Mission trip, and speaking of bookpushing

[celticdragonfly]

I've been having some reminders recently of why I'm SO happy to have the church that I have.

The youth ministry is getting ready for their summer mission trip again. Our high schoolers do one every summer. I'm sure Maggie will be looking forward to it someday when she's older.

Now, lots of churches' idea of "mission trip" would involve knocking on doors and telling anyone that doesn't believe just as they do how wrong they are. Not our church. This year:

Where: Cairo, Illinois
Why: Cairo is a small impoverished community that is a victim of the deterioration of commerce and river industry. Approximately 33% of the population lives below the poverty line.
What: We will be working with a Kid’s Club, assisting with minor home repairs and partnering with a non-profit called Mission Build who works to create affordable housing for lower income families.

Now this I heavily approve of. Take care of people. Good.

What made it even better was the two pages in the most recent church newsletter. They're going to be reading to the kids, and trying to promote literacy and bookowning, and here's a list of books they'd like to get, new or gently used. A page of younger kid books, and a page of older ones - a lot of great classics, books I love. This is definitely a project I can get right behind. I'm a happy bookpusher with a good outlet.

We already had an extra copy of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, so that went off to the church. Yesterday I got by a Halfprice Books and picked up some more. A copy of The Secret Garden, a copy of A Wrinkle in Time, and a complete 8-volume set of the Anne of Green Gables series. We'll try to get those delivered to the church in the very near future.

Oh, the Narnia series was on the list, too. I didn't grab those, I figure with the recent movie that'll be a popular enough choice that someone else is quite likely to get it. But I'm pleased that while some church types might be arguing about censoring those books, ours will be reading them to kids and hooking them on a love a books with them!

Comments

[toraks.livejournal.com]

Wow, that does sound like a great church! How cool.

[phoenixsinger.livejournal.com]

I am ashamed to admit it, but I haven't read A Wrinkle in Time . I haven't read The Dark is Rising and the other books in that series, either. Care to push some books my way? Should I still look at these, or have I missed much of the goodie in them since I didn't read them when I was a kid?

[florentinescot.livejournal.com]

Nods. That's what our kids generally do. World Changers and other service stuff.

[filkferengi]

Cool! And, good choices!