2017–2019 Mission Grant — Mercy House for Women and Children — $100,000
Being assigned my deaconess internship at Our Savior Lutheran Church in Flint, Michigan, was an eye-opening experience. My home in rural northwest Missouri was very different from this city of 200,000 where auto manufacturing and its related industries employed the majority of the population. Yet homelessness, unemployment, and poverty crept into the landscape of the city as the auto industry experienced a downturn during the 1970s.
The challenges of living in Flint were compounded four decades later with the Flint water crisis. Lead-tainted water had been allowed to flow through the drinking water pipes, causing additional hardships for the residents. The social problems that arose seemed insurmountable.
People at the Franklin Avenue Mission in Flint sought to shine God’s light into the community by meeting the needs of their poverty-stricken neighbors. They established Mercy House, a safe place for homeless, pregnant and/or abused women and their children. The facility seeks to break the cycle of poverty and decrease the potential for abuse by housing women and children in a safe, caring, Christian environment, where parenting and relationship building can be modeled. The long-term transitional housing facility received a $100,000 LWML Mission Grant at the 2017 Albuquerque convention to be used to renovate and furnish the residence.
Our Mite Box contributions have helped Franklin Avenue Mission and the Mercy House positively impact the lives of those receiving care through their programs. Thank you for giving generously this Giving Tuesday, December 3.
Our country celebrates Thanksgiving Day in November. We have much for which to be thankful! Our highest thanksgiving comes from the gift of Jesus, our Savior. God has given us everything in Christ; and, therefore, we thank and praise Him, serve and obey Him, and devote ourselves to His service.
Flying to the LCMS convention last July, a passenger across the aisle noticed my LWML socks. The resulting conversation confirmed that both of us were headed to Tampa. A new sister in Christ! We are now Facebook friends and the picture she took of my socks appeared on her Facebook page.
Scroll down this home page and click on the “Shop LWML” box at the bottom. Discover something you might like to wear that would speak of your faith and the LWML. 
At the age of 98 years and nine months, it seemed like Esther would be with us forever, but God called her home while she was resting on the couch. She was one of the first people I met when I moved here 40 years ago to serve as the parish deaconess. Her gift of hospitality was well known, as was her jello fluff salad brought to all church functions.
