Our church is pretty new. The Ocean State Church of Christ has only existed for three years. However, one of the areas that has captured the heart of many in our church is serving the less fortunate. Our HOPE board, led by David & Jessica Boerma, meets regularly and consistently inspires us with projects & programs to help others.

This past Friday night, November 10, our HOPE team was in charge of leading the midweek service for our church. It is easy to talk about serving. It is another thing to do it. So, instead of just discussing . . . we have a short, but powerful devo led by Sam Saarinen and then we broke into four different stations to make a difference for the hurting in the greater Providence area and even in Bucharest, Romania.

We put together toiletry bags, did some knitting, made encouraging cards from the kids and adults and donated clothing to go to specific people and programs in a variety of places.
Beyond the programs, we also had the desire to raise at least $2,500 for HOPE worldwide this year. We ask a lot from our Christians through regular and special missions’ giving, so we had a goal of getting this amount of money from people outside our congregation. With this in mind, we planned a “Move for HOPE” day this past summer. “Move for HOPE” meant that everyone in our congregation chose to either bike, walk, ride or play for the cause of HOPE ww and raise money through pledges for that. To date, around $2,900 has been collected!

Daniel Gifford raised money in an especially unique way. At his work, he got financial pledges for the length of time he would keep from shaving. See the power point below for his presentation to co-workers.

What an inspiring view of many who care about others! May God be glorified and may we always have a heart for others – spiritually, emotionally, financially and physically.