Thank You LCMS
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the participants
LCMS volunteers provide clean up services for downtown St. Louis ministries at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church and Christian Friends of New Americans
On June 28, 2017, more than 30 volunteers arrived early at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church downtown St. Louis to provide a day of hard work in support of St. Luke’s and Christian Friends of New Americans (CFNA). The volunteers were employees of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (LCMS) International Center, Kirkwood, Mo. Included were those from the LCMS Foundation, Lutheran Church Extension Fund, Concordia Plan Services, and corporate LCMS.
St. Luke’s, led by Rev. David Dittmar, provides the local community with a Christian preschool program along with allocating a wing of its building to hold home furnishings for CFNA. These include beds, tables/chairs, dishes and other household items for low-income refugee families, which are received and distributed from St. Luke’s.
The end of the day!
The service team met with Rev. Dittmar, and CFNA leaders Rev. Stanish Stanley and Richard Leigh, to divide the work into three areas: organization of CNFA inventory, paint and restore areas of the preschool, and provide landscaping around St. Luke’s.
By the end of the day, the service teams accomplished all of these goals leaving St. Luke’s and the CFNA areas cleaned, organized, freshly painted, and the trash hauled into the commercial-sized dumpster. The dumpster was filled to the top, and volunteers also trucked away all the yard waste and recyclable materials for proper disposal.
Through St. Luke’s and CFNA, the LCMS provides these mission and ministry services every day, whether it is teaching five-year olds about Jesus, giving a refugee a bed to sleep on, or rolling up sleeves in service to others. We all have our gifts, and in walking together we accomplish great works in service to our Lord Jesus Christ.
By Blake Tilley Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church, Brentwood, MO
