Blessed Sacrament Parish

BLESSED SACRAMENT PARISH COMMUNITY
3109 Swede Ave Midland MI 48642-3842
989-835-6777
How to Find us..

Outreach

YM Outreach	Adult Outreach	Individual Outreach
Coping With Divorce	Grief Recovery Group
Adopt-a-Parish	Christian Service Commission	Ecumenical Outreach

YM Outreach Team

Check under Community Builders on the Youth Ministry Page under for information on YM Outreach Team Fundraisers.

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Adult Outreach

The whole law is summed up in a single commandment, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." -Galatians 5:14

The Adult Outreach was started in 2003. Adults from Blessed Sacrament parish work together to complete short-term projects to help people in need. Our activities are varied, and we rarely repeat the same activities. Few projects have the same group of volunteers.

Our goals are to reach out to help those in need around us. Working together, we build bonds between parishioners of all ages. We create an awareness of poverty, aging, loneliness and other needs in our area. Volunteers are exposed to the joys and faith-building opportunities in our parish, that are even possible for those with busy lives. We broaden our view of "neighborhood", "community" and "parish" through our work. We also have a good time!

Some group project examples:
Sort food at a soup kitchen or women´s shelter.
Build a handicap ramp.
Work with seniors to build bird feeders, planters with plants, or making holiday cards.
Collect and sort coats or toys.
Cut brush or do landscaping work.
Paint and decorate a women´s shelter.
Stain a chapel and paint bedrooms for a juvenile home/school.
Rake and clean a yard.
Collect and distribute food, art supplies or school supplies.
Join work on Habitat building crews.

If you would like to find out more about Adult Outreach, call the parish office at 835-6777.

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Individual Outreach
(reaching out to help our neighbors)

Whenever you need assistance in any of these areas,
    Transportation - to church or for an errand
    Visitation - a visit to people alone
    Home Service - small household repairs or tasks
    Meals - at a time of special family need
    Respite Care - occasional relief of care giver Call the coordinator or the parish office
    Coordinator - Mary Jo Asadorian - 687-6477
    Parish Office - 835-6777

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Coping with Divorce

...there´s no need to go through it alone.
Blessed Sacrament Parish offers an eight week Group Recovery Process for men and women of all faiths. Any adult experiencing the pain from divorce is welcome, regardless of when the divorce occurred.
The next session begins on Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Click here for more information

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Grief Recovery Group

...for adults coping with the death of a loved one.
The process was developed by the Diocese of Saginaw to help those who are experiencing grief through the death of a loved one. A trained facilitator will lead all the sessions with much opportunity for reflection and sharing by all. Support material is provided.
Click here for more information.

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Adopt-a-Parish

Glenmary Home Missioners, through its Adopt-A-Parish program, links Blessed Sacrament with St. Mark´s Parish in Ackerman, MS. Our contribution of $300 each month helps St. Mark´s, under the leadership of Sr. Alies Therese, to be the Catholic face and voice of Choctaw County.
Sr. Alies oversees missions in Choctaw and Webster counties. One is a parish the size of a small city (over 5,000 women, men and children), the other is the only Catholic presence in a county where less than 1% of the 9,500 residents is Catholic. One parish offers a single Mass on two Sundays of each month; the other parish provides three Masses every weekend. Two large chemical companies power the economic engine of one parish´s community, members of the other parish rely on timber and cotton for their income.

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CHRISTIAN SERVICE COMMISSION

Blessed Sacrament is committed to an active role in serving the needs of others, both in the parish and in the wider community. The Christian Service Commission oversees 25 ministries ranging from such community services as Habitat for Humanity and the Midland County Emergency Food Pantry Network to parish services such as Coffee & Donuts and Welcoming Newcomers. Information on the many Christian Service ministries can be found in the Volunteer & Enrichment Opportunities section of the website.

Emergency Assistance

As part of the parish tithe for outreach, Blessed Sacrament budgets over $30,000 every year to assist people in the community with emergency financial needs, such as rent, utility bills or medical bills. In any given month, 30 to 40 individuals or families, not necessarily members of the parish, receive assistance. For more information, please contact the parish office.

Funding Grants

Also as part of the parish tithe for outreach, Blessed Sacrament offers grants to agencies or organizations working with people in poverty. Since 1981, the parish has provided over $1.3 million in grants.
2007-2008 grants [PDF]

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ECUMENICAL OUTREACH

Haiti Uganda

Each year we have a Mission Cooperative Appeal through the Diocesan Mission Office. This year (2008) we have been given permission to use the Haiti and Uganda outreach efforts for our Mission Cooperative Collection. We will split the collection between Uganda martyrs Parish and the Medical Mission to Haiti.

