On Christmas Eve, everyone is invited to the celebration – Joy to the World, the Lord is come! Pre-service music begins at 6:45 pm, and worship begins at 7 pm. This family-friendly service includes the lighting of the Christ Candle – brought to you by our Live Advent Wreath! The choir will sing, the musicians will play, and we’ll join together in lighting our candles and singing Silent Night.
Part of our Christmas Eve tradition is to celebrate God’s gift to us through gifts to our neighbors: both local and global. This year, as the Outreach Team considered the many needs in our world, we were reminded of the majesty of God, made flesh in a tiny, vulnerable baby. With this focus, the Outreach Team selected these projects to receive equal shares of the Christmas Eve offering.
The International half will go to the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo), by way of David Radcliff’s New community Project, for help in training 50 midwives in the face of an on-going crisis in maternal/newborn care. Indeed, a woman dies in childbirth every 25 minutes in the DRC, according to the World Health Organization, and women’s lifetime risk of dying in the birthing process is 1 in 24. Almost 5% of the country’s newborns die at birth or immediately after. A two-month training for 50 women costs $1,500; Practitioner’s Kits containing disinfectant, gloves, and other essentials are $40/midwife.
The Local half of the offerings will go to the Parish Resource Center for Baby Kits. The Parish resource Center has been working with Union Community Care, the medical provider for many low-income folks in Lancaster and Lebanon Counties. They have requested Baby Kits to provide new moms with essentials to start them out right. The Outreach Team has decided to contribute money to help them provide as many gifts as possible. The current need is 25 Kits per month with pending requests to expand the program to provide even more. When a new mother and baby are released from the hospital, they can be sent home with a diaper bag full of basics to get them started.
Offerings can be made online by clicking in the green Tithe.ly button in the upper right. Simply select “Christmas Eve Offering” from the drop down menu. Thank you for your generosity as we anticipate together the birth of the Christ child.