Newsletter
Howard-Miami Mennonite Church
3976 East 1400 South
Kokomo, IN 46901-8849
June, 2017
Vol. 35 Issue 12
Listen to God, Be a Blessing
Proverbs 11:24-26
Some give freely, yet grow all the richer;
others withhold what is due, and only suffer want.
A generous person will be enriched,
and one who gives water will get water.
The people curse those who hold back grain,
but a blessing is on the head of those who sell it.
I have been reading through the book of Proverbs
recently (which I would highly encourage everyone to
do every year), and these verses jumped off the page
at me. They are a good reminder of how life works:
those who are generous are shown generosity, and
those who are stingy are met with stinginess. God
instructs us to share what we have been given. And
not just so we are shown favor when we are in need,
but so others have what they need.
We must, of course, balance the call to give
sacrificially with knowing our own boundaries. In his
earthly flesh, Jesus was not able to help everyone
who was in need. Jesus had to choose what towns he
would stop in and how long he would stay. Even
when people needed him, he would go off to rest.
We all have limits that we need to pay attention to.
But we should not let our limits keep us from being
generous with our time, our money, and our love. We
give as we are able, with the hope that our generosity
will bring back glory to Jesus Christ.
We have several opportunities this month to be
generous. One giving opportunity that I want to
encourage you to pray about is the Maconaquah
Buddy Bag program that is just getting off the
ground. Jessie Myers and Sarah Schlegel from
Howard-Miami, along with Louisa Haigh and Lisa
Duke from McGrawsville United Methodist have been
working hard to get the pieces in place for this. There
will be plenty of volunteer opportunities, but what
we need right now is funding! We need to raise about
$13,000 to start this program for the Kindergarten
grade. With $26,000, we could add First Grade in our
first year. The hope would be to see it expand to
Second Grade and beyond in the future.
Now, $13,000 sounds like a lot of money. That is
$130 per student for the year to receive a bag of food
each weekend during the school year (including food
for 6 meals and 1 snack). We are estimating there
could be 100 students per grade receiving Buddy
Bags.
If every household sponsored one child for $130, and
about half of the households at Howard-Miami
sponsored a second child, we would reach the
$13,000 mark. Add donations from McGrawsville and
the community and… well, I’m getting goosebumps!
If you can’t give $130, give what you can in money,
time, and prayer. We need an ample supply of all
three! And if God is laying it on your heart to sponsor
3, or 5, or 10 students, then do that, too! We know it
is not the amount we give that matters, but
responding in faithfulness to what God is leading us
to do, whether $1.30 or $13,000!
We will be receiving a special offering for the Mac
Buddy Bags on Sunday, June 11. My dream is to see
that offering hit $13,000—and I believe we can do it!
If you can’t be here that day and want to donate,
write a check and put “Buddy Bags” in the Memo
line. We will accept those checks any time before or
after June 11! Our hope is that this will be an ongoing
program for years to come.
There are a few other opportunities to give, and you
can read about these in the newsletter. First,
Serve Together Weekend, churches serving together
in Kokomo and Howard County, June 10-11. Second,
MCC My Coins Count. This is the 50th year of the MCC
Sale, and the planners have
set a goal of collecting $500,000 for My Coins Count,
and Third, Summer Bible School. What an awesome
way to volunteer your time and prayers and teach
the next generation about the life-changing power of
the good news of Jesus Christ.
On Fridays of each week, we'll deliver the bags to the
classrooms and teachers will distribute them to the
children as they leave.
May the Lord lead you as you share your blessings
with your community and the world!
The food is delivered on large skids that are usually
plastic wrapped and not separated. We'll need a few
people that are willing to tear those skids down and
separate Maconaquah food from other orders. This
will also help our group when we pack Buddy Bags for
Kokomo schools on the 1st Wednesday of each
month.
Pastor Ben
MAC BUDDY BAGS FACTS
Fact: Over 300,000 children in Indiana alone do not
know where their next meal is coming from. That’s 1
in every 7 children.
