Tools ‹ widows harvest ministries — WordPress
November 8th, 2009“Causing Our Widow’s Hearts To Sing Week”
May 2nd, 2009“Causing Our Widows’ Hearts to Sing” Week
May 9-16, 2009
Purpose
Honor widows by recognizing their plight as a specifically identified group in our society
Defining who should be legitimately considered a widow by society (any woman who has lost her husband regardless of circumstance)
Help to promote and establish a positive image for widows by recognizing the talents and experience that they themselves have to contribute in their respective communities
Honor God by honoring those He has instructed us to care for and thus “Causing their hearts to sing with joy” (Job 29:13)
Become a Citizenship of Heaven that, among other things, is known for it’s care and concern for her widows
Throughout this week Widows Harvest Ministries would, therefore, encourage all of the citizens of heaven to take time to do something special for those widows that you know.
Suggestions
Change a light bulb
Mow a lawn
Paint a room, porch or house
Repair a roof
Repair a leaky faucet or toilet
Buy flowers
Go out to lunch or dinner
Have lunch or dinner in your home on “Mother’s Day”
Take time to visit
Go for a walk
In the case of younger widows with children, just having a break for an evening or an afternoon from all of the responsibility and stress that comes with being a single-parent, can bring the kind of rest and encouragement that can mean the difference between giving up and going on.
Or, just use your imagination, the possibilities are limitless
Spring 2008 Newsletter
April 1st, 2008
Dear Partners:
I want to thank each one of you for faithfully praying, volunteering and supporting us financially. Over 450 projects were completed on widow’s homes last year in partnership with nearly 1400 volunteers.
Last year we, also, more than met our Project 100 goal, which was to raise $50 thousand dollars in order to insure that the home repair needs of widows continued to be met without interruption.
Beginning this month we will again initiate Project 100 in order to fund widow’s home repair projects throughout the rest of 2008 and into the first quarter of 2009.
Again, this initiative is posted on our web site, widows.org, so that anyone desiring to can monitor it’s progress. Please consider being one of the 100 donors that we are seeking to make a onetime gift of $500 or more to this fund.
If you would like to see some of the volunteer groups that served with us in 2007 up to the present, you can view video footage on our blog site, widows. chattablogs.com. Short term mission groups that we have recently worked with over their Spring breaks include a college campus ministry group from 1st Presbyterian Church, Ann Arbor, MI, that works with students at the University of Michigan; a high school youth group from Seymour 1st Church of the Nazarene, Seymour, Indiana, and another high school youth group from Key Biscayne Presbyterian Church in Key Biscayne, Fla.
For those of you that do not also receive our e-mail updates I want to let you know about Dick Mason (long time widow’s home repair coordinator). He was recently diagnosed as having prostate cancer. A bone scan was done soon after to determine if the cancer has spread and, praise God, it has not. He and his wife, Brenda, are praying about which direction to go for treatment. We are all praying for Dick’s Complete healing.
In light of this, Dick has asked for staffing help. Whatever treatment they choose, it will place limitations, at least temporarily, on his time for helping widows and leading volunteers in home repair projects. Please pray for both the provision of an individual that can assist Dick in all that he does as well as the funds to support this position. With a busy summer coming up, Dick will also need several interns to help him out this summer, which will also need to be funded.
Dick’s passion for the Lord, which is so profoundly demonstrated on a daily basis through his, seemingly, inexhaustible drive for meeting the needs of widows, has not only blessed thousands of widows in our City and beyond, but he has also served as an inspiration for 10’s of thousands of teenagers that he has supervised, mentored and discipled on widow’s home repair projects.
By the time you receive this update, our annual widows and pastor prayer luncheon, on April 15th, will have taken place. This year Robby Holt, Assistant Pastor at North Shore Fellowship, will be our guest speaker. Robby has had a long history with Widows Harvest beginning when he first started volunteering after school when he was at Chattanooga Christian School. Now Robby and his family live in Widows Harvest’s old office on Mitchell Ave, which is located right in the heart of south side Chattanooga’s urban downtown neighborhoods.
