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The Presbytery of Lake Huron
Michigan
Children in Ikamiro, Uganda, receive backpacks with school supplies provided by the Memorial Mission Uganda team from Midland.
In 2003, Sue Waechter of Midland received a handwritten letter from the Ikamiro Lifeline Society in Uganda. Members had found her consulting service for nonprofits on the Internet and asked her to help them complete a strategic plan. As Sue worked with them by e-mail, she was drawn to the society’s vision to have a vehicle to use as an ambulance rather than carrying sick people on foot by stretcher for twenty-five miles to a health center. She approached her own church, Bertha E. R. Strosacker Memorial Presbyterian, which provided a grant, as did St. John’s Episcopal Church in Midland. Soon there were sufficient funds to buy a used 15-passenger van. Sue and her husband, John, delivered the van to Ikamiro in 2006.
Sue and John Waechter discovered many needs in the village and felt God was calling them to work with the villagers, who responded with a community-based organization, Save Our Situation (www.saveoursituation.org). Two Catholic churches raised money for a new roof on the village’s Catholic church; St. John’s Episcopal built a health clinic; and Memorial Presbyterian adopted “Mission Uganda” as an official program. In 2008, a mission team installed solar panels to provide electricity for lighting and for a vaccine refrigerator for the clinic. They provided school supplies and planned a sponsorship program for HIV/AIDS orphans. In another initiative, Handcrafts for Health, women with HIV/AIDS are making baskets and beads to sell through fair trade organizations. God has indeed been at work in this partnership!
The Presbytery of Lake Huron has 51 churches with 11,047 members and includes Alma College within its bounds.
Rev. Melissa Derosia, member, GAC
Tim Clark, member, GAC
Presbytery Staff
Rev. Louise Brokaw, general presbyter
Rev. Dr. Valerie Fargo, associate general presbyter
Elder Chris Wolf, associate for Christian formation/resource center
Rev. Dr. Douglas Tracy, stated clerk
Andrea Drapp, business manager/treasurer
Marquietta Davis, senior administrative assistant for communications
Staci Percy, recording clerk/administrative assistant
PC(USA) General Assembly Staff
Jonathan Dennis, GAC
Sheldon Dennis, BOP
God of all peoples, we are your hands; we are your feet; we are your eyes, ears, and smile. Use us, American and Ugandan, to serve one another, to help one another, to challenge one another, and to love one another, just as the Lamb has taught us. Amen.
Ps. 119:73–80, 145 Ps. 121, 6
Jer. 1:11–19
Rom. 1:1–15; John 4:27–42
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