by Rick Greene

The Christmas Offering at First Community for 2021 will be split between Friends of the Homeless and the Refugee Task Force. There has always been homelessness in America, but in 2021 it has been rapidly increasing. At the same time, the issue of refugees is attracting international attention as record numbers of Afghans, as well as others, seek asylum. Experts are calling both numbers of the homeless and refugee seekers a crisis of epic proportion.

In Matthew 2:12-15, we read the story in which an angel came to Joseph in a dream and warned him to flee Bethlehem. King Herod planned to seek out the child to destroy him. Mary, Joseph, and Jesus left to make their way to Egypt. Afterward, King Herod slaughtered all the male children in Bethlehem under two years of age.

The family was forced to flee their residence and homeland for fear of persecution. As a baby, Jesus became a baby on the run, in effect, a homeless asylum-seeker in Egypt.

As an adult, Jesus commands us to care for the stranger. Yet today, there are millions who do not enjoy the privilege of freedom of movement and residence within their own country, nor the right to leave and return, nor the right to seek and enjoy asylum, even from danger or persecution. 

Homeless

Matthew 25:35-36 35. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36. I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.

Approximately 1.6 million children will experience homelessness over the course of a year. For any given day, researchers estimate that more than 200,000 children have no place to live. As recently as June, homelessness in the U.S. was estimated at between 750,000 and 1,500,000. In Columbus, the count of the nation’s homeless shows a continuing increase in the number of families with children who have no place to go. From July 1 to Sept. 30, the city’s shelter system hit its highest-ever occupancy rate for families. At the same time, barely a third of families who left shelters achieved a “successful housing outcome,” an all-time low.

First Community Church became involved with Friends of the Homeless men's shelter in the Fall of 1983 by providing a hot meal to this East Main Street shelter every Monday evening throughout the year—that’s hands-on volunteering for 38 years. This shelter currently houses 150 men and the Monday Meals volunteers have continued to provide meals throughout the pandemic. 

Our church involvement has extended beyond Monday Meals with our volunteers continuously providing not only food, but socks, gloves, toiletries, and multiple other necessities provided through donations for the Christmas Offering. In the past, the Friends of the Homeless helped provide air conditioning, a sheltered outdoor eating area, as well as replacing tables and chairs. 

Refugees

Deuteronomy 10:18-19 18 (God) executes justice for the orphan and the widow and shows love for the alien by giving food and clothing. 19 So show your love for the alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt… 

The U.S. Government has projected a 100% increase in the number of refugees for the upcoming year—an increase to 125,000. Since 1983, central Ohio has resettled 16,596 refugees from around the world, most arriving in the past decade, and, since 2002, nearly half of the refugees resettled in Ohio have come to Franklin County. The current events in the world underscore the humanitarian need to help those forced to start over.

The Refugee Task Force has a long history of assisting refugee and immigrant families with the transition into life in Columbus. Since 1977, they have worked closely with resettlement agencies such as CRIS (Community Refugee and Immigration Services) and UsTogether to sponsor new arrivals and to assist with emergency funds for expenses and unexpected costs not covered by federal assistance. They also help special needs situations, such as in-home English tutoring for those unable to attend group classes. The Refugee Task Force operates entirely on donations from the church and community. 

Donate to the Christmas Offering

The First Community Church has provided a variety of opportunities to make a donation to this Christmas Offering which will help support these two missions of our church.

• If making a donation by check, please indicate on the memo line “Christmas Offering”. Send a donation to First Community Church at 1320 Cambridge Blvd., Columbus, Oh 43212
• Donations can also be made online here. From the drop-down menus, please choose "Mission Designated Funds", then "Christmas Mission" in the Sub-Fund drop-down.
• A link to donate will be made available during worship when you check in on the Ministry One app. Details on downloading the app are available at fcchurch.com/giving/

Sunday, November 7

We would like to thank everyone who donated to Heart to Heart in worship on November 7. In total, we collected 396 pounds in donations. Thank you to our volunteers who spoke in each service including Julia Molnar, Nathan Narcelles, Bella Rish (and of course our Volunteer Coordinator, Yohan Kim)! We are grateful to the Caskie family for helping Yohan load up the donations from North Campus. Lastly, thank you to the awesome volunteers that came to South Campus to help us sort and stock the donations: Liam, Ashtin, and Joshua. We continue to be blessed by the generosity of First Community.

