MINISTRIES

DR. HERSHEL NELSON REACHES OUT ...to the community by responding to emergency requests, such as people burned out of their homes, needing prescriptions, help paying water bills, needing clothing and/or groceries, etc.  He makes requests from the congregation to help with these needs.      His year-round hobby is making and distributing wooden toys to Salvation Army, Toys for Tots, Catholic Social Services, Women's Resource Center, Family Division of Welfare, and the American Legion.      He uses scrap wood donated by Homes of Merit, a company that produces factory-made homes, to make toy cars, trucks, airplanes, puzzles, games, space shuttles, guns, spin-tops, buses, tractors, and animals.  Christmas is the peak season, with 7,403 toys given away during 2004.      He often hands out small squares of wood with witty, amusing, inspirational and moral statements, Bible verses, etc., and the name of the church on them, brightening the day of many public service personnel, such as store clerks, bank tellers, check-out clerks, food servers, as well as church members.      A surprise candy treat passes from his hand to those of children as he shakes their hand in church.       His ministry of helping others has gone on for many decades.  He has taught adult Sunday school classes for many years and is an Elder of the church.

WELCOME BAGS TO HELP WOMEN ANOTHER MINISTRY IN THE CHURCH is preparing "Welcome Bags" for women in a nearby group home who have come there with nothing, who are trying to straighten out their lives.  MARTY VANASKEY, church deacon, provides these bags with several personal items and a small stuffed animal, adding one of the small squares from Hershel.  These women feel God's love through these gift bags from total strangers.

THE DISCIPLES WOMEN'S MINISTRIES serves the community, including the Anchor House home for boys, Salvation Army, Women's Resource Center - most recently with paper goods and personal items for women who cannot buy such things with their food stamps, caps, booties, blankets for newborns, infants and toddlers clothing for Salvation Army shelter, school supplies, Christmas gifts for county foster childen.  They buy blankets for Church World Service, send postage stamps for U. S. Veterans, and send Campbell's Labels for Education to Woodhaven.