Saturday of Service (SOS) January 23rd

SOS – Saturday, January 23rd

We have an awesome list of projects scheduled for our next Saturday of Service (SOS). Please see below for details on description of the project, location, time, and contact person:

Backyard Bible Club: These are like a mini VBS. We will be teaching a Bible Story, doing a craft, having a snack, etc. We will be holding them at 2 different apartments:

Redbud Trail Apartments: 1300 N Redbud Blvd, McKinney. 10 am - Noon. Sandra Vlahakis, Project Leader avlahakis@tx.rr.com

Woodside Village Apartments: 703 Bumpas Street, McKinney. 2 - 4pm. College and Youth, Project Leaders stephenp@thecornerschurch.com

Fix a House: This generally includes minor repairs, hauling away debris, etc. We will be fixing 2 houses:

Pastor Willie and Sweet Mama Simms – 216 Carver Street, McKinney 75069. 9am - Noon will be the house repair portion of the project. From Noon - 3pm we will have a Fish Fry and neighborhood outreach for the surrounding community. Greg and Chris Harden, Project Leaders christine.harden@kone.com bdagah0@yahoo.com

Pete Tanguma – 1300 Garcia Street, McKinney 75069. Bob and Brenda Willis, Project Leaders bobbrendawillis@tx.rr.com

Fix a School: Slaughter Elementary School, 2706 Wolford Street, McKinney. 9am - Noon. For information, please contact Sharon Neill sharonneill@rocketmail.com

We are taking part in Mckinney’s Adopt-a-School program. We will be working with Slaughter Elementary. To kick off our relationship with this school we will be helping with some projects at the school. For this project we will be partnering with Wesley United Methodist Church who is also taking part in the Adopt-a-School program with Slaughter.

The Corners Church will be taking the lead in building a small stage for a "Principal Reading Corner". Wesley UMC will be leading the project in "warming up" and decorating another room at the school.

5+2 Kids Club December Project

Christmas Play and Store at Victoria Gardens Nursing Home

On Monday, December 21st the children had a Christmas Party and play practice at the church. We had 20 kids and their parents participating in various activities:

• We outfitted all the kids in costumes. We must have had 10+ angels !! Special thanks to Amy Dryden for loaning us the costumes. The kids were so adorable !!
• The kids were so patient, cooperative, and attentive as we practiced the play.
• There were various craft projects ongoing throughout the afternoon. Ayeshia Duru was an angel making machine !!
• Special thank you to the Thrasher family for coordinating the party and project
• All the kids had a blast decorating Micole's delicious gingerbread and sugar cookies - YUM!!

Then on the morning of Wednesday, December 23rd we had over 20 children take part in the December project at the nursing home.

We began with the Christmas play which featured Bailey Dryden narrating the Christmas story which the children acted out. The play included several beautiful Christmas carols that all the children sang. They did an incredible job for learning it 2 days before !!

We had set up a Christmas store in the foyer of the home prior to our play. We had over 200 gifts donated !! A special thank you to everyone who gave so generously. We gave each resident 3 play dollars to "buy" Christmas gifts for themselves, friends, or family. At the end of the store we had a gift wrapping table for those who wanted their gifts wrapped.

The children (and parents) were incredible as they jumped right in helping push the wheelchairs, assist the residents in selecting presents, manning the gift tables, wrapping gifts, visiting with the residents, etc........ What a wonderful day we had "Sharing Jesus by Helping Others" !!

Christmas Party at Redbud Apartments

Christmas Party at Redbud Apartments

Brad Webb, Missions Pastor writes:

I went to the Christmas party at the Redbud apartments on Saturday, December 19th. I am blown away by Sandra Vlahakis and the ministry she is doing out there. Through Stephanie Johnson's assistance with the Angel Tree ministry and help from a few others, we were able to give 55 children Christmas presents at Redbud! Sandra, and Carolina (the lady that lives at Redbud and runs the program) did an incredible job leading the party.

The kids had learned 2 Christmas songs and 1 praise and worship song that they performed at the party. Then Sandra told the Christmas story and lead all of the kids and parents in an incredible prayer. It was truly a picture of heaven as these kids were filled with joy and wonder listening to the story of Jesus. Angelo, Sandra's husband dressed up as Santa Claus and delivered the presents to all of the kids. It was incredible !! I talked with Carolina and she said that it has been incredible to watch God move through this ministry.

There are now between 30-40 kids that come consistently Monday through Friday from 5-7. They have started a bible study for the parents, and the children have started sharing their faith and what they are learning with their parents and friends. God is so Good!

If you would like more information how you can help impact the lives of these precious children, please contact Sandra at avlahakis@tx.rr.com

Personal Missions and Ministry

The Corners is incredibly blessed to have so many members of our church involved with and leading ministries. It is exciting and wonderful to see how individuals are taking the call from Jesus to “Serve Our World” in such varied and impactful ministries.


