Mosinee United Methodist Church

Operation Christmas Child is an ambitious global mission project to send shoeboxes full of small Christmas gifts to needy children around the world. Organized by Franklin Graham, son of famous evangelist Billy Graham, the program has grown and now sends millions of shoeboxes out annually.

Jan Hansford has volunteered in the warehouses that pack and prepare the shoeboxes for distribution. This year she decided to help Mosinee churches participate. Since October 16, we have been handing out empty shoeboxes at church and in the community. People can pack these with small gifts and personal items for boys or girls of different age groups. We will collect the boxes at Mosinee UMC on November 13 for distribution. Boxes can also be dropped off in the church office through 3:30pm on November 16. It typically costs about $20 to fill a shoebox. The cost of shipping is $7 per box.

Mosinee UMC and Jan are spearheading the effort to start this program in other local churches. Participants this year include St. John’s Lutheran, Cornerstone Church, St. Paul’s faith formation class, students at Wisconsin Valley Lutheran School, and members of Good News Baptist.

Instructions for packing shoeboxes, as well as printable labels, are available at http://www.samaritanspurse.org/occ/.

For more information, contact Jan Hansford (715-693-4378 or airplane@mtc.net).

“Now all of you together are Christ’s body, and each one of you is a separate and necessary part of it. If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it, and if one part is honored, all the parts are glad.” (1 Corinthians 12:27,26 NLT)

In 1988, 344 neighbors helped Herman Ostry move his ten-ton barn to higher ground.

Herman Ostry had a problem. His 60-year-old barn was built on muddy ground near a creek that often overflowed. He couldn’t afford a new barn, and he couldn’t afford to hire a contractor to move the old barn.

Herman and his son Mike solved the problem in a novel way. They welded up a steel frame that passed through the entire barn, complete with hundreds of handles. Then they rounded up 344 friends and neighbors, and on July 30, 1988 they picked up Ostry’s barn and carried it 165 feet south and six feet uphill, setting it on a new foundation. Working together, each person only had to carry about 60 pounds to move the 10-ton barn.

Check out the video online… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o83W0gj_CRE

At Mosinee United Methodist Church, we accomplish a similar task. It takes about $210,000 each year to pay our bills, pay salaries, support worship, and engage in mission work. That seems like an overwhelming number, but when we break it down week-by-week and each member gives as he or she is able, we can carry the load.

And what a joyful burden it is! Did you know that we have 40-50 adults and kids participating in Sunday School each week? That our most recent AOA lunch program drew 38 people to hear airline pilot Dan Thompson? That we have had eleven new members join our church this year? That we are an important leader in cooperative church work in our area?

The worship we share on Sundays and Wednesdays, the prayers we lift on Monday nights, the Saturdays we work together, and all the other days in between – each of us lifts our share of the burden, and Christ works miracles through us. “For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light” (Matthew 11:30).

- Pastor Park