Mission society responds to world needs

An auxiliary organization of Lutheran Church–Canada (LCC) is still at work despite a significant decrease in donations. Terry Goerz, president of Concordia Lutheran Mission Society (CLMS) believes donor fatigue could be a factor in the decline of funding.

Despite its financial situation, CLMS has just completed funding two international projects in Ukraine and Thailand.

CLMS supports a team of Lutheran young adults who bring God's Word to orphans in Ukraine

 The society sent $1500 to Ukraine to support an outreach to orphans. LCC missionary Pastor Alexey Narvrotskiy, along with Christian students has established a ministry with children in an orphanage in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine. The funds from CLMS will pay for transportation, craft supplies, and other materials.

A second project is an agricultural venture in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. To reach out to children and their families who sell recyclable materials from the garbage dump, a deaconess will use $2000 to establish a fish farm and a watercress plantation. Profits will buy educational material for the children, help fund social ministry, and supply income for a local Lutheran congregation. (See video below)

 CLMS recently helped build a seminary in Odessa, Ukraine, where classes began on September 1 for eight students. (Read more here)

 A grant of $10,000 helps support a children’s outreach project in the villages of Phum Sa Tueng and Ban-Choke-Nia, northeast of Bangkok, Thailand. Boarding school accommodations for three girls, as well as food and Christian teaching for another forty children, are part of this ministry, which is designed to keep young women off the streets.

CLMS adopted 19 projects for 2010. The organization relies on gifts from members of Lutheran Church–Canada congregations to support its work. Formed in 1997, the society works closely with Lutheran Church–Canada and its partner churches around the world, to support various missionary, educational and social ministry projects. To discover more CLMS and how to support its projects, visit www.concordiamissions.org.

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