Friends Helping Friends Missions is an organization helping young people participate in local mission opportunities. For eight years, they have been taking youth and adults during school breaks to minister to the Native Americans at Warm Springs Reservation in Warm Springs, Ore. Teens learn to work hard, become team players, understand a different culture and grow in their own faith.
This year, nineteen members joined the team from Meadow Glade, Lebanon, Whipple Creek and Hockinson Heights Churches. The group included nine teenagers and two pre-school children who stayed at the Madras Adventist Church.
The team removed carpet and subflooring in two homes and painted the interiors. They demolished walls in a third home and cleaned up yards. The team primed and painted a fourth house on the outside, and a few members went to the Boys and Girls Club of Central Oregon to clean the roof and gutters.
In addition to this, the group led out in Vacation Bible School with a focus on health. Children and their families enjoyed lessons about the dangers of fast food, alcohol and drugs on the body. They also learned what the Bible has to say about these issues.
For more information about the Friends Helping Friends opportunities, contact Jim and Ruth Klingler at jmklinger@q.com.
Friends Helping Friends team members from Meadow Glade, Lebanon, Whipple Creek and Hockinson Heights Churches meet for vespers.
Verna Ames and Sarah Mills, Friends Helping Friends volunteers, pull out nails and staples after carpeting was removed in this home.
Friends Helping Friends team members visit the Confederate Tribes of the Warm Springs reservation in March 2009. From left: Rosa Smith, Brandon Kesselring, David VanNorman, Sarah Mills, Alisha Lang, Jonathan VanNorman, Erin Klingler, Isaac Long, Alana Smith, Matthew Perry, Shem, Camie and Traylin Hart, Ruth Klingler, Elric Benson and Jim Klingler.