Haiti - Three Angels Children´s Relief

Recently, we have heard the news of rioting in Haiti due to the world food shortage. In April, hundreds of protestors bashed in the front gate of the presidential palace in Port-au-Prince chanting, "We´re Hungry!" In addition, hundreds of people were injured and several killed during the rioting. This violence is due to a 50-70% increase in food prices over the past one and a half years. The greatest impact is upon the poor countries of the world, such as Haiti. Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere and one of the poorest in the world. 75% of the 8.5 million people who inhabit Haiti live on less than $2 per day. Haiti had already been plagued by poor nutrition prior to the food shortage with 20% of children being clinically malnourished. After the recent increases in food prices, families simply cannot afford the staples of rice, beans or corn. In a recent news article, a Haitian father states that he can only feed his children 2 spoons of rice every other day and another notes families preparing meals for their children by mixing dirt with salt and vegetable oil. It is expected that this food crisis will last at least several months and possibly much longer.

You can help relieve some of this suffering by donating to Three Angels Children´s Relief. Three Angels Children´s Relief is a nondenominational Christian organization in Port-au-Prince, Haiti that is dedicated to reaching out to the most impoverished children of Haiti. It consists of 3 specific programs.

Angel House Orphanage
Angel House opened its doors on May 1, 2003 in Port au Prince, Haiti. In the beginning, Angel House cared for seven infants. Over the years, the capacity of Angel House has risen to up to 44 infants and young children. Many of the babies abandoned to Angel House lost their parents or had mothers that were too malnourished to breastfeed. Some of the children were even found in the trash, close to death. Most of the babies are now growing and developing into healthy young children.

Three Angels Christian Academy
In September of 2005, Three Angels Children´s Relief opened an elementary school, for two hundred children in Port au Prince, Haiti; this year we have 335 children. Most of the children currently attending would not have the opportunity to attend a school. Many of the children are not blessed with regular food at home. At present, the children receive bread and peanut butter, but our goal is to continue to gather sponsorship and financial support for the children so that they can receive a daily meal of rice, beans and milk.

Halos Medical Clinic
The health of the people of Haiti is ranked as the worst in the Americas. The bulk of the population has little access to health care. It is estimated that only 1 in 10,000 Haitian citizens has access to medical care.
Approximately 1 in 17 infants die before their first birthday and 1 in 8 children die before their fifth birthday. The mortality rate for children under 5 in the neighboring country of Cuba is only 1 death per 133 children. The leading causes of death in Haitian children are all preventable or easily treated; these include lower respiratory infections, diarrhea, malnutrition, tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV/AIDS.

Save Our Situation, Uganda

From what began in 2003 as a hand written letter from a villager in Ikamiro, Uganda Africa, to a member of Memorial Presbyterian Church, the mission effort of several churches in Midland have become connected as family to the villagers in Muko Sub County, Uganda. The churches involved include Blessed Sacrament, St. John´s, St. Joseph/St. Anthony in Auburn, and Memorial Presbyterian Church. Projects include delivery of a village ambulance (first vehicle in the village of 6,800 people), building a brand new village health clinic complete with solar power (the first electricity in the village), a solar-powered vaccine refrigerator, black boards for the school and a roof for the village Catholic Church.

Sue and John Waechter traveled to Uganda in 2006 to deliver the ambulance and along with meeting many of the villagers, began a very special friendship with the young, dynamic, community leader named Father Bruno Byomunhangi. Father Bruno is a visionary and directs all his energy to making life better not only in his parish but for the whole community.

The most recent mission team (Feb. 2008) had the opportunity to attend a very special mass at Muko Martyr´s Church where Father Bruno is the priest. We presented the gold chalice from Blessed Sacrament to the congregation amid audible gasps. To put this in perspective, moments before presenting the chalice, the Mission Team members were blessed to stand in as God-parents to six of the children being baptized in the congregation. As Father Bruno made his way down the row of children in their mothers´ arms, he poured the Holy water from an old, glass Coke bottle to baptize the children. They have very little in their church except for the new building itself that the parishioners built and the beautiful new blue metal roof which was a gift from Blessed Sacrament and St. Joseph/St. Anthony´s churches here.

Father Bruno has big plans for helping the community and providing outreach programs. Blessed Sacrament has the opportunity to continue to greatly impact the lives of these villagers with a long-term partnership in meeting and teaching the villagers how to sustain the new programs. Father Bruno also serves on the Board of Directors of the organization named, Save Our Situation which serves all of Muko Sub-County through a number of programs including Muko H.O.P.E. (Help Orphans Prosper and Endure), a sponsorship program of kinship care where families in the U.S. can support a family to take in the orphans of the village; Handcrafts for Health, an organization comprised of the women in the village with HIV/AIDS who make baskets and beaded jewelry to sell; and general distributions of food, garden hoes and clothing to the villagers.

Sue Waechter and other members of the Task Force gave a presentation at Blessed Sacrament in May of 2008. Sue presented Father Pete with a shield that was made by members of Muko Martyr´s Church and presented to Blessed Sacrament Parish in appreciation for our support. The shield is on permanent display in the parish center office area.

If you want to learn more about the Save Our Situation project, please visit the website http://www.saveoursituation.org. If you want to read about the 2008 Mission Team´s day-by-day experience go to http://www.ikamiroprogress.blogspot.com.

The Memorial Mission Uganda Task Force will be sending additional mission teams to Uganda in the future. We would love to include a member from Blessed Sacrament and St. Joseph/St. Anthony churches. For more information you may call Sue Waechter at 989-631-5518.