Since God’s love won’t stay cooped up in individual hearts, nor remain hemmed in by city limits, then we must follow where it leads, and that means out into the whole world.

International Mission: Chimbote’, Peru

A growing group of PPC members and friends head to Chimbote, Peru each year to work in the impoverished community of the parish, Nuestra Senora Del Perpetuo Socorro. They build houses, take the handicapped and disadvantaged on a beach outing, including lunch, and prepare a fish stew for 200-300 community members. They also take the generous cash donations of PPC members to prayerfully use in the care of patients of the hospital for the poor, La Caleta. These funds pay for operations, blood transfusions, prescriptions, patient transfers to larger city hospitals, patient family assistance and many other worthy causes not covered by the government medical program.  These donations are also now being used for care of select patients of the Hospicio Santiago Apostal (St. James the Apostle Hospice).  In 2016, they were also able to financially support the parish medical clinic as well as provide a pediatrician during our mission week from our group. Working with many of the same folks each year allows relationships to be built up over time. The mission becomes less about doing something for “them” and more about working together with friends. This mission takes place in late January or February. Call the church office and we’ll put you in touch with the right folks to learn more.

Youth Missions

Each Summer, and sometimes at Spring break, our youth head out on mission trips.  The High School youth mission location is scheduled on a four-year cycle. One year is a foreign mission trip, another year is out to the western US, another is an urban mission experience, and another is to a rural community. Recently, the youth have served in Haiti, Washington D.C., West Virginia, and New Mexico. Our Middle School group also travels to various locations for mission work, including Asheville, NC where they worked in a variety of community relief efforts. This past year and in 2016, our Middle School Mission trip was to CROSS which is a local mission through Myers Park Presbyterian Church. Our 2016 High School Mission trip is to the Dominican Republic.

During the school year, our youth raise money and walk in the CROP Walk; shop for, buy and deliver Thanksgiving dinners to families unable to do so; promote the Souper Bowl of Caring offering; help with the Loaves and Fishes Canned Food Drive; and pack meals for Stop Hunger Now.

Other Missions

We host packing sessions for STOP HUNGER NOW, an international organization seeking to do exactly what its name implies. Providence has packed well over 100,000 meals that have gone to places such as Haiti, Dominican Republic, and several areas of Africa.

At Christmas our congregation makes honorary and memorial gifts which help support a variety of organizations such as Presbyterian Disaster Response,  Heifer International, Habitat for Humanity and other international aid organizations. Our youth and numerous adults have packed shoeboxes for and volunteered at Samaritan’s Purse.

Missionaries

Leah & Don VanderPloeg

Ministry goals – 2020-2021                 Don’s ministry goals in 2020-21 are to continue serving at JAARS in the water and grounds departments. JAARS is the Wycliffe center that, is a multidisciplinary team of problem-solvers committed to the belief—and the vision—that people’s lives and communities are transformed as they experience God’s Word in their own language.                 Leah serves with a small mission called SERVE leading short term mission trips. SERVE is a fellowship of mission-minded volunteers, committed to making a lasting impact in largely unreached settings, demonstrating the love of Christ in transformational ways.  Her goal is to lead a team in the spring to build a library at a Presbyterian Bible school in Gambella, Ethiopia. She and her brother have already collected over 6,000 books for the library.  She will then lead a second team, sometime later in the year, to shelf the books and teach the staff how to maintain the library.                 Together Don and Leah’s goal for the next two years is to serve well, for Leah to finish her commitments with SERVE and see how they can combine their ministry together in the future. Prayer requests for 2020-2021 Don and Leah are amazed by the way God brought them together in marriage in 2019. They are looking forward to seeing just how God will reveal new ways for them to share His love and Word with a hurting world. Pray for the safe arrival of Ben and Kylie’s daughter, Don’s first granddaughter in February. That God would raise up one or two more members for the water department freeing Don to shift his life in new directions. That Leah would feel God’s hand on her as she leads the library projects to Ethiopia, that the needed funds would be raised and God would send just the right people to work with her both locally and from outside the country. Serving in Love, Don & Leah VanderPloeg I want to thank all of you who have joined hands in this ministry with me. Would you prayerfully consider supporting my ministry with SERVE Make checks payable to: SERVE SERVE % Arnold Reinnikka 34 Freedom Boulevard West Brandywine, PA 19320 With a note “preference SERVE ministry of Leah VanderPloeg.”

Ray and Ann Kapteyn

Ray and Ann Kapteyn

Ray and Ann Kapteyn
Our mailing address is:
1824 Observatory Ave SE
Grand Rapids, MI 49546

For financial gifts:
(in the US) Wycliffe Bible Translators
PO Box 628200
Orlando, FL 32862

(in Canada) Wycliffe Bible Translators
4316 10 St NE
Calgary, AB T2E 6K3