Thanks for making a difference!

photo by dplanet

Friends & Helpers Non-Profit Helping Others. Make a Difference Donate today!

I praise God for our church. Wooster Grace seeks to meet the needs of children in our area with a back-to-school backpack.

The above link is how one organization gains sponsors to donate back to school materials for a child or teen. Others around the country are seeking to make a difference in their communities.

Wooster Grace envisions a place where everyone hungers and is developed into mature Christians who are deployed for church-planting and compassion ministries around the world. This project is one of the many steps in developing all people into fully-devoted followers of Jesus.

Jesus had compassion. In Mark 14:3 Jesus is in the house of a well-known leper. He was reclining in Simon's house. Jesus went into the homes of anyone when invited.

Our backpack project interfaces our people with those who need someone to help out with school supplies and a backpack. I thank the Lord that we can share our surplus with those who have no surplus, thus honoring God in our acts of service in the community.

Please pray this week and next week as our people get to bless families, especially the children in those families with a gift of love and care--a backpack filled with school supplies to start a new year of education. May God truly be honored as we go into our neighborhoods and share His love.

Our people sponsor every children for School BackPack Project

photo by bryankemp

Praise God for our people sponsoring all the children who need a back-to-school backpack. Every one of the seventy children sponsored will receive the following items, including, but not limited to: pencils, markers, binder, durable backpack. The Sowing Hope Kids are the ones we sponsor

Please pray for the Backpack Project.

• Ask God to arrange the schedules of both families to deliver and to receive backpacks between August 11 and 16.


• Pray for our Wooster Grace families as they verbalize why we do this: to demonstrate God's love to the family--"all people matter to God and each person matters to us."


• Petition God to empower our Wooster Grace families to make a personal contact with each child, asking to read a brief Bible passage (like Matthew 19:13-15 where Jesus prays for and blesses the children) and to pray for the child and family.


• Plead for God to open up opportunities to share the Gospel with the children and their families

Six thousand words

Ministry has its sacrifice and its rewards

School Backpack Project 2008

photo by georgeogoodman




















This school year we are striving to help children in under-resourced families in our community by getting each child a new backpack stocked and filled with school supplies. Juana Hernandez is spearheading the endeavor again this August.

If someone would like to participate, she outlines the way to help out by giving four tips to serve a child in our community.

1. The main steps to follow


2. How to sign up to sponsor a child


3. What to do and to say when contacting the family


4. When to deliver the backpack and what to do and to say

With Janet Beaver's help, Juana has printed a brochure which details what you need to do. It is an insert in the Sunday programs. Since Juana is out of the office the next two weeks, then you can direct any questions to Silviana (ext. 246).

Sowing Hope

Schellin Park Carnival goes on amid a deluge. Pastor Ivanildo shares what happened this morning.

It was a blessing for me to be there at the opening day of our camp at the park with Sowing Hope kids. In spite of the rain, between 15-20 kids were there. I was specially impressed with the number of volunteers who showed up to serve on such a dreary day. A significant number was from Student Ministries (wow, what a blessing to see all those young people there!) but also some adults and some entire families.

Pastor Randy, as usual, did a great job with the music. On a day like this, Mr. Randy's music is the perfect medicine to wake up the soul and the kids were indeed wide awake by the time they were done singing. I was just blessed to be there.

Pastor Randy leading worship

Our interns, Elise and Jacob, by the way, are doing a tremendous job. I am so proud of the work they are doing.

Thanks everyone for helping. If you want to check it out, come to the Park from 9:30 to 11:30 tomorrow and Friday.
Pastor Ivanildo C. Trindade

Lois Engelhart & Jacob Kern getting on the same page

Way to go Outreach Team! Pastor Dave Lawson shared how amazing God is. He and his boys were coming into Wooster from the South. The rain was pouring; "rainin' cats 'n dogs." But when he got closer to Shellin Park, the rain tapered off and seemingly stopped. Wow! How amazing is God! Yeah, God!

Sowing Hope is blooming

photo by nightthree


















Please read the latest news from Sowing Hope. Elise Rabatin did a great job getting the newsletter together and out.

I hope to get pictures from Jacob and Elise to post on a follow-up for VBS from the Sowing Hope Kids. You can see a great picture of Jacob and one of the kids in the newsletter. I would also like to get a few paragraphs from Jacob regarding the Sowing Hope mom who accepted Christ on Sunday. God is great and worthy of our praise!!

Way to go interns! You did a great job. Your hard work is not in vain in the Lord.

Receive Jesus

One of the great things we do for the Sowing Hope kids is feed them lunch. A few of the children have parents who work second shift or parents who are absent in their kids lives, thus they don't get a good meal at all. So we share God's love in a real way. I take to heart Jesus' words in Matthew 18:5, " And whoever receives one such child in My name receives me."

boys will be boys










































students of great potential



There is so much we can do for these kids. Pastor Ivanildo shared how one little girl Gabby screamed with glee on the bus, "I LOVE V-B-S!"

Reaching out to children

It all starts with a bus ride





















I just returned from a trip dropping off children to Perkins Apartments on the Southside of Wooster. I heard the girls I sat near share how their favorite part of the days' events is the singing. They sang a few bars of the songs and teased me that I did not know the motions for the songs. It was a memorable day for them.



Conversely, one of our girls was feeling ill. She rested yesterday and felt good enough to come--so she came today. At the end of the day, she was tired and started feeling ill. But she made it to the end of VBS, ate her lunch, and then we took her home. Please pray for J. She would love to come back tomorrow and hear more about Jesus.



Overall, the team of volunteers and our interns did a wonderful job of serving these kids. Yes, they are rowdy just like any children, but we get to offer them a fun time at VBS and a chance to hear the Gospel and to learn more about Jesus this week. Check out how we are developing fully devoted followers for Jesus by reaching out to the children on the southside.

"I am cool ridin' da bus"

495 Kids!

Today I witnessed and amazing gathering. I observed a church filled with children, students, and adults praising Jesus and excited about learning more about Jesus.

Vacation Bible School has arrived. I was so proud to see Pastor Ivanildo featured to open the day with prayer and to introduce the ICDI well-drilling video. The donations collected from the children will go to drill a well for a community in the Central African Republic where water is scarce and a high commodity. Clean water is even more precious. Most villages use unsanitary water for cooking, cleaning, and drinking. But what ICDI helps to do is to educate the community about safe water practices, hygiene, health, and responsibility. It is a great partnership we have with ICDI. I can't wait to see how much money the children donate towards the $15,000 goal.

Our summer interns, Jacob Kern & Elise Rabatin, have helped get 33 children here today from the southside of Wooster. We chatted about the bus challenges and the everyday skirmishes between kids in a neighborhood. Then they escorted me around the campus to visit with the children in their groups. Not only were the children integrated but even felt included in their groups and felt cared for by the adult and student volunteers.

We even had the opportunity to give a child from our group her first Bible. When we finally tracked down a children's bible, Elise wrote a dedication, both Jacob & Elise signed it, and then we found her in her class. Elise said that this little girls' "eyes lit up" when she saw that she got a bible as her own. May God speak to her through His Word today and everyday of her life.

photo by theogeo

In a few minutes I get to help serve lunch to them and hear how their day went. May God bring each one to Christ through our efforts. I hope to post 2 or 3 pictures later today.