If you would like to make a donation online, please visit h2h.FCchurch.com/donate. A generous donor will be matching all donations made through December 31 up to $20,000.

Read the announcement here.

Donate online here.

Sign up to volunteer here.

As of November 22, we have received $9,845 in donations.

by Amy Caskie

Groups, families, and individuals are welcome to sponsor Heart to Heart families that request holiday assistance this year through the purchase of gifts. Sponsors will be asked to contact their sponsored family directly to get ideas for Christmas gifts and make arrangements for delivery or pick-up. More information is available online at h2h.fcchurch.com/christmas2021/. If you’re interested in sponsoring a family or families, contact hearttoheart@fcchurch.com.

For information about our holiday hours and closings, click here.

by Beth Hanson

Donations to the Trading Post (TP) don’t have to be in season at the time they are donated. So as we receive Christmas clothing, garlands, bulbs, stockings, ornaments, music, jewelry, books, mugs, Santas, nutcrackers, DVD’s, mangers, and such throughout the year, we pack them up and put them aside until our grand “Christmas Reveal” on November 1. 

This year, we amassed about 80 big plastic tubs of donated Christmas items for our voracious holiday clientele. This included a huge post-Christmas donation last year from Straders, thanks to Cheryl and Loren Van Deusen who have developed a relationship with them through our Share & Learn Garden. (These items have sold like hotcakes.) Christmas sales have been absolutely gangbusters and so as of this writing, we only have one tub of merchandise left to put out on the sales floor. Sales have more than doubled since November 1 compared to our usual months. This is fantastic news for the mission projects supported by our church. 

We will be open through Friday, December 17, so we still welcome your donations of Christmas things you no longer want as our once voluminous stock dwindles. Donations of Christmas items (or any items) can be dropped off on Monday, Wednesday, or Friday between 10 am and 4 pm in the Annex Building at South Campus. Just set it inside the front door. 

The Trading Post has quite a few “frequent flyers”. These are people who come in once or twice a week to see what new treasures have come in, and sometimes just to get a lift from our cheerful atmosphere. (I like to think of it as the Cheers of thrift shops…..where everybody knows your name.) One of these regulars spent a good portion of his life playing Santa along with his wife, aka, Mrs. Claus. In fact, we still call him Santa even though he recently retired from this gig after his wife died during the early days of the pandemic. After Mrs. Claus was hospitalized, Santa wasn’t even allowed to visit her in her final days, and she died without him ever seeing her again. It was so sad, and he seemed lost without her. Nonetheless, he continued to visit the TP weekly and he told us it was the only place he ever went due to the lockdown. 

Now he visits us a couple of times per week (with a mask over his white beard) to look around, and if nothing else, to sit and look through our bin of free magazines. Recently, I was passing by him as he perused our magazine collection and he said “I’m just sitting here in the library!” I laughed and told him to sit there as long as he liked and then I commented, “This is really your home away from home, isn’t it?” He got a wide smile on his face and said with much heart, “I just love this place.” Sometimes, we just need a familiar place to go where people know us and are glad to see us and take the time to show us human kindness. 

Last week, Santa followed me into the TP office with a brown envelope. (He never follows me into the office.) But he told me that he had been shredding his papers and came across the letters children had written to him as Santa, and he thought I would like to read them. I was honored. The letters were so cute and funny, as you can imagine. One of my favorites said, “Dear Santa, I want a new video game called Madden 15. I’ve tried to be good this year, even though my sister makes it hard. I’m not sure if she’s been good, she might need a piece of coal this year. Just being honest!!!!” One girl provided a copious list of 65 items she wanted. I imagine her going through a toy catalog and wanting something from each page. Another homemade card is pictured below. What a great rendition of jolly old St. Nick! 

