Mount Olive reaches beyond the local community to serve our global brothers and sisters. Our goal is to strengthen not only our own society, but also others.
ELCA World Hunger
God richly provides for daily bread – the earth can produce enough food for everyone. Yet, many of our sisters and brothers still go hungry. By providing immediate relief to those who are hungry, ELCA World Hunger meets basic needs and recognizes the universal human right to food. They work to connect people with the resources they need to produce food and gain access to clean water, education, health care and sources of income so that long-term, sustainable change can be accomplished.
Mount Olive supports ELCA World Hunger in a variety of ways. Members supporting God’s Global Barnyard, purchases from the Good Gifts catalog, and special offering collections, all support ELCA World Hunger and its partners to help make it possible for the ELCA to respond, supporting sustainable solutions that get at the root causes of hunger and poverty.
Lutheran World Relief
Lutheran World Relief is a non-profit organization that works with local partners to provide lasting solutions to poverty, injustice and human suffering. In 2013, LWR reached over 7 million people in 35 countries with 185 projects.
Mount Olive supports LWR by putting together Personal Care Kits. For the past few years, from the supplies provided by the congregation during promotion time, our Middle School Youth assemble the kits. After blessing during worship, they are sent to the LWR warehouse in the Twin Cities to be shipped overseas.
Mount Olive supports LWR by putting together Baby Care Kits. We have a long history of assembling the Baby Care Kits by our Sunday School Youth. Again, the supplies are provided by the congregation and kits are assembled between services. After blessing during worship, they are sent to the LWR warehouse in the Twin Cities to be shipped overseas.
Mount Olive supports the LWR Coffee Project which offers a fair, just and equitable marketplace for small-scale farmers around the world. Fair Trade coffee is served on Sunday morning and is available for purchase in the gathering area.
Mission Colombia
By walking and working together, we seek to accompany our sisters and brothers in Colombia. Accompaniment is the process of walking together in a solidarity that practices interdependence and mutuality. Mount Olive aims to live out accompaniment in relationships with our Colombian companions in a manner that is mutual, inclusive, vulnerable, empowering, and sustainable. We are excited to announce that Mount Olive’s companion congregation is Emmanuel in Paz de Ariporo. Emmanuel is also home to one of our Lutheran schools in Colombia which matches perfectly with Mount Olive’s commitment to education ministry. We continue to provide scholarship funding for students each month through our giving to the education ministry of the Lutheran Church of Colombia (IELCO).
Tanzania Partnership
You may not know that Mount Olive built the first dining hall for Hull High School in Kijota, Tanzania, many years ago, when that school only housed 30 students. Now Hull High School, an important ministry partner of ours, has grown to over 200 students! Needless to say, the dining hall we built is now completely insufficient. Students generally eat outdoors these days. Because this is a crucial part of the campus, and because Mount Olive built the first one, we raised $30,000 as part of our 60th anniversary celebration to build a new and larger dining hall, which was completed in 2020. Our Hull High School Scholarship Fund continues to provide a limited number of scholarships for students in need each year.