Missions
“Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”Luke 12:33-34
t Custer Road UMC, we feel the best way to help people know the love of Jesus to our neighbors is by becoming His hands and feet in a hurting world. Whether we're delivering and constructing beds, collecting items for those in need, mentoring and providing support within Plano ISD, or various other mission events, we are demonstrating to others what Christ's love truly looks like.
To read the very latest going on in Missions, go to our Missions Blog.
Local Missions
www.hope4agape.com
The Alternative Gift Market is typically held in November or early December. This gives you an opportunity to do a different kind of Christmas shopping. Shoppers have the opportunity to donate to charities and give a gift to someone really in need. This Christmas, consider giving a different kind of gift, a gift that gives twice. Give to your loved one, a handmade beaded cross or nativity set, or a certificate for a week’s worth of clean water. When you do, your gift helps someone in need – a hungry family, a struggling child, a Third World artisan. Your giving can transform the world!
Did you know that Bed Start needs help from people serving every week? And did you know that they need more help than just delivering beds on Saturday mornings? Regardless of your activity level, Bed Start could use your help. Here’s when they need help and information on the type of help they need.Every Wednesday Evening: 5pm
Provide delivery on Wednesday evenings. Meet in the parking lot directly across the street from the church. All Wednesday night deliveries occur near the church.
Every Saturday Morning: 7:45m-Noon (meet in the parking lot at 7:45am, depart CRUMC at 8am)
Provide Pick-up and Delivery help on Saturday mornings. Meet in the parking lot directly across the street from the church. Deliveries are made around Collin County. A pick-up truck/trailer are helpful, but not required.
Having a servant’s heart and helping with Bed Start has no age limit. Youth are welcome to join us! If you can love on families and have a strong heart for showing kindness to someone we are serving than we want your help. You don’t need a strong back to be able to help.
Monetary donations are also welcome to purchase beds and bedding. Donate online here, through Push Pay or make checks payable to Custer Road UMC, indicate Bed Start on the memo line, and place checks in the Offering Plate or send them to the church office.
We are in need of various items for donation. If you have any of these items, please bring them to the Bed Start donation area across the street from Custer Road UMC in the parking lot on any Saturday or Sunday from 8am-11am.
Items we are greatly in need of:
Dressers/Chests of Drawers
Beds of all size but king
Kitchen Dinette sets
Utensils/Pots & Pans-any household item MONETARY DONATIONS!
Bed Start provides beds, other furniture and household items to families in need. Gently used donations of items are always needed.
For more information, to arrange a large furniture pick-up or to serve on Saturday mornings with pick-ups/deliveries, please contact Doug Nickols via email at director@bedstart.org. We currently have a wait list of over 90 beds. Help make a difference in someone’s life this week!
For more information, please go to: www.bedstart.org. Volunteers are needed every Saturday, 8am to noon, to help with pick-up and delivery. This is an ongoing mission.
There is now an added mission to provide pillows as well. Read about the Bed Start Pillow Project here.
The Family Promise Network provides a way for our church to work together with other churches to help homeless families. We provide overnight lodging and meals for one to five families (up to 14 people) for one week every quarter on a rotating basis. Our guests stay at our church from 6 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. daily. Each morning, guests leave for the Family Promise Day Center, where they meet with the Case Manager, care for preschool children, look for housing and employment, or go out to school or work. Volunteers (individuals or groups) can join our guests for dinner, as evening hosts, provide breakfast, lunch or dinner items, help with laundry after the rotation, or stay overnight with guests, making a difference in the lives of families that have suffered the loss of their homes.
Imagine being a child who knows there will not be a gift under the Christmas tree. Imagine being a parent who is presently unable to provide warm clothing and food for the family. Last year Head Start families were sponsored by Sunday school classes, UMW groups, choirs, and Bible study groups as well as individual families. Head Start teachers have shared with us what an enormous difference the sponsors made in the lives of the families. Information about family members, a picture of the Head Start student, and sponsorship guidelines are provided to sponsors of the 146 children. The goal of Head Start is to bring about a greater degree of social competence in children.
Custer Road United Methodist Church has committed to intentionally building trusted relationships in CRUMC’s neighborhood through partnership with local schools. We are collaborating with Christie and Thomas Elementary Schools. Our goal is to have 100 CRUMC Mentors at these schools. The school administration has identified Student Mentoring as one of the key areas to promote the growth of student achievement for the students at these schools. As Title 1 schools (focused on improving the achievement of the disadvantaged), they are in need of individuals that can spend time with children reading and working on assignments.No special training is needed, only a desire to intentionally build a relationship with a student. Typically, it is a 30 minute to 1 hour commitment during the lunch/recess time, but arrangements may be able to be made for after school mentoring as well.