This week, as another sign of trust and affection, Santa donated all of his late wife’s jewelry including all of her Christmas pins and earrings. It was so lovely. It reminded me of the days when people would bring items to the Garage Sale that held sentiment and they would entrust them to us to turn into comfort for someone else. It is a nice way to honor a loved one as opposed to just dumping things in a donation bin someplace. So you can see that we aren’t just a thrift shop, we are also a place for relationships to take hold and serve as a buoy when life gets rough. And that means for shoppers and volunteers alike! 

If you have never visited us, we would love to show you around. The store is in the basement of the Annex Building which is the brick building at the back of the South Campus parking lot. Again, our hours are 10 am to 4 pm, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and the first Saturday of each month (the next being Saturday, Dec. 4).  Call us with questions at (614) 488-6564.

P.S. Are you inundated with bags of all kinds? We can always use your clean paper grocery bags, Marc’s-style bags with handles made of oilcloth, and paper and cloth shopping bags with handles. Also, we can use small cardboard jewelry boxes and all sizes of the clear zippered bags that linens are often sold in. These can also be dropped off at the main door to the Annex Building. 

The prison ministry at First Community, Ministry of Presence, is looking for volunteers to correspond and visit with inmates on Death Row. Developing a one-on-one relationship with an inmate can feel daunting. Rylie McHam wants to ease anxiety for anyone that may be interested in this ministry:

A series of events lead me to FCC’s prison ministry the last was seeing a notice about it in the church bulletin. I reached out to Jeff Leister who was great. He explained the prison ministry is a ministry of presence requiring visitors to show up, be present and listen- no previous experience or particular skills are needed. He talked me through the process, what to expect when entering the prison and during the visit which was definitely helpful.

That was almost four years ago, and I have been visiting AJ, an inmate on death row, ever since. I visit monthly for about two hours. The conversation flows every visit, AJ does most of the talking and I listen, we talk about pretty much everything including- sports, politics, family, life in prison, and what life was like outside of prison. Our visits have impacted me in many ways. I certainly appreciate the power of being present and listening and have developed an increased appreciation for my own freedom and liberties. We meet quarterly as a group to share our experiences, which is always helpful.

I am happy to talk with you about my experience in more detail. If you’re interested in participating or learning more, please send an email to mission@fcchurch.com with your contact information.

by Kate Paulson

Happy Holidays from the Share & Learn Garden Group! 

Our gardeners recently wrapped up our productive 2021 season growing fresh produce and educating the adjacent daycare children about how plants grow. The Share & Learn Garden supplied about 800 pounds of fresh produce to Heart to Heart food pantry, and have ambitious plans to expand our harvest and education for the 2022 season!

We always welcome new volunteers and donations. If you wish to volunteer in 2022, please contact Kate Paulson and she will provide all the information you need to help out. 

If you would like to make a monetary donation you may do so online here. If making a donation by check, please indicate on the memo line “Share & Learn Garden”. Send a donation to First Community Church at 1320 Cambridge Blvd., Columbus, OH 43212

Peace to all of you this Holiday Season!

November 11, 2021

Dear Tandana Friends and Supporters,

You may have heard that the Tandana Foundation turns 15 this year! We invite you to join us in a live Zoom celebration to share in all that we have accomplished together and connect with our global community. The event will include a celebration of our favorite memories over the last 15 years and Cake Face Challenge. An online auction will be open from November 7 until the 14 and you can get special edition 15 Anniversary t-shirts or tote bags from now until the event, which will take place on November 14 at 4 pm eastern. 

Also attending the event will be Hawa Yalcouyé who was a literacy instructor for 3 years and is now coordinating our new scholarship program in Mali. She will be speaking about the literacy program and women's education. 

Register for the event here. Thank you for all you've contributed to Tandana over the last 15 years. We hope to see you on the 14!

All the best,

Emily Della Fera

Project Update Volunteer

Did you miss the last issue of On a Mission! blog? There's a great story from the Trading Post. View it, and all past issues, by clicking the link below.

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