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Hoosier United Methodist News Archives
| Hoosier United Methodists together |
January 2004 |
Acts of the Apostles
Evansville church gives new meaning to mall shopping
EVANSVILLE, Ind. -- A shopping spree at the mall took on different meaning this past Christmas season at the Old North United Methodist Church in Evansville.
Mission Chair Anne Wright led the way for a Mission Mall that would warm cold feet, fill hungry bellies, diaper babies and maybe even save a life. The Mission Mall, a new mission project at Old North, was designed to offer an alternative to the great holiday traditions of overindulgence, unwanted presents, wasteful spending and guilt.
The Mall, held one Sunday in mid-November, offered shoppers a way to give the gift of giving. Instead of purchasing one more tie or kitchen gadget for a friend or relative, shoppers bought a gift to care for the basic human needs of someone unknown to them.
For $2, one bought a pair of socks that now warm the cold feet of someone who comes to the Rescue Mission homeless shelter; or for $10, bus tokens for a troubled teenager living in foster care; or for $20 a flock of baby chicks for a family in Zimbabwe; or for $49 a bus ticket for someone stranded far away from home.
The prices and variety of gifts ranged widely. For $1,200, one could even buy the prescription drugs needed to keep an AIDS victim alive for a year.
Mission Mall shoppers were given a gift card to send to the person in whose name they bought the gift. And shoppers got something for themselves -- feeling good about their generosity. Their gifts total $4,200 for missions.
Mall organizers had 17 mission projects and charities to set up "store fronts" for shoppers who browsed among the detailed gifts, or who could consult a catalog, listing all gifts and prices. The catalog also was posted on the church's Web site.
The Mission Mall was modeled after a similar project called the Alternative Christmas Market, first created by a church in Florida.
The missions that were invited and responded to Old North's request included everything from bed sheets to boxes of crayons for Operation Classroom, that will end up in the hands of families ravaged by war in Liberia and Sierra Leone; a month's bus fare for a homeless woman to buy a leg brace for a disabled child in Haiti; 50 concrete blocks to build a Habitat for Humanity International house in another country; and other items for the House of Bread and Peace; Outreach Ministries; the Tri-State Food Bank; United Family Counseling Services; the Indiana United Methodist Youth Home; the Rescue Mission; the Matthew 25 AIDS Project; Red Bird Mission; the Give Ye Them to Eat project; the Reflecting Waters substance-abuse treatment program; and the Weekday Christian Education Program of the Evansville-Area Community of Churches.
The Old North youth group staffed the store of Heifer International, an organization that purchases farm animals for needy families in Third World countries.
Wright said: "Our participants loved it. A Christian counseling service did not collect a lot of money but made five contacts with other agencies that could make referrals. These agencies didn't know the Christian counseling service existed."
In a news story about the mall, Wright told the Evansville Courier & Press that Mission Mall is based on the simple concept that the best celebration of the birth of Jesus is the honoring of instructions he gave his disciples, found in Matthew 25: "For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me."
Pleased with the outcome, Wright said: "The Mission Mall will definitely happen in 2004." Hopefully, more congregations also will join in this form of community gift giving.
For more information go online to Old North UMC and click on Sunday Messenger or call 812-423-2483.
Last updated on 01/14/2004