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Aurora's Our Savior raising funds for Japan, Joplin

Natural disasters ravaged communities both at home and abroad this spring, and Our Savior Lutheran Church of Aurora is stepping up to answer the call of those affected by the storms, earthquakes and tsunamis.

A little girl and her mother who belong to the church recently were inspired to lead a drive collecting quarters and other change for the communities in Japan affected by the tsunami. The children of the congregation collected more than $500 in change to donate to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s Disaster Response mission in Japan.

“It’s an opportunity to show Christ’s love for others throughout the world,” said the Rev. Jeff Mikyska, of his church’s relief efforts. “Even if we don’t know them personally, we are still all brothers and sisters in Christ, and we are all God’s children.”

Older youth are active in missions of service to others as well. A group of the congregation’s high schoolers began fundraising for their July 2012 trip to the National Youth Gathering in New Orleans. The National Youth Gathering, which takes place in a different city every three years, draws 30,000 high school-aged Lutheran youth together for five days of devotion and service projects within the local community. The gathering will be held in New Orleans for a second time in 2012 to assist the communities there in their efforts to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina.

Mikyska believes it is important for teens to be involved in the practice of helping communities in need because of the positive effect it has on the youth involved. He believes it changes their perspectives, brings about a greater faith, and it brings them closer together with each other and unites them with the communities they help.

“If the trip is done right, you don’t go to volunteer for somebody, you go there to work with them,” Mikyska said,. “It creates a sense of team and family and a sense of one body.”

Mikyska’s plans of bringing aid to those in need continue. The F-5 tornado that tore through Joplin, Mo., on May 23 caused severe damage. Peace Lutheran Church, a fellow ELCA member, was destroyed.

Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate advises on the organization’s website that the best way to help Joplin citizens right now is by sending money through agencies such as Red Cross and the Salvation Army. When the situation is safer, Mikyska plans to take a group to Joplin to help with rebuilding efforts.

Atheists donate to church fund « Cubik's Rube

A couple of churches were vandalised recently.

I’ve got a lot of time for Pastafarians generally, but this wasn’t cool. That’s someone else’s property you’re scrawling slogans over.

The majority of atheists weren’t okay with this rather obnoxious intrusion of ideas either, and this time a good deal of them stepped up and acted on their principles. The Friendly Atheist decided to raise some funds to offer money from atheist coffers for a clean-up effort.

In under a day, people donated over $2,500.

Between this kind of thing and being the most generous Kiva community , everyone really needs to get over the idea that atheists can’t be proactively selfless, or that some kind of religious infrastructure is in any way necessary for people to get involved in charitable work.

In the end, the churches both said that they didn’t need anything like that kind of money to get the graffiti removed, and a few volunteers had offered to help get it done anyway. They appreciated the gesture, and the donations are being sent to the Foundation Beyond Belief, as it was agreed any surplus would be.

Good work, everyone.

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Civil War Macon, the history of a Confederate city

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