Care Ministries

Last week Thursday, I had the opportunity to hear three care ministries in the Chicagoland area (Voice of Care, Word of Hope, and Phil's friends)

• Voice of Care works with congregations to share the Gospel and children who are developmentally disabled. If I remember correctly they said that 90% of those who are developmentally disabled in the United States are unchurched. Here's their mission statement. "To enable the church in serving Christ to do ministry with persons developmentally challenged and those who care for them within congregations, homes, residential facilities and communities. Seeking with them our Lord's good plan for them and enabling their full participation in the Body of Christ."
  
• Word of Hope is a ministry who offers counseling services to offer hope to men and women who have suffered the pain of an abortion, women who have been sexually abused, women with an unplanned pregnancy, young people who want to practice a lifestyle of purity, men and women who struggle to build a culture of life.
• The last organization was Phil's friends who gives away care packages for those who are battling cancer.
  

Hicham Chehab

Last year we had the opportunity to have Hicham Chehab speak at our church, and lead a 3 week Bible study on understanding the Islam faith from a Christian perspective. For those of you who don't know, Hicham is a former Muslim extremist who converted to Christianity after learning about Jesus in a comparative religions class at American University in Lebanon. He has a pretty remarkable story about how God's grace has worked in his life. He has now started a mission congregation to reach out to Muslims. You can read more about the church and Hicham's story, and even donate to the church here.