Since 1895, First Lutheran Church has been a constant, caring, community presence, serving the needs of the South Shore Lake Superior area.
83105 Washington Avenue Port Wing, WI 54865 715-774-3576 Pastor Dick Bouton 715-774-3150 WELCA NewsWELCA - Women of the ELCA
Meets on the first Wednesday of each month at 3:30pm in the church basement. Note new time! Next meeting dates: Sept 6 - Oct 4 - Nov 1 - Dec TBA All women welcome! Area women interested in joining should call Sue at 715-774-3759 or Karen at 715-774-3742. Open 12-step AA Meetings
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Beginning on Sunday, September 3rd,
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Thank you to all who supported this year's Fall Festival Pie Sale
with donations and purchases!
with donations and purchases!
First Lutheran Supports Local Charities
Food Donations for BRICK MinistriesLast spring when COVID-19 was upon us and we recognized the need for face masks, people from First Lutheran, including Joyce Olson and Leann Hess, began sewing masks for distribution locally. Johnson's Store allowed us to begin offering a free face mask in return for a contribution of food for the BRICK Ministries food shelf. Parishioner Laurie Gucinski, who also works at BRICK, has reported that in the last three months she has brought over 256 pounds of food to BRICK, donations from the face masks.
BRICK is open in Cornucopia at the Town of Bell Community Center on the 1st and 3rd Thursdays from 10am to 3pm. Laurie welcomes additional food donations to BRICK delivered to her house or she will pick it up. |
The Fig Leaf Thrift Shop new hoursThe Fig Leaf Thrift Store is now open for business Monday-Saturday, 10am-3pm, and open Thursday evening until 7pm.
New donations are accepted everyday during business hours with a limit of 3 bags or boxes per person. Proceeds from the Fig Leaf come back to area communities in the form of monetary donations. |
News & Updates from Gayle Gonsior's Mission Trip to Honduras - February & March 2023
Hello First Lutheran Family!
Thank you all for your previous support and encouragement of our small community
group's service in Honduras, near Santa Barbara. I apologize for not giving you more
updates more regularly. We work all year on this program.
I am continuing my partnership through Health and Opportunity Potential through
Education (https://hopeinhonduras.org) with mountain communities in Honduras for
basic support for medical and educational needs. They have been marginalized as so
many indigenous and isolated groups are. This is my 11th year with H.O.P.E.. Since the
pandemic when no travel and little support was possible, we have tried to catch up with
our partners in Honduras. You all were supportive of that return trip and I am grateful.
Last year we visited twice and now we are following up to continue building our
relationships and expanding our assistance as much as we can. We work with mountain
communities isolated from connections and basic needs. Generally they are at least a
2-hour drive from our base city. People often come to meet us walking from more
isolated villages where there are no roads.
Our focus this trip …
1. Continue our connection to a community clinic that provides regular services to 3
communities of people who would otherwise have no medical help. I am talking about
extremely BASIC medical services.
2. Provide some food/ supply necessities to the most vulnerable families in the villages
we frequent, including increasing the nutritional value of our support with education and
conversations. A bag of food for a family is about $15, and we try to help many families
every month, varying the villages that are delivered to.
3. Financially support a dentist and his assistant whom we have newly become partners
with to visit village children with mobile dental care including some cleaning and
necessary tooth extractions $400 provides dental care to as many children as can be
treated in one day. On one trip when I was there we served about 60 children outside in a
field during the day visit.
4. The near and dear project that I am very excited about is helping families raise
chickens in the villages. Most mountain Honduran families' diets usually consist of
beans, rice and tortillas. Chicken eggs and eventually some meat will give them a source
of protein that will be sustainable in their environment and increase children's body and
brain growth potential.
5. Continue to assess the need for and provide chimneys (about $15 each) in remote
villages to assist with smoke removal from houses. Houses generally are stick and mud,
dirt floor, 1-2 rooms. The inside clay stove provides everything from food preparation to
heat in winter. without a decent chimney family's become ill with smoke-induced
respiratory and eye issues. It is a basic need to help with improved health.