Fact: In Miami County 14% of our population is food
insecure (Over 5,000 people in Miami County don’t
know where their next meal is coming from)
What Can I Do?
We need people in several areas for this
program to function and be successful.
Those areas are:
1. Unpack food from the warehouse in
Kokomo
2. Transport food from Kokomo warehouse to the
Mac School location for storing.
If you have a truck or trailer, we
need you here!
Fact: 70% of Pipe Creek Elementary
School kids are on free or reduced
lunches. That’s about 300 kids. And this
number is only rising.
3. Pack Buddy Bags!
Fact: Mac El has a 60% rate of students on free or
reduced lunches. This is about 500 kids.
4. Deliver Buddy Bags
What are we going to do?
It is our goal to provide "Buddy Bags" to all qualifying
Kindergarten students at Pipe Creek. (If enough
funding comes in, we'd like to extend this to 1st
grade.)
What's a Buddy Bag?
A Buddy Bag is a double bagged plastic sack (your
usual Wal-Mart or Meijer sacks) filled with six meals
and one snack for the child's weekend. These are
light items such as mac-n-cheese, a can of soup,
oatmeal pouches, etc.
How will we do it?
We are partnering with Kokomo Urban Outreach.
They will order all the food from Meijer for just above
wholesale prices, and we'll pick it up, pack it up, and
send it out!
We have secured a location to store all the food in a
room at one of the Maconaquah Schools. We will
store and pack the food in this room.
Once or twice a month we will need people to come
to Maconaquah School and pack the bags, pray over
the bags and get them ready for delivery)
Every Friday, we'll need someone to help deliver the
bags to the school and place the right number of bags
at each classroom door. These volunteers will be
required to receive a background check from Pipe
Creek prior to serving.
5. Donate Plastic Bags!!
We will need plastic bags got both out packing
in Kokomo and for Maconaquah.
6. Participate in Fundraising
If you have connections, connect us! We are looking
for people or businesses that may be willing to
partner with us in doing a fundraiser or sponsorship
for the program! We also would love to hear of some
fundraising ideas that we may be able to do. We need
to raise $6,500 by the end of July! But we will need
continued financial support to keep this program
going each year!
Mennonite Women
Sewing
May 4, 2017
As usual, on the first Thursday of the month,
fourteen ladies gathered on a cool rainy day to
do the work of Mennonite Women as has been
done for many, many years. President Jeanie
Miller called us together for a time of
business and devotions. She opened
with a poem about spring although it
hardly seemed like spring outdoors. She then
led in an opening prayer, remembering ones from
the church with health issues as well as our
nation and leaders of our country.
Our project for the month was to purchase
pillows and send to Camp Amigo for the summer
camping season. Our June project will be
Hygiene (health) kits for MCC. Jeanie
also read a thank you note from
Birthright of Kokomo for the diapers we gave
them.
Linda Mast then led in devotions. She noted
that the day was also National Day of Prayer. It
is a law the President shall declare the
first Thursday of May as the National
Day of Prayer. This law was put into
effect by President Reagan. She then
read the prayer written by Ann Graham Lotz for
the National Day of Prayer. Linda then turned
the focus to Mother’s Day. We all have mothers
for whom we are grateful for the many things
they taught us and for the prayers offered up
on our behalf. She also shared a Mother’s Day
meditation by Ann Voscamp.
Two comforts were completed.
More stitches were added to the
quilt. Boxes from the Rescue
Mission were sorted. We keep
what we can use and pass on to others what we
don’t use. It is always interesting to see what is
in those boxes. A sack lunch was enjoyed. Be
sure to pack one next month also!
Linda Mast, Secretary
Saturday, June 10
7:00 a. m.
Come and enjoy a good meal, a good
message and good fellowship!
CONGTATULATIONS
Graduation Open House!
Aryin Ray will be graduating from High School and
you are invited to an open house on Saturday June
10, from 1-5 p.m. at Carey & Teresa Miller’s, 1769 E
1200 S. Kokomo.
Marianna Gibson is graduating from High School
and you are invited to an open house on Sunday,
June 11, 2-6 p.m. 951 S 700 W Swayzee, IN (the
Gibson home)
SUMMER BIBLE SCHOOL
Digging for Treasure!
