Immanuel understands the importance of teaching our young about service to others. Thanks to our Christian Education department, our children are given several opportunities to give to those less fortunate locally and globally. Below are a few examples.
Lenten Projects are carefully selected and introduced to the children in a way they can relate to. Children earn dimes for completing tasks assigned to them by parents and other caring adults. Examples of past projects include chicks, pigs and other assorted animals from Heifer International. Our most recent project included Bio-gas stoves and tree seedlings from Heifer. Imagine our children's surprise when the following information from Heifer was shared with them... "Biogas Stoves for a Village - In many places where Heifer works, cooking usually means gathering firewood by hand for hours a day. A biogas stove is a better option. It runs off methane gas captured from animal waste, and it burns cleanly, reliably and efficiently. We remember their response being "Eeeewwwww."
For many years now, Immanuel's Sunday School kids have sponsored a canned food drive. The children promote and advertise the food drive, count cans and give weekly updates throughout the drive. The children's canned food drive benefits Emmaus Lutheran Food Pantry. These photos show what more than 2000 food/sundry items and over $900 in cash look like. Last year this was delivered to Emmaus.
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Tibetan Children's Village - This was such a popular children's Lenten project that it has become a full-time all-church project. Initially the project supported a girl from Bishop Ambalavanar Home in Sri Lanka. Since the civil war in that area is now over, the girls were returned to their families. We continue the project, now benefiting the Tibetan Children's Village. Each week a child takes 4 quarters from the offering and places it in an elephant bank. Ask any child, they can tell you the money goes to help a child in Tibet.
