December announcements for the Renew Church family, as we finish out 2021. Here’s an update on our Mission giving.
Sunday gatherings on 12/12 and 12/26 at 10 AM and Christmas Eve 12/24 at 5 PM. The different gatherings on 12/24 and 12/26 will be about an hour, all generations together.
On Saturday, May 16, 2020, how about joining thousands of others around the globe to run 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) and provide clean water to children in communities around the world?!
Watch 25-year-old Rebecca’s story, capturing her journey from a forgotten, neglected, and abused childhood, as an orphan, to a loved and treasured daughter currently enrolled in medical school.
Walk, run, or push a stroller with us at the World Vision Global 6K for Water on May 4, 2019. Each registration provides lasting clean water to a child — like Esther — and like for the child on your race bib!
THIS SPRING, CHANGE A LIFE. Join thousands of people across the globe in our mission to bring life-changing clean water and fullness of life to children in communities around the world.
Pastoral note: early in this sermon Pastor Jeff mentioned one fellow follower of Jesus we shall not forget, and intentionally remember and celebrate. Please take time to get to know Andrew and Norine Brunson, and their story of faith, perseverance, and Gospel courage.
Paul is near execution, and offers a personal challenge to Timothy to keeping following Jesus no matter the sacrifice and risk.
During this all-church whole family gathering we gave an overview of Paul’s Second Letter, using this helpful visual storytelling Read Scripture animation from The Bible Project:
Paul’s final and most personal letter, 2 Timothy encourages church planter Timothy to accept his calling and deal with corrupt teachers.
The letter also reminds Timothy to maintain faith and hope in Jesus’ resurrection and to raise faithful leaders who will teach the good news about Jesus. They must focus on the Scriptures’ unified story line that leads to salvation in Jesus and helps believers achieve their purpose of spreading the good news.
While following Jesus, believers will experience challenges, suffering, risk, tension, discomforts and struggles. In those dark and difficult moments, Jesus’ presence, love and faithfulness can become tangible and real, which imprisoned and abandoned Paul and generations of Christians after him, know firsthand.
We also read aloud “Paul Tells the World” (story #51, on Acts 2:42-47; Acts 13-21) in The Beginner’s Gospel Story Bible by Jared Kennedy & Trish Mahoney
Quotes:
Scripture Readings:
2 Timothy 1:8-18 (ESV)
8 Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God,9 who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began,10 and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,11 for which I was appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher,12 which is why I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me.13 Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.14 By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.
15 You are aware that all who are in Asia turned away from me, among whom are Phygelus and Hermogenes.16 May the Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains,17 but when he arrived in Rome he searched for me earnestly and found me—18 may the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that day!—and you well know all the service he rendered at Ephesus.
Last Friday I shared with three fifth grade classes about the global water crisis. And what clean water does.
In our brief time together I shared the story of two five-year-olds girls in Kenya and how clean water has the power to free a child to flourish in life, in whole communities. While I spoke broadly of this the direst of all global crises, the reality of 1,000 children dying today due to diarrhea from lack of clean water and sanitation can only hit us if we consider children are real people, and we enter their story.
What is the power of clean water? What does it do?
Consider how two five-year-olds, Cheru and Kamama, who live near one another in Kenya. Yet their days and lives are vastly different due to one difference:
Both 5-year-olds live in rural Kenya, and like millions of African children, they help their mothers carry water every day. Though they live just 16 miles apart, for one, fetching water is a three-hour struggle; for the other, it’s a seven-minute stroll.
Distance to water: 6.88 kilometers, or 4.27 miles, round trip
Time spent on each trip: 3 hours, 32 minutes
Cheru Lotuliapus drinks the last of her warm milk tea — her usual breakfast — and hands the tin cup to her mother, Monica, to wash.
Her older sister, Dina, waits for her, jerry can in hand. Cheru stands on tiptoe to pull down the tea kettle hanging on the side of a woven wood stand where clean dishes dry in the sun. The girls hurry to join other children with jerry cans large and small, and the group sets out walking on a hours-long journey to fetch the water their families’ lives depend on.
