NATIONAL and INTERNATIONAL MISSION ACTIVITIES

Chair:  Alan Stevens

Basic Mission Support
A PC(USA) Denomination Effort:

Lewinsville Church contributes each year to the Presbyterian Church USA for world mission support which totals approximately $26 million in 2009. About $11 million of this total is used to support 258 missionaries worldwide. This support falls into two categories:

(a) Directed Mission Support goes to missionaries that Lewinsville has specifically chosen to support, on a limited basis. Usually the chosen missionaries have had some personal relationship to members of Lewinsville.

(b) Shared Gifts provides funds that go to support primarily the domestic mission activities of the PC(USA).

Directed Mission Support

In recent years LPC has provided Directed Mission Support to four missionary families:

Frank and Nancy Dimmock live in Lesotho where Frank serves as PC(USA)’s Africa Health Liaison. He works with partner churches and ecumenical agencies to develop programs for children in Lesotho and eight other African countries. Nancy supports Frank’s ministry, raises their eight children, and also found and coordinates an orphanage for children whose parents were victims of HIV/AIDS.

Andrew and Ellen Collins live in Chiang Mai, Thailand where Andy is an audio-visual communications specialist at the Christian Communications Institute. Ellen is a part-time divinity student at McGilvary College of Divinity, frequently collaborates with Andy as a script writer and narrator for some of his many productions, and works with needy children (mostly orphans). Andy and Ellen have two sons. The Collins family is sponsored through Interserve, an independent international mission agency.
 
Art and Sue Kinsler are PC(USA) missionaries in Seoul, South Korea. Art is officially retired, but continues as a mission volunteer working as the facilitator and treasurer of the office that supports PC(USA) mission work in Korea. Sue actively works with physically challenged individuals through a vocational schools and sheltered workshops. Sue founded the Lighthouse Foundation in 2004 which helps some of the most vulnerable people in North Korea: young children, orphans, people with disabilities, mothers in childbirth and the elderly. Sue is trusted by the North Korean government and has been permitted to visit that country more than 70 times.

Brian and Helen Chapaitis are working in Papua New Guinea (PNG) for Wycliffe Bible Translators. Brian, working with sophisticated computer technologies, is the translator who is helping to translate the Gospel in the many languages (over 800 and most are unwritten) and dialects in PNG. Helen, a medical doctor, operates a medical clinic in the Highlands of PNG and provides critical emergency care to critically ill or injured individuals (she has had a couple of emergency medevacs to Australia during the past year).

Shared Gifts of PC(USA) Missions

Shared Gifts of PC(USA) are primarily national mission activities spearheaded by the denomination but they also include support the National Capital Presbytery of which we are a part. Lewinsville’s funding for shared gifts has been reduced in recent years as our mission budget has shrunk. We have also redirected funding to specific projects of direct interest to Lewinsville, such as funding for Sue Kinsler’s soy milk project for needy children in North Korea and the purchase of a critically needed medical microscope for use in Helen Chapaitis’ clinic in Papua New Guinea.

United Orphanage and Academy, Moi’s Bridge, Kenya:

The United Orphanage and Academy (UOA), located in northwest Kenya near the Uganda border, is an orphanage for more than 50 boys and girls and an academic academy for the orphanage residents and students from five distinct tribes that inhabit the area around Moi’s Bridge. UOA was founded in 2001 by Rev. Stephen Chege, a Presbyterian Church of East Africa pastor, and Henri Rush of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Alexandria, VA. The academy opened in 2006 and currently provides classes for grades K – 7 with qualified teachers for each grade. UOA plans to add additional classes each year through twelfth grade and for vocational training. Lewinsville’s Mission and Service budget provides financial assistance to the United Orphanage and Academy and one member of our Mission and Service Committee serves on a council that assists Henri Rush with planning and administrative functions for UOA.

Primary Contact Person: Alan Stevens

Soymilk for North Korean Orphans:

Sue Kinsler, our PC(USA) missionary in Seoul, travels monthly to North Korea, where with the approval of the North Korean government she has established projects to provide soymilk to thousands of orphans. As a new project, Lewinsville, in late 2004, funded the purchase of one of the machines that manufactures soymilk from soybeans and sugar. In 2005, Lewinsville provided funds for enough soybean and sugar material to keep this machine producing soymilk for the year. The project is identified in the PC(USA)’s report, Extra Commitment Opportunities, 2005, as Children Nutrition Program, ECO # 051775.  This is the only Christian mission in North Korea, so far as we know.

Primary Contact Person:  Alan Stevens

Papua New Guinea Bible and Medical Mission:

Helen Chapaitis, our sponsored medical missionary in Papua New Guinea (PNG), identified the need for a new microscope that would enable her to better and more effectively serve the local clientele and fellow missionary workers in the Highlands of PNG. Malaria is a major problem there and the microscope was needed for reading malaria smears (8 to 10 a day), and for doing simple analysis on blood tests and urine cultures, as well as sputum exams for TB. Lewinsville provided funding on 2007 for this new medical microscope.

Primary Contact Person:  Alan Stevens

Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation (HCEF):
6935 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite 214, Bethesda, MD  20815
301-951-9400
www.hcef.org

HCEF is a support organization for Christians living in Palestine. Rateb Rabie, a Palestinian who lives in the Washington, DC area, is President of HCEF. Requests from HCEF are primarily for financial support that will enable Christian children to attend Christian schools in Palestine. Lewinsville‘s Mission and Service Committee has provided funding for child sponsorships for about five years; in 2009 the Mission and Service budget provides for eight sponsorships. Lewinsville’s Women of the Church provide funding for additional sponsorships.

Primary Contact Person:  Alan Stevens      

Poor Children’s Assistance Project:

The Poor Children’s Assistance Project is a Christian orphanage home in Port au Prince, Haiti, established by the late Pastor Nicolas Louis Juste who died in March 2009. With the help of concerned Christian volunteers, this project coordinates efforts for God’s love to be demonstrated in kind and deed to young Haitian people in need of education, vocation training, food, shelter, clothes, medical attention and material resources. The project has also been challenged by extensive damage to some of its buildings by recent major hurricanes. Funding provided by Lewinsville Mission and Service budget in recent years has helped with the rebuilding of damaged buildings and aided the project in meeting the needs of the children they serve.

Primary Contact Person:  Alan Stevens

Disaster Relief:

Lewinsville Church and its members have always been generous in providing financial assistance and material resources to victims of major disasters. In recent years such assistance was provided to assist victims of major hurricanes in Florida, Louisiana, and the Caribbean; victims of the 2004 tsunami in SE Asia; victims of the 2006 earthquake in Java, Indonesia; to Doctor’s Without Borders for earthquake relief in Pakistan; and for relief in Darfur. Special appeals to our church members are used if and when the need arises for disaster relief assistance.

Primary Contact Person:  Alan Stevens

Updated September 5, 2009