Each month we will highlight a different ministry. If you would like your ministry featured, please send us an email at missions@thecornerschurch.com


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Honduran Kids

Extreme Missionary Adventures (XMA)
Adventure with a purpose…to know him and make him known

XMA is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping volunteers make a positive impact on their world. The volunteers share the love of Jesus with overlooked people in remote locations around our world and help with human needs such as medical, dental, construction, educational and other basic needs.

Mark Neill will be joining a team to Honduras March 6 – 13, 2010. If you would like more information about XMA or going on a trip to Honduras, Nicaragua, Peru, or Central Asia, contact Mark at 972-562-2165 or msneill@att.net

or visit XMA's website at: http://xmaonline.com/

A missionary society wrote to the great missionary David Livingstone deep in the heart of Africa and asked, “Have you found a good road to where you are? If so we want to know how to send other men to join you.” Livingstone wrote back, “If you have men who will come only if they know there is a good road, I don’t want them, I want men who will come if there is no road at all.”

5+2 Kid's Club

5+2 Kid's Club is an organization of children who want to serve others in our community. Our mission statement is "Sharing Jesus by Helping Others."

The name 5+2 comes from the story of the little boy who gave Jesus 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish to feed the people. Jesus asks to just bring what we have and he will miraculously multiply it to bless the world. We will be having monthly mission projects. Feel free to bring your elementary age friends, neighbors, cousins - everyone is invited to participate and see God move through the children.

Our first mission project will be a Bike-a-Thon at the church on Sunday, Nov. 8th from 3-5pm. We will be raising $$ to purchase keyboards for special needs children to give to Our Children's House at Baylor. Our own 7 year old Ashley Simmons (who has cerebal palsy) is one of the patients that has benifitted from Our Children's House.

Our Children's House at Baylor is a licensed pediatric hospital dedicated to giving quality care to children from infancy to age 18 who need medical care and treatment for developmental and birth disorders, traumatic injury, and severe illness.

These keyboards have larger keys which allow patients to have better control in typing and will assist them in their educational progress. We will be including a book about Jesus with each keyboard. We are donating the keyboards and books about Jesus to the centers in Frisco and Allen.

Bike-a-Thon

What: Pledge drive to raise $$ to purchase special keyboards. Each child needs to fill out a registration card at church. The child will be given a pledge sheet and envelope to collect the $$. We're asking each child to get at least 10 pledges. The pledges can be so much $$ per lap or a flat $$ amount.

Where: We will hold the bike-a-thon in the parking lot of The Corners Church, Highway 121 and Custer. We will have a separate area for small children to ride also.

When: Sunday, November 8th from 3-5pm

Who: Ashley's family, Steve and Patti Simmons and brother Matthew are sponsoring and coordinating this event. For more information and to help with this event, please contact Patti at 972-881-2121.

How You Can Help

• 
  
  Pledge $$ for one of the children


• 
  
  Volunteer to assist at the bike-a-thon


• 
  
  Pray for good weather and a successful event honoring the children at Baylor's Our Children's House

SOS was an incredible day. We had right around 200 people from our church volunteer at all of the projects! Here is the story of all that happened that day….

It started out bright and early at 7:30 with the Food Pantry Crew. We had been collecting canned food as a church for a few weeks leading up to this day. Lisa Hoyles and Ayeshia Duru did an awesome job leading this project and getting everyone involved. To bring in more food for God’s food pantry, Beth Knights and others from the group set-up shop in front of Krogers the weekend before and were able to get 4 trunk loads of donations and also more than $150. We were able to almost triple what God’s Food Pantry had, and over 100 families will be impacted by the food we brought. Here are some pics…

Then it was off to the Fix a House Project. Jeff Rice and Erik Rogers led an awesome group of volunteers to do some much needed work on the house of a grandmother who is raising her 2 and 4 year old granddaughters. It was an incredible opportunity for us to lend a hand, bring hope, and encourage a family with the love of Jesus. There was a lot of sweat, tree climbing, laughing, limb cutting and landscaping; and what a difference it made. It was so great to spend time at the house and pray with the family. They were so appreciative and wouldn’t stop thanking us. Here are some pics….

The group with the family

Rawls Family

Brooks(white shirt) is 6'5" so that's a huge pile of stuff we cleared

Erik spent about 2 hours 25ft up in the tree. We gave him some banannas.

Erik's wife, Carrie, was trying to cut down the branch he was on. JK.

Cute Kids Serving at SOS and being like Jesus at a young age!