The sun climbs higher and hotter in the clear sky as if to melt the sand and rocks of the dry Kesot River bed. Slowing their pace, the children, ranging in age from 5 to 12, skirt the bluffs and linger in the shade of trees.
Sweat beading on her forehead, Cheru falls behind. She stops, swaps the kettle to her other hand, and plunges ahead to catch up at the next resting place. The youngest of the group, Cheru follows the older children and tries to do what they do.
Five-year-old Cheru walks over 6 kilometers every day to get water.
A World Vision photographer turned on his GPS while he journeyed with her to capture her trek. It took 3.5 hours to cover the distance over difficult terrain.
Cheru’s battered aluminum tea kettle holds enough water for her morning tea, but little more. When she digs in the sandy riverbed with the lid and scoops enough water to fill her kettle, it’s not enough to cook a meal or wash dishes.
Even at age 5, Cheru knows that her mother worries about water and struggles to carry enough for their daily needs, though she makes the round trip trek twice a day. So every day, the little girl picks up her kettle and walks to fill it. “I help my mother,” she says.
Dina, 6, can dig faster and fill her jerry can with more water. She’s impatient and pushes Cheru out of the way. They’ve had to wait for a turn to dig, and others are waiting to take their place. Goats, cows, and camels jockey for position, too. The little girl starts to cry.
Children don’t get the best places to dig. There’s a larger, more productive waterhole 50 yards further on. There, women fill jerry cans, bathe their babies, wash clothes, and watch their cattle drink.
The driest time of year is coming, bringing months when there is no rain. As water becomes more scarce, the fiercest competitors — wild honeybees — dominate the waterholes during the day, threatening to sting intruders. The bees gather anywhere there’s moisture, even clustering around a child’s runny nose or in the corner of their eyes, says Monica.
As it gets drier, digging becomes serious business for adults. They’ll dig deep, some years going down 20 feet, hauling up filled jerry cans with a rope until the waterholes yield no water, only sand. The holes can cave in on people who are digging, and animals sometimes fall in and drown.
“When there’s no water here, we go to the dam,” says Samson, Cheru’s father. They walk more than six miles to take water from a crocodile-infested river.
The effects of this life mean Cheru and so many other girls and women are not able to live up to their potential. Every day is shaped by the walk for water.
Consider this contrast …
What fetching clean water looks like for Kamama:
Easy access to clean water means a short and carefree journey for Kamama, as well as better health and opportunities to learn.
Kamama has choices because of clean water
Age: 5
Location: Sengelel village, Kenya
Distance to water: 252 yards, or .14 miles, round trip
Time spent on each trip: 6 minutes, 49 seconds
Barely 16 miles away lives another 5-year-old girl, Kamama Lolem, whose life is very different from Cheru’s. She and three siblings are World Vision sponsored children — and where World Vision brings clean water and child sponsorship, a cascade of blessings follow: fewer illnesses, better nutrition, more kids in school, and time for moms and dads to farm or run a business.
In 2015, World Vision — along with community members including Kamama’s mother, Julia — tapped a mountain spring and piped water down to their community. Everything has been different since then.
Kamama’s family and their neighbors have experienced the transformation that clean water brings. Their 13-mile-long gravity-fed pipeline carries water to 15 kiosks, serving 880 households as well as schools, churches, and a health center. World Vision runs the system, but local committees manage the kiosks and are preparing to take over maintenance, too, funded by a small monthly fee for users.
Paving the way for progress
Like Cheru, Kamama helps her mother by carrying a small jerry can — or even the family’s tea kettle — to easily bring water from the nearest source. She can fill her kettle with clean water from a kiosk and return home in less than seven minutes, a round trip of 252 yards. She doesn’t have to compete with cattle and goats who dirty the water; the animals drink from their own water trough, away from the village water supply.
Kamama and her friends like to meet at the kiosk to play, just yards from where their mothers are drawing water, washing clothes, or hanging laundry on the cactus fence that lines the dirt road.