We will also provide volunteers for Book Fairs, teacher meals and other volunteer opportunities requested by the schools. A Back to School Teacher Appreciation Breakfast will occur in August and we collect board games, Kleenex and hand sanitizer to replenish the classrooms.
Love Where You Live is a partnership between Plano neighborhoods, volunteer partners and the City. The mutual goal is to transform communities through social and physical revitalization. LWYL focuses efforts on a limited area to clean up, repair and reinvigorate the neighborhood. CRUMC is partnering with local neighborhoods, which includes Christie Elementary and Carpenter Middle School. Contact Dennis Allen for more information.
This program provides support to young parents in the PISD school system. Custer Road sponsors the annual Christmas and graduation dinners, has as ongoing collection of diapers and new/gently-used baby items like clothes, formula, strollers, swings, car seats, high chairs and maternity clothes. We also provide child care at their monthly meetings.
Project Transformation is a seven-week summer day camp for inner-city children that is facilitated by PT Corps Members and partner churches. About 100 corps members and many volunteers work with the children to teach Bible lessons, make crafts, play games, sing songs, write plays and read one-on-one. Custer Road UMC is a partner church and sponsors corps members, provides reading volunteers, and 2 dinners for the corps members. We also provide day camp supplies for one week.
SOS produces short skits, monologues and Reader’s Theater presentations to church social gatherings, children’s programs and retirement centers. The skits are 15-minute Reader’s Theater plays on aging and Christian principles. Mostly humorous, sometimes unintentional. Contact Betty Garst via email here for more information.
Custer Road holds an annual collection of new socks and underwear for adults-all sizes are needed, Small to XXL. Gently used blue jeans are also needed. Opportunities to serve on Sunday mornings at S.O.U.L. Church are also available to help with sign-in, set-up, serving food, clothing distribution and clean-up. Contact Patrick Robinson at Robinson.patrick@verizon.net or visit soulchurch.org for more information.
Custer Road UMC runs a Summer Lunch Program for the kids of Carpenter MS and Christie and Thomas Elementary Schools. The goal is to provide nutritious pre-prepared lunches to the children (1-18) in our community. Last summer, over 7,500 meals were given out. Lunches are served Monday through Friday throughout the summer. For more information, go to the Summer Lunch Program page.Global Missions
The Alternative Gift Market is typically held in November or early December. This gives you an opportunity to do a different kind of Christmas shopping. Shoppers have the opportunity to donate to charities and give a gift to someone really in need. This Christmas, consider giving a different kind of gift, a gift that gives twice. Give to your loved one, a handmade beaded cross or nativity set, or a certificate for a week’s worth of clean water. When you do, your gift helps someone in need – a hungry family, a struggling child, a Third World artisan. Your giving can transform the world!
In conjunction with Buckner International shoes are delivered by a mission team to orphanages in Peru. The mission trip in July will engage and build relationships with children and families while providing shoes and humanitarian aid in several different communities and orphanages. This includes a work project (home cleaning or remodel, bathroom completion etc.)in the communities where Buckner works through Family Hope Centers.
Put shoes on children and smiles on their faces. What child doesn’t love getting a new pair of shoes? New shoes are fun, clean, bright, and colorful! New shoes help a child run faster, jump higher, go further!
The spring and summer of 2020, Custer Road families will be able to share the joy of new shoes with children in Peru, through our partnership with Buckner International’s Shoes for Orphan Souls.
You can help by:
• Giving to the communion offering on March 1. The offering will be used to purchase new shoes and to send Custer Road members to Peru to deliver them.
• Bringing NEW Children’s sized shoes & socks to the Mission donation area and dropping them in the bin marked for Sharing Shoes & Joy in Peru anytime in March. NEW Athletic shoes are needed for children from birth to 18 years old.
• Attending a mission trip information session on March 1 at 11 a.m. in B3.
• Joining the team to deliver shoes to children in Peru July 23 – August 2. You’ll love seeing the smile on a child’s face when you put that new pair of shoes on them!
• Praying for the team who will deliver the shoes and the children who will receive them.
Not only are new shoes fun, they provide important benefits. Shoes protect against disease and infection. They allow children to attend school. They provide hope by demonstrating worth and God’s love to orphans and vulnerable children. And they help connect families to ministries that can transform their lives.
For more information on how you can help, contact Lanie Williams at laniew1983@gmail.com.
Custer Road UMC is a major sponsor and host of this annual race held in the Spring. A 5K race and 1 mile Eggsperanza Family Fun Run/Walk race as well as food, fun and fellowship are provided. Proceeds benefit Juntos Servimos (see below). See www.esperanza5k.com to register or for more information. More than 150 volunteers make this event happen.