Willie Kitchens, who is also a long time friend of the widows, will be leading our worship time on that day, as well. Whenever Willie leads worship, the felt presence of the Lord is always unmistakably and powerfully there.
Widows Sing Week and our annual "Gertrude Gaston" Widow’s Prayer Gathering is almost here. This year "Widows Sing Week" will begin on Saturday, May 10, and end on Saturday May 17, culminating with our annual prayer gathering. This year we are highly honored to have Dr. Evelyn Polite, Founder and Director of Widows Harvest Savannah, Georgia, as our speaker. Dr. Polite, who spoke at our 2007 widow’s Thanksgiving service and luncheon, is a truly gifted and passionate communicator of God’s word. We are all tremendously excited about her return and we are filled with great anticipation for the ways that God will use her for His glory while she is with us.
The deadline for registering for the prayer gathering is May 5th. Please contact us if you would like us to send you a registration form, or visit our web site and simply fill out the online form. Cost for widows, as always, is free, so that we might both bless and honor them. For non-widows the cost is $25. Our costs will be significantly less this year since this will not be held at the Chattanooga Convention and Trade Center, but instead will be held at St. Elmo Ave. Baptist Church. There are still costs involved, though, and at present, we need to raise $3000.
For those coming from out-of-town, a special rate is available at the Staybridge Suites downtown (which is about 5 minutes from the Church). For reservations call 423-267-0900 and tell them you are with Widows Harvest Ministries.
Please remember that May 15, of this week, is International Widows Prayer Day. It is both for non-widows to pray for the plight of widows around the world, as well as widows to pray for the Church, to be the spotless bride that God desires her to be.
For details on all of these events please visit our web site’s home page, scroll down to the appropriate heading and then click on the link.
Another prayer need is for Chiquita Bass, who began ministering with us over a year ago. God has used her so quickly to bear so much fruit for His glory and honor.
Chiquita just recently lost her brother, who lived in Atlanta and worked in the school of medicine at Morehouse College. Not only was his death completely unexpected, but at the time of his passing he had been making preparations to move their recently widowed mother, and 2 older handicapped siblings that live with her, from Washington D.C. to live with him in his home. Their care is now in Chiquita’s hands. She will, quite soon, be moving them to Chattanooga to live with her and her 2 daughters.
One of Chiquita’s key areas of ministry is the annual widow’s prayer gathering, so you can imagine, with all that she is presently doing unto the Lord, she will be stretched even thinner. I know that she would truly desire your prayers at this critical juncture in the life of her family as well as the ministry God has called her to.
I want to give special thanks to local Christian radio stations, J103 (103.1 FM) and WMBW (88.9 FM) for promoting so many of the ongoing Ministry events of Widows Harvest. J103 has generously donated a full year of radio spots to us and WMBW has been promoting, quite vigorously, the upcoming widow’s events in May, and also our Joint Mission opportunity that is being offered to local church youth groups called "Bearing Christ’s Reproach." This very unique mission opportunity which is in full partnership with Lurone Jennings (Director of the Bethlem Center) and Alfred Johnson (Pastor of Church of the First Born), still has weeks available this summer. For more information about this opportunity for local youth groups as well as mission opportunities for groups located outside the Chattanooga area visit our web site.
Finally, the article included with this newsletter, entitled "The Widow’s Might" (download pdf) is by Miriam Neff, and it was first published in the January 2008 edition of Christianity Today. Miriam is the widow of Bob Neff, who was the former head of Moody Broadcasting. I had the privilege of meeting Miriam when she was in Chattanooga, recently. She is very good friends of the Leboeufs. Many of you, locally, will recognize this name, because Leighton Leboeuf is the station manager for WMBW, the local Moody station. It was, in fact, Leighton that contacted me to see if Miriam and I could meet while she was in town. We had a truly wonderful visit and I am greatly excited about getting to work together in the future. I think that you will be as blessed by what she shares in this article as I have personally been, as well as all of our widows who are a part of the ongoing widow’s prayer ministry here.
