages in the Gulf region. This summer congregations can send young people and adults to work side by side in the still-devastated areas of Louisiana and Mississippi.

This is the circle of generosity: your Pentecost Offering helped provide a national event for young people. The young people came and gave of their time and money. Their gifts of money are allowing others to serve the Lord in mission. This mission will “renew the face of the ground” in the Gulf region.

Download A Circle of Generosity

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