Mira Mesa Presbyterian Church offers numerous opportunities for Christian mission. Our Mission committee supports a variety of mission activities and our Deacons support not only local community needs, but also mission work of the Presbytery.

This day, which is also World Communion Sunday, allows us an opportunity to gather as one body with Christians from around the world and to pray for unity with Christ and each other, as well as peace throughout the earth.

Christians are called to be God's peacemakers, as agents of reconciliation in families, individual lives, communities, churches, the international arena, and the whole of creation. Peacemaking is the human response to the divine gift of peace giving. The Peacemaking Offering supports the peacemaking efforts of the church at every governing body level and provides an opportunity to witness to God's gift of peace in the world.

In order to help the whole church respond to God's peace giving in the world, 25 percent of the Peacemaking Offering is retained by congregations for their support of their own peacemaking ministry; 25 percent is used to support presbytery and synod peacemaking efforts; 50 percent is forwarded to the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program of the General Assembly, so that it can continue to provide assistance and resources for congregations and other bodies of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

Our congregation will be donating our portion of funds received through the Peacemaking Offering (25%) to the Reality Changers. Reality Changers is a San Diego church-based program benefiting local at-risk children. Read more about the Reality Changers...

As always, Ladle Fellowship appreciates donations of blankets, men’s pants, socks, and shoes. In addition, they request toiletry/hygiene items such as soap, shampoo, toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant, etc.

Dates are announced in the Sunday bulletins and monthly church newsletter.

Heavenly Hands Bazaar Workshop
Want to contribute to the Heavenly Hands Bazaar but don’t know what to do? We have just the answer for you! Attend a community workshop and donate the items you make to the Bazaar! One of the community workshops led by an MMPC friend, is held monthly in the evening - see the monthly newsletter for details. There are also workshops held at MMPC - contact the church office for more information.

Please join us on the first and third Saturdays of each month in the conference room from 9:30 a.m. until noon. We invite you to join us. Prayers & Squares is open to anyone with an interest in meeting new people and working on prayer quilts for those in need of our prayers. No sewing experience necessary – there are plenty of non-sewing or novice jobs for everyone! Please join us – we’ll be happy to see you! If you have questions or would like to request a prayer quilt, prayer square or prayer bear, please speak to anyone involved in this prayer ministry. Check the Prayers & Squares Prayer Quilt Ministry website for all the latest information on the local and national level at www.prayer quilt.org.

Please contact the church office to verify dates -- sometimes the MMPC Prayers & Squares group makes alternate plans to go to a workshop at another church, or due to holiday schedules, they may, on occasion, cancel a meeting.

Pray for Our Deployed Military

As the Military deploys troops to Iraq, check the Narthex for a Patriotic Display where you can write the name of your deployed loved one on a paper star (you’re welcome to include a small picture on the star if you would like).

Please feel free to add the name for any deployed person you know! Then add the star to the display where we can all be reminded to pray for those close to our hearts during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Prayers & Squares Special Request for the Deployed Military Troop

The 2008 annual One Great Hour of Sharing offering is an annual offering, which provides an opportunity to gather as one body of Christians around the world to support our neighbors in need.

One Great Hour of Sharing began more than 55 years ago in response to the devastation of World War II. In March 1949, a national broadcast on a Saturday evening asked Americans to give generously the next morning in their churches. A remarkable assembly of national leaders and celebrities gave their efforts to the broadcast, and more than 75,000 churches responded the next day.

In terms of major, headline-grabbing disasters, it’s been a quiet year. After earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricanes have dominated the news for the last couple of years, it’s good to catch our breath and let the world concentrate on other important matters. Not that there haven’t been significant disasters – just that they’ve been quieter, more hidden: the suffering caused by poverty, lack of clean water, hunger, and disease has always been many times greater than that caused by natural disaster; but because they are chronic, there is no single moment when they catch our attention. Through One Great Hour of Sharing, we have been working with our neighbors around the world both to heal and rebuild after major cataclysms and to protect against the quieter disasters as well.

MMPC is honored to be a part of Genesis Diez. Missionary Greg Amstutz has visited us on numerous occasions to talk about this Christ centered ministry, which is bringing orphaned children in Mexico to know Christ. This ministry supports 3000 orphans in the 65 orphanages in Mexico, of which 20 they have direct involvement. Genesis is partnered with a couple of ranches in Baja California where these children (age 6-13), who are confined within the orphanage, can have family type experiences in the great outdoors for a day and up to a week. Some of these children have never seen the ocean, or experienced some of the simple gifts from God that we take for granted. Volunteers are needed to help staff these expeditions, and MMPC has been sending volunteers to help meet this need. Our group has served the ninos lunch, provided activities and come home with wonderful memories!!

You can access the Genesis Diez website at http://www.genesisdiez.org/.

There are SDMOM monthly steering committee meetings. The meetings are held at Faith Presbyterian Church near SDSU on the 1st Monday of the month between 7-8:30pm.