Juntos Servimos, which means “Together We Serve” in Spanish, is a nonprofit organization that Custer UMC has partnered with to support Casa Bugambilia in Matamoros, Mexico and now Juarez, Mexico. Teams will travel to Juarez to serve with Juntos Servimos Mission Director Larry Cox, Dr. Nancy Rodriguez, and Proyecto Abrigo several times a year to build a small home for a family in need.It is estimated that 500,000 Juarez residents live in poverty, about 37% of the population. Of these, approximately 62,000 live in “extreme poverty.”
Larry and Dr. Nancy Rodriguez Cox founded Juntos Servimos, a mission of healing and hope, in 2004. JS provides an individual response (including medical care, shelter, food and education) to the suffering experienced by people in the towns along the Mexico/US border. The work of JS is primarily in Matamoros, Mexico, however they are now reaching out to the El Paso/Juarez area to work with Proyecto Abrigo in Tierra Nueva, Mexico, a suburb of Juarez.
Rev. Jose Luis Portillo founded Proyecto Abrigo in 1996 in the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Since then, over 7,000 homes, two churches, a medical clinic, and a vocational school have been built to serve the poorer communities outside of Ciudad Juarez.
UMCOR (United Methodist Committee on Relief): Custer Road UMC regularly works with UMCOR for relief efforts during catastrophes. Offerings are used to purchase supplies and health and school kits, or cleaning buckets are assembled. UMCOR supply kits help to care for the most vulnerable people during times of crisis and help sustain everyday life by providing basic necessities to people who lack ready access.If you’d like to contribute, you may do so online at www.givetomission.org, or make a check payable to Custer Road UMC and note “UMCOR and/or the Specific Advance #” in the memo line. You may put your designated gift in the church offering plate or send to our church, located 6601 Custer Road, Plano, TX 75023.
Imagine having nothing but dirty, bacteria-infested water to quench your thirst. To wash your clothes in. To cook with. To bathe in. And to give to your children to drink. No one should live this way. But more than 884 million people around the world do. Enough is enough. Because no human being should live this way.
That is why Pastor Kory and his wife, Jennifer, lead a trip of 12 church members in partnership with Living Water International in September 2016 to dig a water well in Rivas, Nicaragua. Read more about Pastor Kory’s trip to Nicaragua here.
A new team of twelve will travel to Guatemala November 4-11, 2017 to dig a water well. To get more information about this trip, contact Tony and Elizabeth Hairston via email here.
Living Water International is a Christian organization dedicated to helping communities acquire desperately needed clean water and to experience “living water”- the gospel of Jesus Christ – which alone satisfies the deepest thirst. Imagine a well – that WE PAY FOR AND BUILD WITH THE HANDS OF OUR OWN CHURCH MEMBERS – that will gush with clean, life-giving water and sustain generations for years to come.
Drives / Collections
Custer Road UMC offers blood drives several times throughout the year, with sign-ups a week before the event, although walk-ins are welcome. However, you can go to Carter BloodCare at any time to donate – be sure to tell them you are from Custer Road UMC. We have a credit account, and should any of our family members have the need for blood, they can use credits from this account to assist in the payment for their blood use.
The food drive benefits the Plano Food Pantry. Cash donations are split between Plano Food Pantry and God’s Food Pantry.
A fall mission, this collection of new children’s sweatsuits, socks and underwear helps clothe Head Start children in time for cooler weather.Upcoming Mission Opportunities:
| Date/Time | Event |
|---|---|
| Apr 05, 2020 - Apr 12, 2020 All Day | Family Promise Rotation -- April 2020 Custer Road UMC, Plano TX |
| Apr 08, 2020 5:00 pm | Bed Start Parking Lot Across from Custer Road UMC, Plano TX |
| Apr 11, 2020 7:45 am - 12:00 pm | Bed Start Parking Lot Across from Custer Road UMC, Plano TX |
| Apr 15, 2020 5:00 pm | Bed Start Parking Lot Across from Custer Road UMC, Plano TX |
| Apr 18, 2020 7:45 am - 12:00 pm | Bed Start Parking Lot Across from Custer Road UMC, Plano TX |
| Apr 22, 2020 5:00 pm | Bed Start Parking Lot Across from Custer Road UMC, Plano TX |
| Apr 25, 2020 7:45 am - 12:00 pm | Bed Start Parking Lot Across from Custer Road UMC, Plano TX |
| Apr 29, 2020 5:00 pm | Bed Start Parking Lot Across from Custer Road UMC, Plano TX |
| May 02, 2020 7:45 am - 12:00 pm | Bed Start Parking Lot Across from Custer Road UMC, Plano TX |
| May 06, 2020 5:00 pm | Bed Start Parking Lot Across from Custer Road UMC, Plano TX |