6. Provide continuing support to a school built by H.O.P.E. about 12 years ago.
None of this would be possible without the close connection we have with our liaison
Alejandro Pineda who works on our behalf when we are not there and takes care of us
with travel needs, information and connections while we are. He also does his own
service work within his wider community focusing on children. He is an unknown hero to
his people.
We will be there for a week February 25th through March 5. Our only funding comes from
what we raise. We all use our own money for travel and lodging expenses and our time
without reimbursement. The more money we raise, the more we can give. These trips to
Honduras make all of us better humans for which there is no price.
Your support, financial and nonfinancial, always means so much to me and we work hard
to put it to good use.
Gayle
Project descriptions and examples of where your donations can go
Thank you all for your previous support and encouragement of our small community
group's service in Honduras, near Santa Barbara. I apologize for not giving you more
updates more regularly. We work all year on this program.
I am continuing my partnership through Health and Opportunity Potential through
Education (https://hopeinhonduras.org) with mountain communities in Honduras for
basic support for medical and educational needs. They have been marginalized as so
many indigenous and isolated groups are. This is my 11th year with H.O.P.E.. Since the
pandemic when no travel and little support was possible, we have tried to catch up with
our partners in Honduras. You all were supportive of that return trip and I am grateful.
Last year we visited twice and now we are following up to continue building our
relationships and expanding our assistance as much as we can. We work with mountain
communities isolated from connections and basic needs. Generally they are at least a
2-hour drive from our base city. People often come to meet us walking from more
isolated villages where there are no roads.
Our focus this trip …
1. Continue our connection to a community clinic that provides regular services to 3
communities of people who would otherwise have no medical help. I am talking about
extremely BASIC medical services.
2. Provide some food/ supply necessities to the most vulnerable families in the villages
we frequent, including increasing the nutritional value of our support with education and
conversations. A bag of food for a family is about $15, and we try to help many families
every month, varying the villages that are delivered to.
3. Financially support a dentist and his assistant whom we have newly become partners
with to visit village children with mobile dental care including some cleaning and
necessary tooth extractions $400 provides dental care to as many children as can be
treated in one day. On one trip when I was there we served about 60 children outside in a
field during the day visit.
4. The near and dear project that I am very excited about is helping families raise
chickens in the villages. Most mountain Honduran families' diets usually consist of
beans, rice and tortillas. Chicken eggs and eventually some meat will give them a source
of protein that will be sustainable in their environment and increase children's body and
brain growth potential.
5. Continue to assess the need for and provide chimneys (about $15 each) in remote
villages to assist with smoke removal from houses. Houses generally are stick and mud,
dirt floor, 1-2 rooms. The inside clay stove provides everything from food preparation to
heat in winter. without a decent chimney family's become ill with smoke-induced
respiratory and eye issues. It is a basic need to help with improved health.
6. Provide continuing support to a school built by H.O.P.E. about 12 years ago.
None of this would be possible without the close connection we have with our liaison
Alejandro Pineda who works on our behalf when we are not there and takes care of us
with travel needs, information and connections while we are. He also does his own
service work within his wider community focusing on children. He is an unknown hero to
his people.
We will be there for a week February 25th through March 5. Our only funding comes from
what we raise. We all use our own money for travel and lodging expenses and our time
without reimbursement. The more money we raise, the more we can give. These trips to
Honduras make all of us better humans for which there is no price.
Your support, financial and nonfinancial, always means so much to me and we work hard
to put it to good use.
Gayle
Project descriptions and examples of where your donations can go
- Chimneys $15 / family
- Dentist $400 full day up to 60 kids seen!
- Midwives supplies needed $8 per kit each time
- Clinics $ to purchase everything we can bring or buy there for medical supplies
- Physical Rehabilitation clinic $ for children’s rehab supplies and support
- Nutrition/supplement food $15 bag including vegetables
- Hens chicks $25 per family to get started.
- School books and supplies donations or $ to purchase
- Cloth diapers /pins donations or $ to purchase
- Liaison Alejandro Pineda $50 per day time and transport
- Donations needed from those in our area or $ to purchase from those in our area
- Taper candles, Matches, Toothbrushes, Canes, Crutches, Spanish language elementarybooks