After that we made our way to the Jesus Loves You Picnic. The Picnics are always a blast to be at! Getting to have fun with friends, meet new people, and getting to chow down on food makes serving seem more like a party. But there is a purpose behind the fun. Over 100 people from the community were fed, many of them might not have had a meal that day otherwise. I saw people being prayed for, the gospel being shared, and invitations to join us at church happening left and right. Chad Price absolutely went beyond anything I could have ever hoped for in leading this project. His spirit was all over this picnic and made it awesome. Who would have thought that grilling hot dogs, playing music, and a bounce house could open so many doors to impact the kingdom. One family, who did not speak English, asked if we had a Spanish service. When they were told we didn’t, they still said they wanted to come because they just wanted to be around us again and feel more of the love they received from our church.

My Wife Remy taking every chance she gets to hold a baby. Is that some kind of clue?

People hanging at the Picnic

I have to give a special thanks to John and Jovana Morrison. They have painted faces at all of our picnics and do an incredible job. Many times they are painting for 4+ hours and never take a break. This is probably the number one attraction for the families and kids in the area. I don’t know how they do it, but it is awesome to see them steward their talent and be so selfless to make an impact for the kingdom. Not a single kid leaves that face painting chair without a huge smile on their face. Thank you so much John and Jovana. You have no idea what an encouragement you are to me and how thankful I am to have y’all at our church. Jovana, you're awesome!

John, you're cool too!

Bruno cut hair for anybody at the park who needed it. It was another awesome way to engage the people at the park. I haven’t known Bruno for all that long, but I can just feel the heart of Jesus in him and it was such a great experience to watch him minister to people with his gifts and talents. And if that wasn’t enough, his wife Rene was an outreach and ministry machine at the picnic. There wasn’t a second that I didn’t see her speed walking to welcome the next family and make sure they were taken care of. Many of the families only spoke Spanish, and although she is far from fluent, you wouldn’t have known it on that day. She said she didn’t know how to explain it, but she could understand and communicate in a way she never has before. God is pretty cool at using what little we have and making God sized things out of them. My heart overflowed with joy watching her and hearing her share what God did in, and through her that day. I truly got to witness heaven coming to earth in an incredible way through the Lopez’s.

Bruno cutting some hair.

There are those times when you look at somebody and although they still look like themselves, it is undeniable that you are getting a glimpse of Jesus. One of those times just happened to be when I turned around to see this…

Candice Praying with new friend. Coolest Pic of SOS!

The compassion, the courage, and the heart of Jesus was displayed all day by Candace, but this moment captured it all for me. It was such a powerful moment that it almost brought me to my knees. Jesus is Good! Darryl Thrasher ended up continuing to minister to this guy and stepped out in faith when he felt God telling him to get his contact info and follow up after. We ended up taking him to lunch the Tuesday after and we’ll continue to show him the love of Jesus.

There was such a great crowd at the end of the picnic that we decided to move the location of the Back Yard Bible Club to the park where the picnic was and continue to minister to that area. Darryl and Micole Thrasher did an incredible job improvising and leading their group despite the changes. The kids loved doing all of the crafts and activities that they had planned, it was a great way to engage whole families.

Pastor Randy, Carol, and JR

Yvonne Mains and Lori Blackwell went to a battered women’s shelter called Emily’s House and ministered to the lady’s there by giving them manicures and pedicures. They also did the same thing at a nursing home in the afternoon. I was not able to be at there, but heard an incredible report of all the ways Jesus moved.

Lastly Dave Dryden Sr. had a handful of guys help some families in our church with some projects that were desperately needed. Just another way to be the love of Jesus.

I can’t thank everyone in our Church enough. It is incredible to be a part of a Church that is actively transforming the world around them with the love of Jesus. Stay Tuned for more.

Saturday of Service (SOS)

Mark your calendars for the next Saturday of Service (SOS) on Saturday, October 3rd.

This one is sure to be bigger and better yet !! Start thinking and praying now for where you would like to serve. All our projects are kid friendly and we encourage every family to bring their children. Please review the list of projects, decide which project speaks to your heart, and then contact the project leaders for further details.


Backyard Bible Club - Project Leaders: Darryl and Micole Thrasher

Mini VBS for the children - games, bible stories, music, food
Location: Willowcreek Fellowship Church, 1804 P Ave, Plano 75074 (972) 423-2950
Time: 12:30 for set-up; 1 - 3 pm

Contact the Thrashers if you can help: Darryl cell: 214-537-3083 darryl_thrasher@tx.rr.com; Micole cell: 972-342-3252 micole_thrasher@tx.rr.com


Jesus Loves You Picnic - Project Leader: Chad Price

Food, games, music, face painting
We'd like to offer free haircuts - let Chad know if you can cut hair
We'd like to offer free dental checkups - let Chad know if you are a dentist

Location: Willowcreek Park, of Jupiter Road between East Spring Creek Parkway and Parker in Plano 75074
Time: 10 for set-up; Picnic runs from 11 am - 1 pm; 1pm - ?? for tear down

Contact Chad if you can help: home: 214-228-6292 email: chprice458@aol.com


Fixing a House - Project Leaders: Jeff Rice and Erik Rogers

The house is in the Park and Preston area. Go west on Park, left on Ohio, and left on Atlanta - the house number is 4544. Two older ladies live there with the 4 year old and 2 year old grandchildren, both girls. The mother is drug addicted and basically dropped the children off with her mother (Joan Rawls) and aunt. Come share the love of Jesus with this family !! Contact Jeff or Erik if you can help.