For more information about Miriam and her widow’s ministry she has a wonderful web site:
Blessings and Thanksgiving,
andy mendonsa
Widows Harvest Ministries
1st Church of the Nazarene, Seymour, Indiana, Spring Break Mission Week
March 31st, 2008
Led by youth pastor, Landon Yowell, senior and junior high youth as well as adult leaders spent their spring break with us putting on a the other half of a widow’s roof and scraping her house to get it ready for a badly needed paint job. This was a really great group. On Tuesday they spent time praying with the widows and then had lunch with them afterwards. The widows were all overwhelmingly blessed.
Grace Academy Community Service Workday March 10, 2008
March 21st, 2008
Senior high and junior high students from Grace Baptist Academy in Chattanooga,
Partnered with Widows Harvest on their Community Service Workday on March 10, 2008. Two projects were done on widow’s homes. The first one was to repair water damage to the floor inside her house and to also divert water running under the back of her house around the sides. The second project was to scrape, prime and paint the exterior of a widow’s house as well as to repaint her kitchen.
1st Presbyterian University of Michigan Campus Ministry Spring Break Mission Team
February 27th, 2008
Partnering with Son Servants, a group of University of Michigan college students came to Chattanooga over their spring break to replace a widow’s roof that was in critical need of repair. These students are part of First Presbyterian Church of Ann Arbor, Michigan’s campus ministry outreach.
Southern Adventist University Community Service Workday January 21, 2008
January 24th, 2008
During their annual community service work day, students, faculty and staff from Southern Adventist University (Collegedale, TN) serve at widows homes under the supervision of Widows Harvest Project Coordinator, Dick Mason.
Widow Receives Late Christmas Of A New Fence
January 14th, 2008
On January 5th volunteers from Cumming, Georgia, who are all part of a small fellowship group that meets in the Home of Chad and Carol Etmueller, came to Chattanooga with their kids to erect a fence around the home of a widow who is raising her 4 grandchildren. The day was particularly cold, but that was certainly offset through an abundance of warm fellowship. By 6 pm the fence was completed and the group packed up and headed home with the knowledge that they had left behind a widow, who, with thanksgiving in her heart, was singing God’s praises for this wonderful gift she had received.
McCallie Vestry Students Host Christmas Dinner With Widows
January 8th, 2008
Widows Harvest Prayer Widows with McCallie Students, December 15, 2007
Annual Widow’s Thanksgiving Food Basket Drive, Worship Service and Dinner, 2007
December 13th, 2007
Youth from Lookout Mountain Presbyterian Church pack Thanksgiving food boxes to be distributed to widows. All the food was donated by the Chattanooga Area Association of Realtors, through their annual food drive for widows, and the Ft. Oglethorpe, Ga., Battlefield Civitan Club.
L to R, Brenda Mason, Beverly Jackson, Bob Nabors, Civitan Club Member
Annual Widow’s Thanksgiving Service. Dr. Evelyn Polite, Founder and Director of Widows Harvest Ministries Savannah, Georgia, was Our Featured Guest Speaker.
After the Service the Widows Enjoyed a Really Wonderful Thanksgiving Luncheon with the Help of Shonda Cains Catering and Many Loving Volunteers.
Chattanooga Christian Students in the Senior High Community Service Class Volunteer to Carry Widow’s Thanksgiving Baskets Out to Their Cars After a Very Delicious Meal and Joyful Time of Fellowship. Debbie Grisham, Their Teacher, is on the Far Left of the Picture.
Dr. Evelyn Polite came to Chattanooga for a several days prior to out annual widow’s thanksgiving prayer service and luncheon in order to learn more about the day to day operation Widows Harvest Chattanooga from the inside out, so to speak. As she was about to leave, Friday morning after the Thanksgiving festivities, I asked her if she would sharing what God had done in her life during the time she was with us. The following is that interview, which was tape at the Chattanooga airport just before she departed.
Chiquita Bass Interview with Dr. Evelyn Polite
Blessings,
Andy Mendonsa