Thanks to all the Plymouth Volunteers

We couldn’t have done it without you! This year we fed over 50 people at Plymouth on Stewart and about 100 at Ann Simons. More importantly we provided a home-like setting and a platform for folks, who recently were living on the streets, to make healthy connections with their neighbors and begin their own holiday traditions.

Each of you contributed to what became a Thanksgiving feast and your generosity touched many lives.

Check some of the photos from the luncheon at both Plymouth on Stewart and Ann Simons that are on the blog.

With Gratitude,

Elaine Bolger

Thanksgiving at Plymouth

Thanksgiving Dinner at Simons Senior Apartments

The Kitchen Crew at Simons

Signing our names at the church at the end of our Mexico Missions Trip

Inside the church-Mexico Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Trip to Mexico-We're done!

Mexico Thanksgiving

Susan Williamson and Kelly Ferrell hammin' it up. Brett Mills reviewing plans.

Mexico Thanksgiving

The foundation of church is the shape of a cross from an aerial view.

Mexico Thanksgiving

Walls are going up.

Thanksgiving Trip to Mexico

The church is in a small valley surrounded by homes we've built on previous trips.

Thanksgiving dinner for First Place

Thanksgiving Food Baskets for 65 Families of the First Place School were delivered today.

Earlier this month MIPC Missions & Children’s Ministry entered into a partnership with The First Place School in Seattle.

First Place is a service agency devoted to educating and nourishing children whose families struggle with the risk or reality of homelessness. They not only offer classroom education to children in K-6th grade but also housing and support services to the children and their families enabling them to achieve permanent stability.

Our first project was to provide a Thanksgiving food bag to 65 First Place families. M.I.P.C.’s children were asked to donate non-perishable food items such as canned cranberry sauce, yams and pie filling and other items such as stuffing mix and gravy. Cash donations were encouraged so turkeys could be purchased. Other turkeys were donated by M.I.P.C.’s congregation members and their friends. M.I.P.C.’s children decorated notes to the First Place families that were included in the food bags.

Today M.I.P.C.’s staff, families and friends assembled 65 bags of food and loaded the bags along with 65 turkeys into a church van and delivered them to the First Place School. The plan is to hand them out to families as they attend parent/teacher meetings this week. We were greeted at the school by several staff members who helped us unload and expressed their appreciation. We were even lucky enough to watch a couple of families receive their Thanksgiving surprise. An early Thanksgiving gift to us!

Elaine Bolger, Missions Committee

Reconciliation: Poverty, Privilege, Race, Religion, Power

If you have time or inclination, please come to the 9:15 Pressing Issues CE classes at MIPC. I just picked up the book by John Perkins, "Let Justice Roll Down" after hearing Tali Hairston, Director of the John Perkins Center for Reconciliation, Leadership training, and Community Development (at SPU) speak today. He will be speaking here at MIPC again on December 6th -- the Poverty & Privilege series is Dec. 6th, 13th, and 20th.

Don't miss this opportunity!

Susan Stanley, IJM Team Leader

World Wide Movement to End Modern Day Slavery

Just today we received word from Int'l Justice Mission that they have thus far distributed 2,478 "At the End of Slavery: The Battle for Justice in Our Time" kits for screenings of this documentary. Of the 2,478, nearly 700 individuals, churches, or organizations have registered their screenings, and nearly 41,000 people are expected to attend (or have attended).

Thus, MIPC is one of the first to participate in this world-wide movement to end the scourge of modern-day slavery and sex trafficking.

Susan Stanley (IJM-MIPC Team Leader and IJM Justice Advocate)

Ten Thousand Villages Sale Results

MIPC's Ten Thousand Villages Sale, November 5-8, raised $25,500 to support crafts people in Asia, Africa, and South America. In addition, $2,422 in Washington state tax went to fund schools and infrastructure in Washington state.

A special thank you to Rand & Judy Ginn, Carol Fielding, and Marnie Holen who successfully led this major event.

Receive the Thankfulness Plymouth Housing has Given Us

Kelly Nelson, Plymouth Team Leader, reported today that Plymouth Housing is so thankful for our partnership with them. Since MIPC adopted Plymouth on Stewart and Simons Senior Apartments, Plymouth has created a new staff position to be in charge of recruiting other churches and community organizations to adopt one of their houses. When a new organization offers to participate, they are trained using MIPC as a model Plymouth told us.

I think this speaks to the commitment and compassion of our Plymouth volunteers and to the way they care for the people at Plymouth and want the best for them. And for that, all of us can be thankful.

Sixty Six Million is Too Many

“In 2007, nearly 66 million girls did not have access to education in communities across the world. As these girls grow up, they join the ranks of illiterate girls, increasing the gender gap between men and women...Girls who are denied access to education are more likely to be trapped in a cycle of poverty and disease, forced into child marriage and prostitution, become victims of sex trafficking, domestic violence, and so-called honor killings.”

Jordano Confino, Girls Learn International
As quoted in Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristoff and Sheryl WuDunn

Our Mission Partner in Cambodia

Servants to Asia's Urban Poor and TASK, the localized Cambodian organization, is our mission partner in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. In addition to administering our scholarship program, TASK works in many ministries in the slums of Phnom Penh. For example, through their HIV/AIDS Education Program they provided quality education to 6,495 young people who are students, garment factory workers, taxi drivers, or unemployed. The 16 hour class also teaches about sexually transmitted diseases, reproductive health, drug impact and prevention, and gender issues and domestic violence. They are truly a blessing to the poor in Phnom Penh.

Is Education Too Expensive?

"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance."

-Derek Bok, former president of Harvard University, as quoted in Half the Sky

The Impact of School Uniforms

"One way to reduce pregnancies is to subsidize school uniforms for girls. That keeps them in school longer, which means that they delay marriage and pregnancy until they are better able to deliver babies. A South African study found that giving girls a $6 uniform every eighteen months increases the chance that they would stay in school and consequently significantly reduced the number of pregnancies they experienced."

-From Half the Sky, Nicholas Kristoff & Sheryl WuDun

The Child Academy, in Tembisa South Africa, just began purchasing uniforms for their students.

More on Educating Girls

"The single most important way to encourage women and girls to stand up for their rights is education, and we can do far more to promote universal education in poor countries."

-From Half the Sky, Nicholas Kristoff & Sheryl WuDun

The New Afterschool Tutoring Center in Tijuana

As part of the scholarship program in Mexico, students attend an afterschool tutoring center for help with their homework. Although there are twenty scholarship students, almost 40 children go to the center for homework help. The following pictures were taken at the center during MIPC's recent Mens' Housebuilding Trip. Rosa, pictured above, runs the tutoring center for the children.

Another reason why MIPC focuses on educating girls in the world

"Traffickers tend to prey on uneducated peasant girls precisely because they are the ones most likely to obey orders and resign themselves to their fate."

-from Half the Sky, Nicholas Kristof & Sheryl WuDun

Missions focus on educating girls

"It appears that more girls have been killed in the last 50 years, precisely because they were girls, than men were killed in all the wars of the 20th century."

From Half the Sky, Nicholas Kristoff & Sheryl WuDun

Why MIPC focuses on educating girls in the world

"Every year at least another 2 million girls worldwide disappear because of gender discrimination."

-from Half the Sky, Nicholas Kristof & Sheryl WuDun