There are several requirements for this project:
A tree trimming crew - there is a huge tree in the front yard that needs some major trimming
A landscaping crew - for the front yard cleaning out the beds and trimming bushes

Location: 4544 Atlanta Drive, Plano 75093
Time: 9am - noon

Contact Jeff cell: 214-417-7156 jeff_rice@sbcglobal.net
Contact Erik cell: 214-274-9797 erik.rogers@pursuant.net


Life Care Center / Emily's House - Project Leaders: Yvonne Main and Lori Blackwell

We will go to Life Care Center (a retirement home) from 1 -3 pm and give manicures to the ladies. They would like someone to play piano also -- let Yvonne and Lori know if you can play for them.

Location: Life Care Center of Plano: 3800 West Park Boulevard, Plano, TX 75075; Phone: (972) 612-1700
Time: 1 - 3 pm

Contact Yvonne at cell: 214-471-7619, home: 469-952-1137, email: rmain@figfs.com
Contact Lori Blackwell at: home: 972-562-8832, email: loripalermo419@aol.com


God's Food Pantry - Project Leaders: Lisa Hoyle and Ayashia Duru

From 9am - 1pm we will be assisting the pantry in sorting and stocking the food.

Location: God's Food Pantry: Address 3420 E. 14th Street, Suite 101Plano, Texas 75074; Phone: 972.633.9777 E-mail: godsfoodpantry@aol.com Michael and Linda White run the pantry
Time: 9am - 1pm

Lisa Hoyles at home: 214-548-4765 email: lisaqzz@yahoo.com
Ayeshia Duru at home: 972.678.0263 email: ayeshiaduru@gmail.com

Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive

In conjunction with this project, we will be having a Food Drive at the church. 7 year old Caleb Knights has felt the call of God on his life and has agreed to head up and coordinate the food drive. 1st - 4th grade children will be helping him with this. Support the children by bringing food donations to the Children's Dept. and Missions Room.

"For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself." Acts 2:39

Missions Testimony

From Carol Wood:

My son (Justin) and his friend John have been going out on Wednesday evenings to Old Settler's Park in East McKinney. First they go to the homes and invite people to come eat & hear a word of God. They have been doing this for three weeks now.

The first week they had about 40 people, the second about 35 people and this week there were at least 80. It was awesome!!! Next week we are going to do a bible lesson for the kids since there were so many. We have also been telling these people about the upcoming picnic and many of them came to the last one and are excited about the next one.

Two women came up after the sermon and asked for prayer. I believe more will come forward as time goes on. One young man (19yrs) gave his life to Christ and is going to be baptized.

There was a huge mix of people coming out to eat, fellowship and hear Gods word. Several who came out were families, moms, dads & their kids. We really tried to talk to them and engage them in conversation and they were receptive. It was such a beautiful to see all these people gather around at the end and hold hands to pray. I am sure the heavens were rejoicing.

Jesus Loves You Celebration - this Sat 9/19 !!

This Saturday!! September 19th from Noon - 3pm at Old Settlers Park in East McKinney (where we had the first SOS picnic in March).

Contact: Carol Wood phone: 806 282-0447; email: c-hinojosa@hotmail.com
Sandra Vlahakis phone: 972-704-9597 email: avlahakis@tx.rr.com
Needs:

• handing out fliers in neighborhood @ 10:00am
• setting up at 10:00 am
• serve, fellowship and share the word of Christ during the picnic
• clean up after the picnic
• Please pray that God pour out his holy spirit so that lives will be touched, souls will be saved. Pray this will all be all about God and not about us, and that HE will be glorified!!!

Donations needed:

• Individual bags of single serving size chips and cookies/snacks
• water bottles and juice boxes
• bags of ice
• frisbies, bubbles, other games for the kids
• use of a bounce house

Our last Celebration we had about 100 to 120 people from the neighborhood come throughout the day and feel the love of Christ. This neighborhood was so touched by our unconditional act of kindness. We believe God has prepared a great harvest in this neighborhood and we are excited about being a part of it. We pray that you seek God and ask him to equip you with the right heart to be a part of this great experience. We do everything in his name to bring HONOR AND GLORY TO HIM AND TO FURTHER HIS KINGDOM.

We pray that God will pour out his blessing on you and your family and that your lives will truly be blessed. We Thank You for helping with this and for serving God’s kingdom!!