Help Support our Missionaries

New “Missionary Support Charts” are up in the Narthex. Our pledged mission support is $120 each week for Jim & Carol Sack and $120 for Dana Nelson and her family. We need $30 from 8 different persons, couples, families every week to meet our commitment.

Sign your name on the charts in as many places as you wish. You may designate if you would like it listed in memory or honor of someone. We will list this in the weekly bulletin.

Give your support on the Sunday of the week for which you have pledged (write “missionary Support” on your check’s memo line.) You may place your checks in the offering plate or give them to the receptionist in the church office.

Please remember to pray for the Sack & Nelson families, especially during the week for which you have pledged.

Thankful Greetings

I write today to express my gratitude for your support. Gifts to ELCA Missionary Sponsorship support over 240 missionaries working hand-in-hand with our global neighbors in 50 countries around the world.

We can only do our work because of the ongoing support we receive from people like you. Together we are making a difference and for this, I give thanks.

Rev. Twila Schock, Director
ELCA Missionary Sponsorship and Global Appeals
8765 W. Higgins Road, Chicago, IL 60631
Email: missionarysponsorship@elca.org

Did You know?

The Church Council’s July meeting took place at SAYFSM (our partners, Sub-Saharan African Youth & Family Services in Minnesota). SAYFSM supports African immigrants and their families, especially refugees and those with HIV. Elizabeth Namarra, co-founder with her husband, Ephraim Olani, reminded us that their clients—including Muslims—refer to Normandale as "our church in Edina!"

Pastora Dana Nelson, her husband, Tom Ososki, and their children, Tana and Anthony, our missionaries in Lima, Peru, were our guests on Sunday 14 August.

The Spring and Winter 2008 MOM magazines reported the work of SAYFSM. Click here to view the issue.

Global Mission - Peru

Pastor from studies Peru studies at Luther Seminary

Ofelia Davila Limpe, founding pastor of Talitha Kum Lutheran Church in Cusco, will attend Luther Seminary for the next two years, working toward an M.A.

Our first mission team to Peru met Pastora Ofelia in November 2006, and Lorna Wolthoff worked with her last summer. (Unfortunately, our Women’s Ensemble sang in Cusco when Ofelia was visiting family elsewhere.)

Please keep Pastora Ofelia in your prayers as she travels, studies, and makes the many adjustments that lie ahead of her.

—Pastor Dale

Pastora Dana Nelson and Tom Ososki

Dana Nelson, the first ELCA missionary in Peru, serves as pastor of Cristo Rey congregation in Lima. She also provides pastoral care several hours a week at a small seminary. Tom Ososki, an architect, has helped plan and design several church projects (though he can’t be formally licensed in Peru).

Dana and Tom were instrumental in planning our Women’s Ensemble visit to Peru two years ago.

Global Mission - Japan

Disaster Relief

A big Thank You to everyone who contrubuted to the Japan earthquake relief and to the storm relief in the South. To date $7,825 has been colleted for Japan and $2,390 for Storm Relief

Jim and Carol Sack

Jim Sack teaches pastoral theology at the Japan Lutheran Theological Seminary and Japan Lutheran College in Tokyo. Over the years, some 3,000 people have participated in programs of the Personal Growth and Counseling Center, a research and educational center, which he directs. These people, both Christians and non-Christians alike, are bound by their desire to be a listening ear in their workplaces, neighborhoods, and churches.

Carol Sack, a music thanatologist, offers palliative care through harp and voice at the bedside of the dying, going weekly to a hospice for the homeless in Tokyo. She now trains others in the discipline through courses in harp, voice, and theological reflection.

Jim and Carol’s work provides cutting-edge education and service to Japanese society.

You can help us support Jim and Carol Sack’s ministry in Japan by signing the Missionary Support Charts in the narthex. Each space represents a pledge of $30.

Global Mission Matrix

The Global Mission and Social Ministry Committees have become Normandale Mission Outreach with many opportunities to serve our mission partners!

Members of the congregation can join a mission outreach cluster that focuses on one area, without the commitment of a monthly committee meeting. The matrix gives an overview of Normandale’s outreach ministries. Organized by the two-year Sunday School schedule of emphasis on one of our “foreign” ministries, it relates each of those minis-tries to a “local” partner, with more local partners listed further down. Support for all ministries continues through-out every year. Contact Pastor Dale for more information!

Appropriate to Sunday School, each “foreign” ministry emphasizes children’s welfare:

 Huch’uy Runa School provides holistic care to street kids in the Andean tourist town of Cusco. We help support operations. We also relate to ILEP, the Peruvian Lutheran Church, primarily through music and music educa-tion for children.
 At Ntalawanda, we’ve helped build a schoolhouse and provide it with electricity. We’ve also helped drill clean-water wells for the school compound.
 We’ve begun to investigate a new partnership with the Lutheran Church in Ranchi, India, to develop basic health care (especially for women and children).

Our “local” partners work with immigrant families:

 St. Paul’s builds community with Spanish-speaking (Latino) immigrants.
 SAYFSM (Sub-Saharan African Youth & Family Services in Minnesota) concentrates services to African immigrants with HIV/AIDS.
 Our missionary support is “local” because we help fund missionaries from our own community in the Twin Cities—Jim & Carol Sack to Japan and Dana Nelson & Tom Ososki to Cusco, Peru—in partnership with ELCA Global Mission and other churches, many in this metropolitan area.

Additional ongoing “local” ministries include:

 Normandale Housing & Community Development, Phillips Neighborhood
 VEAP (Volunteers Enlisted to Assist People): Edina, Richfield, Bloomington
 CES (Community Emergency Services): Phillips Neighborhood, Minneapolis
 Our Saviour’s Housing & Shelter: Phillips Neighborhood, Minneapolis

Missionary Support

Year-to-date, our congregation has given approximately $2,000 each to the Sack family in Japan and the Nelson family in Peru. Through our sponsorship covenants made with these missionaries, we seek to provide financial assistance of $7,100 and $5,000, respectively, for these families.

Please help in our commitment to spread the gospel of our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ, outside of our immediate community. You may sign up in the narthex or, make checks in any amount payable to Normandale Lutheran Church, with the missionary’s name on the memo line. Your support is greatly appreciated.

Global Mission Committee

Normandale is committed to proclaiming Jesus Christ outside of its immediate community through its support of missionary families in other parts of the world. In 2007 we started supporting missionaries in Central Asia who construct bridges and irrigation projects.

The Global Mission Committee of Normandale selects missionary families that are supported by Global Mission of the ELCA. The missionary's role is to spread the Good News. Our role is to support them financially and through prayer. Do you hear the call? Can you support our missionaries as they spread the Good News of our Savior, Jesus Christ?