Local MISSION PARTNERS
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Feed My Starving Children (FMSC)
763.504.2919
FMSC’s Mission: Feeding God’s Starving Children Hungry in Body and Spirit
FMSC’s Vision: With God’s help Feed My Starving Children (FMSC) will strive to eliminate starvation in children throughout the world by helping to instill compassion in people to hear and respond to the cries of those in need.
Feed My Starving Children (FMSC) was founded as a Christian nonprofit in 1987 through the efforts of a Minnesota businessman who felt called by God to help feed the starving children of the world during a humanitarian visit to Honduras. He returned to the Twin Cities (Minnesota) to develop a method of large-scale relief. In 1989, FMSC connected with food scientists from Cargill and General Mills to develop a nutritional product especially for FMSC to feed starving children. This food product included rice, soy, vegetables, a vegetarian-based chicken flavoring, and a vitamin and mineral mix. Food scientists continue to update the formula.
Global Health Ministries - Helping the Hands That Heal
763-586-9590
Global Health Ministries is an independent Lutheran ministry that provides medical training, builds capacity and ships supplies and equipment to some of the world’s poorest people in hospitals and clinics around the world. Donated medical supplies are sorted, inventoried, packed and shipped all over the world. Financial gifts provide money to train medical personal, support clean water projects, send consultant teams to build a partner’s capacity to manage effectively, pay for the cost of shipping supplies via ocean freighter, and provide hospice and newborn kits to developing countries.
Lutheran Social Services
651.642.5990 or 1.800.582.5260
LSS helps Minnesotans by providing a wide range of human support services related to the basic necessities of life: Food and shelter, physical health and safety, and emotional and spiritual well being.
Mission: Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota expresses the love of Christ for all people through service that inspires hope, changes lives, and builds community.
Vision: All people have the opportunity to live and work in community with dignity, safety, and hope.
Since 1865, Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota has responded to Minnesota’s changing needs by being wholly committed to making life better for our most vulnerable citizens. Our work is grounded in two principles — God loves everyone without condition and God yearns for us to love the neighbor.
Bloomington Meals On Wheels
www.bloomingtonmealsonwheels.com 952.835.1665
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Bloomington Meals on Wheels is a non-profit service that delivers hot, nutritious, mid-day meals to people who are elderly or disabled, home-bound and unable to manage their own meal preparation. TLC supports Meals on Wheels by providing drivers who deliver the meals once every six weeks. TLC also supports Meals on Wheels with a financial contribution which helps cover the cost of meals for residents who cannot afford to do so themselves. The meals are picked up at St. Stephen Lutheran Church at 84th and France at 11:00 am. It is a very flexible volunteer opportunity as drivers are contacted by a coordinator to determine their availability.
www.mealsonwheelsamerica.org 888.998.6325
The Meals On Wheels America is the oldest and largest national organization composed of and representing local, community-based Senior Nutrition Programs in all 50 U.S. states, as well as the U.S. Territories. These local programs are our MOWA Members.
Volunteers Enlisted to Assist People (VEAP)
952.888.9616
VEAP’s Mission: Neighbors serving neighbors in need.
VEAP’s Vision: Improving the lives of people in the community.
VEAP founders believed that helping a neighbor in need ultimately strengthens the community. VEAP has been operating under this principle for 35 years, providing a range of services such as Minnesota's largest food shelf, transportation needs, back to school supplies, holiday toy store, summer youth food program, nutrition education and an on-site teaching kitchen to help low-income people meet immediate needs and reach their long-term goal of stability. Today, VEAP serves the residents of Bloomington, Richfield, Edina and South Minneapolis utilizing a unique mix of professional and volunteer services.
VEAP and Hennepin County Social Service offices share the same location for the ease of those needing assistance from both entities at: 9600 Aldrich Avenue South, Bloomington MN 55431.
GLOBAL MISSION PARTNERS
ELCA Global Missions
800.638.3522
www.elca.org/Our-Work/Global-Church/Global-Mission
The church does not have a mission—the mission of God has a church! God is n charge of God’s mission to the world. The ELCA’s tagline, “God’s work, our hands” unfolds this understanding. God drives the mission, and invites us into relationship to love and serve one another. With hundreds of other church bodies that collaborate in mission, the ELCA joyfully accepts God’s invitation. Through our hands, heart, and feet, God creates and nurtures the relationships that are instruments for reconciliation in God’s creation.
ELCA Global Mission’s overall goal is to increase the capacity of both the ELCA and its companions in other countries to participate in God’s reconciling mission through proclamation and service.
The ELCA is part of the global “family” of 141 Lutheran churches that belong to the Lutheran World Federation. Within our global family, the ELCA has deeper, more intentional, bilaterial “companion church” relationships with many of these national Lutheran church bodies. The ELCA Global Mission unit is responsible for the ELCA’s mission outside the United States, and serves as the channel through which churches in other countries engage in mission to our church.
The ELCA’s global relationships are deepened by the ELCA Companion Synods Program, which pairs ELCA Synods with companion church bodies and dioceses around the world. This means that thousands of ELCA members are also engaged in global relationships through their congregations and synods, visiting one another, providing the roofs of new church buildings, inviting choirs to visit, making quilts, and more.
Our ELCA Missionary Sponsorship—Steve & Bethany Friberg
Steven and Bethany (left side of photo) and their family are serving in Tanzania. Steve is a doctor who works in medial clinics that serve nomadic Maasai people in remote areas. Bethany works with the "Bead Ladies"--Maasai women who have a small business of creating beadwork to provide a means of supporting themselves and their families.