Help fill up our cereal ark for NIN!

Our Mission Trip Group returns from a February visit to Nicaragua!

Collecting supplies for the trip to Nicaragua

We are an energetic, interactive, loving and diverse Christian community. We seek to expand our community through spiritual growth and scriptural reflection to connect faith and life within ourselves, our local community, our denominations and the world.

Feed the Need

To Feed the Need is our hope and our goal at Ballard Vale United Church. We strive to feed the needs of our members through spiritual growth, education and fellowship. We strive to feed the need in Lawrence, the Merrimack Valley and the world beyond.

Neighbors in Need (NIN)

Our church has made an ongoing commitment with Neighbors in Need to provide cereal to the children of Lawrence during the school vacation when school breakfast is not available. We have a large wooden ark in our church's narthex that we fill with boxes of cereal. When it is full, members of the Outreach Committee deliver it to NIN. We also provided Christmas dinner boxes this past year to families at NIN in Lawrence. Our church families filled the boxes with the makings of a holiday dinner, and the boxes were delivered and distributed to NIN. We delivered 28 boxes this past year, and look forward to doing it again for Christmas 2008.

Mission to Nicaragua

February 2008 Mission Trip (View trip photos!)
The New England Conference of the United Methodist Church has been in covenant with the Iglesia de Christo in Nicaragua for over twenty years. We have supported medical missionaries, sent material aid, and visited Nicaragua during the winter of 2005. While there, we visited the medical initiatives that bring medicine and treatment to the homeless and destitute. We saw schools that brought education to kids who would otherwise remain unschooled. We were touched by the children's feeding programs that provide meals to the poorest of the poor in the Managua area. In February 2008 we continued our relationship with the Iglesia de Christo when we visited Nicaragua with a five member delegation.

Samaritans of Merrimack Valley

Yard Sale Fundraiser for Samaritans Teen Crisis Hot Line - May 17th
Have you been cleaning out closets, cabinets, basements, and attics preparing for the Community Yard Sale on Saturday, May 17th? All proceeds will benefit the Samaritans Teen Crisis Hot Line Project, so we need everyone's participation and support! More details on this fundraiser will be coming soon!

New Partnership
We have established a partnership with the Samaritans of Merrimack Valley, which provides crisis hotlines specifically targeted to suicidal individuals. They also provide preventative workshops and trainings to caregivers and workplaces. Because they are an all-volunteer agency, they have been in dire need of funding and volunteers. Our church has made the decision to back the Samaritans in whatever way we can. We have committed ourselves to providing volunteers for their hotlines, our pastor has joined their advisory board, and the Outreach Committee is working on fundraising projects for a crisis hotline specifically for teens.

Ballard Vale United Church
23 Clark Road / Andover, MA 01810 / (978) 475-2506 / Reverend Dr. Ed Deyton
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