Honduras Missions
St. Luke's partners with the Children of Love Foundation, a children's home in La Paz, Honduras. The Foundation works to provide faith, hope and guidance for all children. For more than ten years, members have served the children and their community through construction projects, providing shoes and medical supplies, and teaching them the Good News of Jesus Christ in their own language. Mision Luterano is a mission of the Lutheran Church of Nicaragua supported by four U.S. LCMS congregations. Pastor Junior Martinez is growing a congregation of Lutherans in La Paz and land has been purchased for the placement of a permanent congregation. See Updates from the Honduras Trip here: http://childrenoflove.stlukes-oviedo.org/
Lutheran Church in Latvia
For over 450 years, a group of faithful Lutherans have been gathering in Sloka, Latvia. Enduring years of hardship and persecution, this body of believers has relied upon God to help them stand the test of time and share the Good News. Latvia, a Baltic state, shares a border with Russia and is across the Baltic Sea from Scandinavia. Historically a Lutheran nation, 46 years of communist rule brought about a decline of the church. Encouraging and building up our brothers and sisters in Christ in Latvia to create a vision and move forward takes on many shapes and forms. In the past, teams from St. Luke's have provided "English As A Second Language" camps, performed concerts in the surrounding countryside, and offered workshops to inspire and develop leaders. The Latvia trip will take place July 15-27, 2020. Please contact missions@sllcs.org for more information on how you can help the team prepare.
Westfield House
Westfield House is the house of theological studies of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of England, in Cambridge. In 2015, members of St. Luke’s visited Westfield House as a service project. A second group traveled in 2017 to build and help with other maintenance tasks. St. Luke’s continues to make regular mission trips to Westfield House and support their ministry.
To find out more on upcoming service projects in Cambridge, England, contact Pastor Roberts at broberts@sllcs.org
Redeemer Partnership
“Fruit of the Spirit” describes well the nature of the relationship between The Lutheran Church of the Redeemer and St. Luke’s. The congregations have a long history of caring for one another. Together we have celebrated successes and have offered each other a helping hand – or even a pastor – when the need arose. When St. Luke’s first pastor, Pastor Tuhy, passed away, Redeemer, along with its pastor, Rev. Goerss, stepped in to help St. Luke’s through the vacancy. Recently, when Redeemer found itself without a pastor, St. Luke’s returned the favor, by developing a partnership ministry with Redeemer. Over the years, the Spirit has been actively drawing these two congregations together in mutual love and support.
The relationship of mutual love and caring that St. Luke’s and the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer have shared over the years took on new character in the spring of 2007 when St. Luke’s came alongside Pastor DeWitt (then part time Interim Pastor) and the members of Redeemer to help in their time of need. Pastor Roberts and Ruth Wiedenmann, together with a group of St. Luke’s “missionaries” made a two year commitment to serve and worship in Sanford. At the same time, Chris Wethman guided the leaders of Redeemer through a process of self-discovery and strategic planning. Through this partnership, God has blessed Redeemer with new life and a solid vision for outreach and ministry to the community.