Stories of Discovering Jesus
Treasurers’ Update
2017 Year-to-date: May 7-28
Offerings…………$78,353.05
Expenses……………. $ 64,971.00
Budget……………….. $ 75,806.94
Average Weekly Offering …..$ 3,561.50
May 7
72
May 14
71
May 21
78
May 28
75
2017 Yearly Average: 96
Sunday, June 11 through
Thursday, June 15, from 6-8:45
p.m., for children ages 4 through
grade 8.
Come join us for Summer Bible School as we dig
into Jesus’ parables and find the treasure in his
words. At first, Jesus’ parables seem simple. But it
takes listening and digging deeper to discover the
treasures of the kingdom of heaven.
Through worship, crafts, activities, lessons, and
snacks, we will learn more about the lessons Jesus
has for us, by digging into his parables
June Sermon Texts
The month of June includes texts for
“The year of story”
Date:
Texts and Theme
June 4: Psalm 139:1-4, 23-24 - A Spiritual Check-up
June 11: Matthew 13:10-17 - Digging for Treasure
June 18: John 5:36-42 - Knowing the Father
June 25: Jeremiah 20:7-13 - "To you I have
committed my cause
A sign-up sheet for kitchen helpers and playground
/recess helpers will be at the Information Center.
“HIDDEN MINISTRIES”
One of our not-so-hidden ministries is our Worship
Leaders. Each week, someone leads us through
worship. They share announcements and prayer
requests, and lead us in a time of prayer. They remind
us why we have gathered and why we give money in
the offering. They gather us together around the Bible
story for the day. They remind us that we have come
to worship Jesus.
Although we see these people each week, a lot of
work goes into their preparation, so they can be ready
to point us to Jesus. We are so thankful for each
person who serves as a Worship Leader. It's not easy
to stand in front of a large group of people, but these
people do a great job helping us prepare our hearts
for worship each week!
HOWARD-MIAMI HERITAGE SOCIETY
JUNE 27, 2 P.M.
Where: Howard-Miami Mennonite Church
How & why did Mennonite families migrate to
this area after immigrating to the United State of
America? The Jacob Hochstetler family who came
to the United States in the early 1700’s will be
highlighted this month.
July 2-5 Evana gathering at Taylor University
July 6 Women’s Sewing & Fellowship 9 am-3 pm
July 9 Howard Co. Fair Worship service 6 p.m.
July 8 Men’s Breakfast 7 a.m.
July 10 Howard Co. 4H fair starts
July 29 Community Picnic 5-7 p.m. Hamburgers &
Hot Dogs
2017 Peace Scholarship Awards
Banquet
(Pictured are speaker Elizabeth Troyer-Miller,
Lauren Ferguson, Jama Claxton, and Laurabeth
Landis.)
The 25th Annual Peace Scholarship Awards
Banquet was held at the Parkview Mennonite
Church on Sunday evening April 30, 2017. After the
meal, the program began with the reading of the
three winning essays on peace. From Western
High School and Grace Baptist Church, Jama
Claxton’s essay was titled, “The Search for
Fulfillment.” From Clinton Central High School and
Emmanuel Lutheran Church, Lauren Ferguson’s
essay was titled, “Peace in Law.” And from Home
School and Christ Covenant Orthodox Presbyterian
Church, Laurabeth Landis’ essay was
titled, “Preference for Peace.” Each winner received
a $500 scholarship to assist with college expenses.
Elizabeth Troyer-Miller, who works for Central
Mediation Center in Kearney, Nebraska and as a
trainer for the Nebraska Mediation Association,
spoke to us about her work at peacemaking in
families, congregations, and businesses. The
Peace Scholarship Essay Contest is a cooperative
program of Brethren, Friends, and Mennonite
Churches in and around Howard County Indiana.
“Study this picture of Lot and his family,” the Sunday
School teacher told her pupils. “He is being told to take
his wife and daughter and flee from Sodom. Now,
children, can you see anything else?”