“Before, I walked for three hours to collect water from the river,” says Julia. “Now it’s just a few minutes to the kiosk.”
The responsibility for providing for her children falls solely on Julia. Tragedy struck the family in 2014 when her husband, Daudi, was killed in a road accident. Julia worried that she wouldn’t be able to keep the children in school, which had been her husband’s dream for them.
“On my own, I knew I had to work extra hard. First, I work to grow maize, fruit, and other crops we can eat and sell. Then I pick up other work, too,” says Julia.
World Vision and the family’s church helped keep them afloat and boosted her courage.
“When discouraged and things felt very difficult, I thought about God’s plan,” says Julia. “God has a plan for us. And in that plan, I need to manage for my family. I have authority.”
‘Water has changed everything’
The effects of the water project flow through the village. Clean water runs from the faucet in the community health center’s lab, and it’s piped straight to the school and sprinkled on the children’s demonstration garden. It has changed family life in fundamental ways.
“Life became much easier when the water came. We save time, too. I have more time for farming,” Julia says. She and her children tend maize, beans, millet, and lush fruit trees heavy with mangoes, oranges, lemons, and guavas. They have maize to eat from their harvest, even in a year with low rainfall.
Samuel Lemungole, lab technician at the local health center, remembers the days when he’d arrive at work to find 10 people waiting, very sick.
“I’d test and find that it was typhoid. Now we seldom see that. Diarrhea and other waterborne diseases are way down,” he says. “Water has changed everything for the better.”
Good health comes not just from piped water to drink, but also from using toilets, taking baths, and washing hands. World Vision trains village health volunteers who teach others to construct and maintain toilets. World Vision WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) clubs in the primary school teach health and hygiene.
Education is stronger than ever, too. Enrollment at the local primary school increased from 200 to 500 students in the two years since water came. Students grow a demonstration garden in the schoolyard, full of tomatoes, sukuma wiki (collards), and other greens. “It’s our outdoor classroom,” says Korio John, their teacher. “They learn science, nutrition, culture, life skills. The garden is perfect for developing the whole child.”
Kamama is in her second year of school. She goes every day with her best friends, Ktum and Safari, who live next door. “She can go to school early and study well, wear clean clothes, and not be tired or sick,” says her mother proudly. “To drink clean water and keep your children clean, this is a good life.”
———
Our family of four is walking/running 6K this Saturday to provide clean water for Jonalisha, Ebalakyntiew, Ramsey, and Anusha. We’ve committed to partnering with them long-term in sponsorship as well.
Will you join us?
By walking or running 6K on May 6th, you will take away that walk from a child like Cheru. Which kid will be on your bib?
Here and on my blog I echo the sentiment that we are all minor characters in the big Story, yet if we truly believe Jesus is the Hero, and we want to find our significance in Him, we will give our best to love our neighbors near and far, in His name.
Clean water is merely a first step in that direction, and while these kids need it badly, we need to give it just as much. » join or support Team Renew for Water at TeamWorldVision.org/Renew
Nearly 1,000 children under age 5 die every day from diarrhea caused by contaminated water, poor sanitation, and improper hygiene. We believe the global water and sanitation crisis can be solved within our lifetimes, and World Vision is focused on providing clean water and sanitation to every man, woman, and child in every community they work in, including the most vulnerable populations in the hardest-to-reach places.
World Vision is the leading nongovernmental (NGO) provider of clean water. We reach one new person with clean water every 30 seconds. We work alongside communities so that they take ownership in maintenance and repair of water points. This results in water that continues to flow long after our work concludes. The longevity of World Vision water projects is unsurpassed.
In joining Team World Vision we get to fund water projects that will serve their communities for decades.
World Vision and their partners commit to expanding our reach from providing clean water to one new person every 30 seconds to reaching one new person every 10 seconds with clean water and sanitation by 2020, and then continuing at that pace for another 10 years until we reach everyone everywhere we work by 2030. (Update: they’ve reached that 2020 goal early and now every 10 seconds a new child receives clean water.)
