| June 2025 Have you said it yet? The sentence that always comes around this year, “I can’t believe we are almost through the month of June!” or “Can you believe it’s already Summer?” Children are out of school. Farmers are in the field. Baseball and little games are in full swing. The smell of barbecue is in the air. These are sure signs that Summer is upon us. One thing that that ABC congregations do over the summer months is to collect the special offering called “One Great Hour of Sharing.” This is one of my favorite offerings that is collected ecumenically across many denominations. This year’s theme is Be the Light which focuses on Matthew 5, Jesus’s sermon on the mount. Giving to One Great Hour of Sharing is one way we can heed that call to BE THE LIGHT. When we participate in One Great Hour of Sharing, we shed light in places where circumstances make it difficult to imagine a future with hope. We create possibilities for people forced to flee their homes in search of safety and new promises. We support life-giving recovery efforts when disasters devastate communities and overturn lives. We empower partners around the globe in their labor to build sustainable futures. We plant seeds of peace where war has wrought despair and destruction. This certainly rings true for the Great Rivers Region. On Friday. May 16, an EF5 tornado hit Southern Illinois and an EF4 tornado hit the metropolitan city of St. Louis. Trees were down, homes were destroyed, and many churches were damaged beyond repair. Basic needs humanitarian aid of food, clothing, and shelter is needed. I put out a call to our national partners to see if emergency could be given to our churches that were hit and congregants that were hit by this natural disaster. I learned recently that One Great Hour of Sharing funds of $10,000 will be coming to the Great Rivers Region. This is the result of your giving to this offering in year’s past so that emergency aid can go to those devastated communities. It will be a long journey of recovery, and we can request more long-term funding later along in the process. You and your congregation can help give to the GRR Tornado Relief Fund by sending it to the Great Rivers Region. 100% of your giving will go to those who are hungry and need supplies right here in the Great Rivers Region. Thank you for your generosity! “Here is another way to put it: you are here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We are going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light bearers, you do not think I am going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I am putting you on a light stand. Now that I have put you there on a hilltop, on a light standing! Keep an open house; be generous with your lives.” (Matthew 5:14-16, The Message) |
A word from Executive Minister, Rev. Patty King Bilyeu
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