After a moment, one of the students declared, “I can see
everything except the flea.”
From 1985 NL
Amigo Centre is a camp and retreat facility that
belongs to the IN-MI Conference congregations and
is located near Sturgis, MI. In its effort to be good
stewards of Amigo's resources and your resources,
Amigo Centre heats its three largest buildings with
wood from the Amigo property. Amigo is for all types
of groups--families, churches, business groups, and
more.
Amigo is special every season!
2017 Amigo Programs
Adult Programs
Camp Schedule Week 1
July 9-14. week 3
Discovery (ages 8-10
Encounter (ages 10-13)
July 16-21 week 4
Discovery (ages 8-10)
Encounter (ages 10-13)
Information on the Fellowship Hall bulletin board
Contact Information: phone: 269-651 2811 or write
[email protected] Visit their website at
http://www.amigocentre.org
For Amigo Centre, 2017
If you can help with a donation of
something listed below or the funds to purchase these
items... please contact our office at either (269) 6512811 or email [email protected]
*Funds to purchase needed kitchen equipment
*Campbell's Soup & Box-Top for Education labels
*Adirondack Chairs
*Phase 10 board game
*Last Word board game
*Lightweight sweeper
*Heavy duty binoculars
*Utility cart
*Black sunflower seeds ……….. *New bed pillows
*Surge protector power strips *Sm or mid- size car
*40 HP outboard boat motor.... *Pontoon trailer
*Canoes
*Working DVD players
Prayer and continued support for the ministry of Amigo
The work of Mennonite
Central Committee and
Michiana Mennonite Relief
Sale has been such a big
part of our lives as well as
the life of our church and
community for the past 50
years. This year is the
th
50 Michiana MCC Sale, and what better way to
celebrate than to make this year’s sale special. The
one way that will be happening is by giving to My
Coins Count. The goal this year is $500,000 which
is a way to say thank you to MCC for the work they
do around the world, and a way to celebrate what
the sale has meant to each of us and the
community over the past 50 years.
We are encouraging each of you to make a
one-time commitment, and not reduce the amount
you normally give to MCC throughout the year.
Yes this is big, especially when you
consider that My Coins Count raises around
$110,000 each year and yet together as churches,
businesses and as individuals we can reach this
goal of $500,000 for the work of MCC.
Ruth Andrews shares:
The “Fall Decorations” Booth has
been a part of the sale
for 49 years and was
facilitated by my
mother, Mary
Hochstedler, the
majority of these years. Over the
years the booth expanded by selling dried flowers,
grasses, premade and custom dried flower
arrangements, and other natural products as well
as traditional fall décor items.
This is another way (besides
pies and quilts) for people of all
ages to be involved in raising
funds for Mennonite Central
Committee relief efforts around the
world. From growing items to sell, helping set up or
tear down the booth, assisting during the sale or
making arrangements, there is
opportunity to have fun in this booth
for as little or as much time as you
wish. We encourage children to
assist alongside their parents.
See or call Ruth Andrews at 765-860-4047 if you
would like more information.
What: A weekend where the Church of Howard County
will serve together.
When: Opportunities to serve will occur the weekend of
June 10-11:
Saturday, June 10: 10am - 1pm
Saturday, June 10: 1pm - 4pm
Sunday, June 11: 10am - 1pm
Sunday, June 11: 1pm - 4pm
Where: We will serve at projects throughout Kokomo and
Howard County.
How: We will offer to partner with organizations and
individuals to develop projects that will help meet the
needs of our community. Many of the projects are home
repair and community clean up, though more types of
projects are being added.
Who: People from every congregation in Howard County
are invited to serve together.
Why: The purpose of this weekend is to validate and
demonstrate the reality of our love for God and for people
by serving and worshipping, together. On this weekend,
we will walk our talk. We want to live out the principle
presented by Jesus in Matthew 5 – “so they may see your
good works, and glorify your Father in heaven.”
For more information about the Serve Together weekend,
go to http://www.servetogetherkokomo.com/
To volunteer to work on a project, download the
CommunityHERO app, or talk to Pastor Ben.
