Special Christmas Eve Offering
Each year, our special Christmas Eve offering, “No Room at the Inn” supports Habitat for Humanity in their mission to provide affordable housing to deserving people. Habitat gives families an opportunity to have a home that’s built from the ground up and is theirs forever, but not without your help! Your special gift may be given to Habitat at any of our 3 services. Please designate your gift with “No Room at the Inn” on the memo line of the check or put cash in a marked envelop and drop your donation in the offering plate or basket. You may also donate through our online giving portal choosing “Habitat, No Room at the Inn”. Even if you will not be at one of the Christmas Eve services, please consider making a special donation at a different Sunday service.
No Room at the Inn
Unfortunately, the phrase “no room at the inn” also applies to so many hard-working, low-income Austinites who currently live in substandard or overcrowded housing. Monthly rent often exceeds a family's monthly household income. Bills are juggled from one month to the next, families go without necessities and communities deteriorate into squalor when there is no hope of a better tomorrow.
Habitat gives families hope of achieving their dreams of a place to call home. In the past, our church has joined with other Methodist congregations in the area to help build a home for a needy family here in Austin; providing that much needed “room”. It is a chance for us to reach out to help others in the community. It is a wonderful source of Peace to know that you are acting as the hands and feet of Christ to help someone who really needs it.
This is not a “handout”; it is a “hand up”. Once the families are determined to be eligible for the program (by being identified as living in conditions that you and I would deem unacceptable), they provide “sweat equity” by helping to build houses for others; they attend classroom hours to learn how to handle their money and maintain their house; and they have to pay back the loan for all of the materials that went into the house.
However, to work with Austin Habitat for Humanity, a house must be “sponsored”. The sponsor in this case, the faith community of Austin, must provide the volunteers and the funds for the materials to build a house. Our goal this Christmas Season is to help provide “room at the inn” for a family in our community.
May God bless us all!
Thank you, Missions Team