This past Sunday, we made a commitment to give the entire Sunday morning offering to three relief causes: Afghanistan; Haiti and Carpenter’s House (Charles and Judy Dillon, JIBC Missionaries). Our typical weekly budget requirements are around $14,715. That is the projected amount we would need each week to carry out the missions and ministry of JIBC. So my hope and thought was that we might come close to that weekly amount for the Kingdom Giving Sunday. Hallelujah and glory to God. The offering was over $22,000! You gave so generously and God blessed so abundantly. To God be the glory.
We will get busy this week deciding how to give the offering to the relief effort for the Afghan people, the earthquake victims in Haiti and now, the Hurricane Ida disaster response. Thank you for being such a loving and generously giving church family. You can check out more of what Southern Baptist are doing at www.sendrelief.org. Here is one of the great things of Southern Baptist relief work: 100% of everything you give goes to the relief work. Not one penny goes to administrative or promotion or solicitation of funds. That is as effective as you can get!
By the way, on the home front, JIBC has now given over 440 jars of jelly to James Island Outreach and another 125 pounds of groceries. I asked Scott Graule, the Director of James Island Outreach how long that 440 jars of jelly would last them? He said just about 2 months. Wow, that is a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches made in Jesus’ name. You can keep bringing jelly any week or every week. Our Awana ministry has built that into their mission; one of our school teachers offers extra credit for brining jelly! I love you all, I love you all, I love you all. Our next major push for jelly will be at the beginning of the Advent Season, just around Thanksgiving and Christmas time.
Just one more item for today. Please be safe when it comes to Covid. We have 18 JIBC members, that we know of, who have Covid. This current surge is real. I do not believe anything that comes out of Washington and I have lost confidence even in the CDC. I do, however, believe our members and my family members in the medical field. When they tell me the ICU is full, I know it is full. I hate that a pandemic was made a political pawn and that this is so horribly divisive. Wear your mask if you are concerned. We encourage that. Get the vaccine if you, your family and your health care provider decides that is best. (Janie and I are fully vaccinated and plan to get the booster). Be kind, be encouraging, no mask shaming for wearing or not wearing. Protect yourself and use common sense. You are loved and we want to spend a lot more time with you. We are followers of Jesus Christ first. May He be glorified in everything we do.
Pastor Tom