Pavilion Pie Party
Wednesday, June 21, 7
p.m.
Wednesday, June 21 is the first day
of Summer and the longest day of the year. To celebrate,
you are invited to a Pavilion Pie Party.
We’ll eat pie in our new pavilion and
enjoy a long summer day together. This
event will begin at 7 p.m., and people
are welcome
to stay and
enjoy the
sunlight.
In order to make this event a
success, we need people to donate pies (home-made or
store-bought). Please sign up at the Information Center if
you’re able to contribute to this fun evening!
Save the date for a Comforter Bash!
Tops needed!
Make plans to join us on October 20 and 21 for the
Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Great Lakes
Comforter Bash in Goshen. People of all ages are
invited to knot comforters at Pleasant View Mennonite
Church (58529 County Road 23). We also need
precision sewers to piece and sew comforter tops for
the event. Size: 60"x80"; made of cotton fabric. Free
fabric is available from Nadine Zook Miller, Material
Resources Coordinator at The Depot. Contact her
at [email protected] or 574-534-4071. For more
information about the event contact Carol Honderich
at 574-536-9062. A handmade comforter provides not
only warmth but also a tangible message to people
that their needs are not forgotten.
OUR VISION
Howard-Miami Mennonite Church exists to love,
glorify and worship God, to love and serve others, to
share the Gospel, and to encourage each other to
become fully devoted followers of Jesus,
empowered by the Holy Spirit.
FROM THE ARCHIVES
From the June Newsletter, 1985
Happenings at Howard-Miami
 The Summer Bible School committee consisted of:
Pam Yoder, Miriam Bontrager, Ruth Ann Miller and
Elsie Myers.
 $80,000 was still needed to begin construction on the
new fellowship hall/education wing. A special offering
was to be taken on Sunday June 9. It was hoped that
the offering would help reach the $100,000 goal by
June 30. (We enjoy this facility today).
 The “Who’s Who” was Paul & Lona Myers
 The 1985 Graduates were Chris Sommers, Ted Love,
Scott Miller, Mick Sommers, Janet Miller, Marjorie
Bontrager, and Craig Spaulding. (Wow! Was it that
long ago)
 The 1985 Mennonite Church General Assembly and
Conventions were in Ames Iowa at Iowa State
University.
 Ray and Lillian Bair gave a “God’s Managers Seminar
at Howard Miami on June 22-23. Discussions were
held on “where does all the money go? And generosity
and commitment
 Ten (10) new books were added to the Library.
 A Mother-Daughter Tea was held May 13, and
attended by 103 mothers and daughters. The theme
was “Rainbows and Butterflies.” The Speaker was,
Murn Carroll a nanny from Shaker Heights, Ohio. The
reporter was Vada Saffer.
 7 Busy Bees, and sponsors (Mary Faye Birkey) had a 1
night retreat at Camp Amigo on May 3rd.
 There were 8 Sunday evening home fellowship groups
that were once again planning to meet the summer
months of June, July & August. Each group had
approximately 16 couples/singles-each host was the
leader.
 The task force for the Rosa Kauffman estate met in
May to complete their recommendation and present
to the congregation. A vote was to be taken June 9,
1985.
 Herb & Joyce Troyer moved to Pigeon MI where Herb
took the pastor position at Michigan Ave. Mennonite
church.
 Congratulations went out to Dale and Mary Faye
Birkey on the birth of their son Phillip Matthew. Phillip
was born May 24, 1985.
 The average attendance for the month of May was
228, average weekly offering was $1,512.00.
SUNDAY SERVICES:
Sunday School 9:30 a.m.
Worship Service: 10:30 a.m.
The Howard-Miami Mennonite Church Newsletter is published monthly
by Howard-Miami Mennonite Church at 3976 E 1400 S, Kokomo IN
46901. Phone: 765-395-7509 Office hours: 8-12, Mon-Thur. Pastors:
Ben & Sarah Schlegel Email: [email protected]
Website: www.howardmiami.org