Volunteers are needed to help with their food and bread ministries. Thanks to generous donations of non-perishable food items, SDMOM sponsors monthly food distributions at various locations throughout the county. At food ministries, military families receive enough food items to see them through several days. Separate bread ministries are held weekly and provide bread and baked goods that are donated by stores and bakeries.

SDMOM accepts donations of new and used household items, furniture, children’s clothing, non-perishable foods and baby equipment. Due to legal and logistical limitations, SDMOM cannot accept used mattresses, waterbeds, sofa beds, or unusually large or heavy items. Military families can obtain items needed by visiting our warehouse during its regular hours. Any military family who benefits from warehouse items is encouraged to return the items (if they are in good condition) to SDMOM before transferring out of the area. Volunteers are needed to help in their warehouse office located nearby at Camp Elliot. Individuals are also needed to pick up furniture from donors and deliver it to the warehouse.

Mira Mesa Presbyterian Church has financially supported SDMOM for many years. Contact the church office for more information.

Reality Changes is one of the community groups that MMPC supports.

Since 1996, Christopher Yanov has worked as the youth director at the Hispanic Presbyterian Church of San Diego. The majority of the teens he first worked with were involved in a lifestyle dominated by drugs and gangs. As time progressed, Chris saw that poor academic results quickly opened the floodgates to a plethora of even more problems, including violence, vandalism, teen pregnancy, and even death.

All of these teens seemed desperate to find a way out of this situation, yet were still convinced that there was simply no other feasible way of life. To combat this "inner-city syndrome," Chris realized that a radically new sense of self must be instilled in young individuals before gangs and drugs capture them and lead them down the path of inevitable self-destruction. Indeed, in order to be successful, inner-city teens must change the reality that surrounds them.

Reality Changers creates a sense of community by selecting students who have strong personalities and are highly energetic, yet also have enough self-discipline to focus on their future. These traits are key to leadership formation and development.

Public speakers commonly say that if their speech reaches just one person in the room, the speech is entirely worth it. Reality Changers takes this concept one step further by taking that "one student" from an entire school’s worth of classrooms and puts them all together to form a group of highly motivated teens who encourage each other to succeed, both spiritually and academically.

RC VISIONS and GOALS

Reality Changers hopes to improve each member’s relationship with God (wherever that relationship may currently be) and send each member away to a four-year university upon completion of high school. Each member is expected to maintain a GPA of 3.0 or above and is given a computer if their family does not have one already. Also, each member must pass a random drug test administered at least once a year.

Reality Changers desires to send members with a 3.5 GPA or above to UCSD’s Academic Connections. Here, they live in college dorms for three weeks and earn college credit while still in high school. Tuition costs $3,000 per student and Reality Changers depends 100% on public support for funding.

Operation Christmas Child brings joy and hope to children in desperate situations around the world through gift-filled shoe boxes and the Good News of God’s love. This program of Samaritan’s Purse provides an opportunity for people of all ages to be involved in a simple, hands-on missions project while focusing on the true meaning of Christmas—Jesus Christ, God’s greatest gift. Along with shoebox gifts, millions of children are given Gospel booklets in their own language. Samaritan’s Purse collects shoe box gifts worldwide and distributes them to children in some 95 countries, including Sudan, Afghanistan, and Liberia.

What is Samaritan's Purse?

Samaritan's Purse is a nondenominational evangelical Christian organization providing spiritual and physical aid to hurting people around the world. Since 1970, Samaritan's Purse has helped meet needs of people who are victims of war, poverty, natural disasters, disease, and famine with the purpose of sharing God's love through His Son, Jesus Christ. The organization serves the Church worldwide to promote the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham, is currently serving as the organization’s president.

WHERE CAN I FIND MORE INFORMATION? Log on to the Samaritan’s Purse website at www.samaritanspurse.org.

How Can We Help?

After we announce the dates for Operation Christmas Child each November:

1. Find an empty shoe box. (You can wrap it—lid separately—if you would like, but wrapping is not required.)
2. Decide whether your gift will be for a boy or girl and choose an age category: 2-4), (5-9), or (10-14 years). (Please look for Operation Christmas Child brochures that contain gender/age labels for your box included in the November Spirit, or the Narthex.)
3. Fill your shoe box with a variety of age-appropriate gifts.
4. Fill out the label within the brochure that indicates the gender and age classification for your gift, and tape this label to the top of your box.
5. Place a check to cover shipping (amount is announced each year) made out to Samaritan’s Purse at the top of your box.
6. Put a rubberband around the box to keep it closed.

For the person who seems to have everything or, or for the opportunity to buy authentic life-giving gifts for a needy world consider Alternative Gifts International.

On Sundays in November and December, MMPC family and friends shop at the AGI table after Sunday church services. There, they find gift catalogues, shopping lists, and further information. A gift card and insert are provided for all donations. There are gifts available for $4 up to $4,400 that makes it the perfect opportunity to shop for all the people in your life.