Holy Week continues as we focus on the world’s greatest needs. Jesus brings His full life into this world He created to make it whole. His salvation is complete, and eternal life is what he offers — by the bucket-loads!
There’s often a distinction made between heavenly work and earthly work, with the thought that heavenly work is eternal and earthly work won’t last. Well, if we care about PEOPLE, our earthly work does matter, for every person was created to live forever. Jesus put it this way — there are two great commandments: you shall love God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength; and the second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
Jesus helps us see that caring for others is a way to love God and worship Him.
So this Holy Week, and on this special day, let us consider the needs of the world. It’s World Water Day, where we shine a little on the 700+ million people who lack access to clean water. We’re not talking about lacking running water. We’re talking about clean water, as now they only have unclean, unsafe water.
On Saturday about fifty of us walked-and-ran together, many of us further than we had in a long time. The soreness continues. (Globally more than 7,000 participated, and the donations are still coming in.)
As a team we raised $5,820 which means collectively we provided life-changing water for life for 116 kids in East Africa!
The whole 6K for Water effort combined to provide water for more than 8,000 in total. That’s huge!
For nearly a billion of people a glass of water (however unclean) means miles of walking. That reality is changing for so many. You’ll relish revisiting Violet’s story and the hope and joy which came to her village and century-old family with new water.
Amidst the news cycle of a bombing in Brussels, a genuine tragedy, it’s easy to forget that today is World Water Day. While we can turn on any tap and fill a cup to sip while reading the day’s news, each and every day the thirst for water is real for 663 million people. That’s a daily tragedy, and it can be avoided! So today, and every March 22nd is a reminder for us to remember communities of faithful, resourceful people who rely on our support for the most basic of needs: CLEAN WATER!
Let’s keep working to make a difference in the lives of the 663 million people around the world who don’t have access to clean water.
The impact of clean water cannot be overestimated. There are numerous organizations working to eradicate the global water crisis in the next decade and a half. World Vision is the one we’ve chosen to partner with.
World Vision works with local communities, and IN those communities especially, but also employs top nationals in their ares of expertise: engineering, sanitation, nutrition, teaching and community development. The global WASH initiative is part of the instruction: Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene. Water unlocks so much potential for good!
Think of us providing water for 100+ kids, which was our goal (and that’s tremendous). That changes the future for every one of those kids! Actually 116 kids!
We’re like a small community well in the center of a village, ready to be accessed and enjoyed!
But there are lots of other types of projects; in some places the ground is contaminated, such as with limestone, so drilling a well won’t suffice. World Vision water projects include other creative ways:
pipelines
wells
solar-powered pumps
treatment facilities
roof-top systems and rain-catchment systems for the rainy seasons
dams of reservoirs
capping springs and sharing that safe water
hand-powered water pumps
filtration stations
One particular project in Kenya is a 50-mile long pipeline that brings water to 70,000 people!
Happy World Water Day!
World Vision is a Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to working with children, families, and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice.
On March 19th of this year 8,000 people from all over the planet gathered to walk an ordinary distance for an extraordinary cause and together brought clean water to nearly 10,000 people through World Vision’s Water projects in Africa.
The Global 6K for Water was as a tremendous success on March 19th. Together we provided life-changing water for life for 116 kids in Africa! Let us know above if you want to stay in the loop about next time.
THIS MARCH, CHANGE A LIFE.
Join us and advocates across the globe in our mission to bring clean water and fullness of life to children in Africa.
Walk, run, or push a stroller with us at the World Vision Global 6K for Water on March 19, 2016. Each registration provides lasting clean water to a child in Africa and on race day you walk/run with that child’s picture on your race bib.
DATE: March 19, 2016 TIME: TBA on Saturday morning LOCATION: TBA in Oregon City
Questions:
What’s the course?
The course will soon be determined, with goals of being safe with little traffic crossings.
Can kids participate?
