New Journey Lutheran Church in Fountain Hills recently wrapped up two Easter season projects, raising funds for two programs that provide shelter and sustenance for those in need.

A total of $760 raised will go to Casa de la Misericordia y de Todas las Naciones, a shelter for asylum seekers in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, that supports mainly women and children while their asylum claims are processed.

A donation of $465 will go to the ELCA Good Gifts program which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year to support sustenance needs worldwide including farm animals, environment-friendly water filters and cookstoves and family mosquito netting.

Thanks again to all who have participated in our "donor choice" projects in support of Casa de la Misericordia y de Todas las Naciones asylum shelter and/or ELCA Good Gifts. These projects will conclude on Sunday, May 5. As of April 28, you have topped $1000 with $600 for Casa and $425 for Good Gifts. "Awesome!"

The NE Valley Consortium is collaborating to bring new and gently used books, preferably for children including teens, to Living Water Lutheran Church Vacation Bible School. Check your shelves and closets, maybe the 50 cent children's book basket at the Fountain Hills Library, or bargain bins elsewhere and bring books to church between May 12 and June 16. For some children and youth, this may be the first book they have ever personally owned.

Reminder: Our 2024 Summer Heat Respite Lunch Packs for Grace Lutheran kick off at 9:00 a.m. on June 17 in New Journey's fellowship space. All who wish to join are welcome; we should complete 200 lunches in 30-35 minutes. Our later dates are Monday, July 1; September 8 (God's Work. Our Hands. Sunday); and Monday, September 16.

Have you hatched your eggs? Or, gotten your goat? New Journey’s Spring 2024 donor choice projects are underway! There are many useful items of impact that you can contribute to ELCA Good Gifts and/or Casa de la Misericordia y de Todas las Naciones asylum shelter by Sunday, May 5. Place your envelopes in the collection plate or contribute to New Journey on-line, clearly designating the project and item(s) of your choice. Thank you.

Thank you to New Journey members and friends who participated in the April 7 “Fifth Sunday” letter-writing. While our numbers were small, every voice of faith in the public square makes a difference in support of the omnibus hunger provisions of the U.S. Farm Bill and the funding of free and reduced-price breakfast and lunch for Arizona students.

Our first letter-writing Sunday for 2024 is April 7 (deferred one week, due to Easter). We invite NJLC members and friends to sign on to letters that will be available before and after worship.

If you prefer to write an individual letter – whether to express your own reasons in support of particular actions or to express an alternative view – contact information for local and national legislators, and advocacy information, will be available for you to pick up and take home. Make your voice known for only 68 cents! Or, sign up for Arizona’s “Right to Speak” process, and express your views – for free – directly from your kitchen table!

We invite you to contribute to one or both of these excellent actions to support people in need, during the period of April 7 to May 5, 2024. Options are available from $5 to $100. Please put your name on donor envelopes and clearly indicate (whether on-line, cash, or check) whether your gift is for Casa or for Good Gifts.

A. Easter Season Basket of Gifts for Casa de la Misericordia y de Todas las Naciones: You will be able to select an egg or two and commit your gifts to help support asylum seekers at Casa M. This shelter, built and maintained on an ongoing basis by about 120 residents who stay temporarily while their asylum paperwork is processed, has ongoing needs for beans, rice, flour, diapers, women’s hygiene products, and funds for utility bills.

You may contribute actual items (place them in the bin, available April 7, labeled “CASA”) or dollars (donor envelopes will be available with the basket of eggs). We welcome either choice: physical items can become more difficult to transport and may be “taxed” at the border; dollars spent in Nogales to purchase items there can strengthen the local economy.

B. Easter Season Good Gifts for ELCA World Hunger: “Clear the Lines” by choosing from the following items: chicks $5, fruit tree seedling $10, rooster $15, mosquito netting for a family $20, honeybees $20, piglet $30, ceramic water filter $30, goat $50, seeds and gardening tools $50. Environmentally friendly cookstove $105. This is the 50th anniversary of ELCA World Hunger. Additional choices, if you wish, are at https://goodgifts.elca.org/all-gifts; just mark your contribution envelop with your choice whether you choose from “clear the lines” or from the catalog.

• Lutheran Social Services of the Southwest cannot accept used clothing. Their employment counselors help refugees by taking them shopping, with vouchers, to purchase items that fit them and their job applicant situation.

• Native American Connection will accept used clothing. We will try to announce “quilt blessing Sundays” in advance, so that you can bring items on that day. While we welcome generosity, NJLC doesn’t have Fellowship space to store bags of clothing on a regular basis.

• Sunshine Acres has a big bin in the Target parking lot for child/youth clothing and shoes; if you are a small person, take someone along as the bin doors are heavy.

• Fresh Start Women’s Center has a clothing closet, including some for women who are job searching; you can call them to check what items they are taking at 602-252-8494.

• For prom or wedding dressy items, you can contact this East Valley organization (located in Chandler) to see what they will take: Donation Needs – The Cinderella Affair. Currently, thanks to donor generosity, they are full-up and not accepting more for the 2024 season.

• Goodwill, Salvation Army, Purple Heart Desert Thrift Shop (in Mesa, serves veterans), and Vietnam Veterans of America are also options.

Our first letter-writing Sunday for 2024 is April 7 (deferred one week, due to Easter). We invite NJLC members and friends to sign on to letters that will be available before and after worship.

If you prefer to write an individual letter – whether to express your own reasons in support of particular actions or to express an alternative view – contact information for local and national legislators, and advocacy information, will be available for you to pick up and take home. Make your voice known for only 68 cents! Or, sign up for Arizona’s “Right to Speak” process, and express your views – for free – directly from your kitchen table! Letters will be available for advance reading in the April 1 newsletter.

As part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s initiative entitled, “God’s Work. Our Hands,” New Journey Lutheran Church packed welcome bags for refugees arriving in Phoenix on Sunday, Sept. 10.

Since the August e-News went to press before completion of heat respite lunch packs, here are additional details:

On Sunday, July 24, New Journey Lutheran Church hosted as guest preacher and fellowship discussant Ms. Solveig Muus, director of Lutheran Advocacy Ministry Arizona (www.LAMAz.org).

Residents of Fountain Hills, individually and through faith, civic and other organizations, are generous in addressing local, national and international hunger. We support Extended Hands and St. Mary’s Food Banks, pack heat respite lunches, volunteer annually for Food for Kidz and much more.

New Journey Lutheran (ELCA) in Fountain Hills packed 200 lunches on Monday, June 26 in the first of three scheduled packs for Phoenix’s Grace Lutheran Church’s Heat Respite program and – in a new initiative, will add 15 additional lunches per future sessions for I-HELP at nearby City of Grace Church.

New Journey Lutheran Church members gathered a substantial collection of kitchen items, as well as additional furnishings, to join with ELCA churches of the Northeast Valley Consortium in preparing three apartments for newly arriving Afghan refugee families. Phoenix area apartments were set-up on February 2, 8 and 15 for families of 6, 7, and 13 members, respectively, in partnership with Lutheran Social Services of the Southwest, which has welcomed eight Afghan families in February.

“What does it mean to accompany the vulnerable?” is among the questions raised in New Journey Lutheran Church’s 2022 weekly Advent season studies.

You are invited to join in a card-writing project to send messages of welcome and support to thousands of individuals and families who have crossed borders seeking safety in the United States, but who are held in detention centers across the country this holiday season.

Still thinking about hunger as a social ministry priority?

Thinking ahead about hunger as a social ministry priority: What are root causes affecting hunger in Maricopa County and Arizona more broadly? What are Lutherans doing to address hunger? How can our faith-in-action help?