Yes! We’re planning a kids run with a shorter distance as well. Of course, all are welcome to walk or run the full 6K (3.72 miles).
Why 6K?
Six kilometers (3.72 miles) is the distance women and children in Africa must walk every day to fetch water. This trek is often treacherous and often the water is unclean for drinking. All of our proceeds go to World Vision water projects. The Water Effect is real!
What if I can’t run that far?
You don’t have to run. Plus, it’s a few months away, so preparing through a guided training plan will get to ready for the day. Your endurance leading up to that day — not to mention the added health benefit of walking and running — will get you ready to embrace the journey those in Africa must face every day.
Can I give and not run?
Yes. All donations are welcome. Please visit the Renew 6K for Water page to give securely through World Vision. (Renew Church will also accept offline donations to this noble project. Please note 6K for Water on the memo line and send your check to PO Box 3222, Oregon City, OR 97045.)
Who else is running/walking?
There are hundreds of thousands of participants all around the globe. The Global 6K for Water is just before World Water Day (March 22nd, 2016), so we’re joining the efforts of so many, and so many great organizations, working together to solve the global water crisis with the resources God has given us.
You’re welcome to invite others who cannot join us in Oregon City on March 19th. They can run anywhere, and you as well as them will get a bib noting a unique child supported through this water project.
Why Water?
We believe every child deserves clean water. For a mere fifty dollars (your entrance fee), you can provide clean water for a child for life (!). Water is essential to life; water is life! Communities are changed with access to clean water, hygiene training and so many other
Nearly 1,000 children under age 5 die every day from diarrhea caused by contaminated water, poor sanitation, and improper hygiene. We believe the global water and sanitation crisis can be solved within our lifetimes, and World Vision is focused on providing clean water and sanitation to every man, woman, and child in every community they work in, including the most vulnerable populations in the hardest-to-reach places.
World Vision is the leading nongovernmental (NGO) provider of clean water. We reach one new person with clean water every 30 seconds. We work alongside communities so that they take ownership in maintenance and repair of water points. This results in water that continues to flow long after our work concludes. The longevity of World Vision water projects is unsurpassed.
In joining Team World Vision we get to fund water projects that will serve their communities for decades.
World Vision and their partners commit to expanding our reach from providing clean water to one new person every 30 seconds to reaching one new person every 10 seconds with clean water and sanitation by 2020, and then continuing at that pace for another 10 years until we reach everyone everywhere we work by 2030.
That’s how many new people in South Sudan can now receive life-changing clean water! I’ve mentioned their plight before. The needs are real, yet there is so much we can do!
In this audio update on Sunday, I gave a recap of the race, some of the challenges, and the special experiences with like-minded runners, all of which traveled to Oregon at their own expense to run an epic relay race together. We are team members of a global group wanting to see the water crisis solved in this lifetime.
Did you know that access to clean water cuts the child mortality rate in half?
Clean water makes children survive and thrive past their fifth birthday!
As of this moment, a total of $461,686.05 has come in for this year’s Hood-to-Coast relay fundraiser with Team World Vision (ten teams of twelve runners). As one of the members of this “family of missionary servants” (that’s us, the Renew Church family), I ran representing us, for the sake of those in East Africa. My charge to many was simple: I promised to run hard, really hard, if they would give fifty dollars to support another child in Africa to receive water.
Truly, the impact has been much larger. The water projects funded through my earlier triathlon fundraiser ($3,000) could be expanded. Simply put, the figure above doesn’t include what’s been given to my personal project. In fact, most of my teammates on the “Water Warriors” have other Team World Events they are fundraising for (such as the Chicago Marathon and Ironman Wisconsin).
The modest total for my two races has reached $4,600 so far. We’re hoping to get to $5,000 at least, which will provide clean water for one hundred more in East Africa! (The first Team World Vision fundraising race was a triathlon on Father’s Day.)
Listen in as I give a race recap…
Running for Water (Team World Vision race recap » Hood-to-Coast relay fundraiser)[ 12:05 ]Play Now | Play in Popup | Download