February 21, 2025 Newsletter
This week, we experienced a beautiful God moment. God put the right people and donations in the right place at the right time.
Recently, a trailer was donated to Midwest Mission from a church that no longer needed it. The trailer was filled with tools and ladders and shelving. Once it arrived on campus, Brad Walton, Director of Operations, took a quick look, but wasn’t able to immediately unload it, and put the items away for future shipping.
New Lenox UMC from New Lenox, Illinois served at Midwest Mission this week. Ray Trent has served with New Lenox for many years, and has been a great supporter of Midwest Mission. Every time he comes to campus, he brings a trailer load of supplies he has collected with him. (Thank you, Ray!)
This time, as he began unloading the trailer, he asked Brad if it was alright to keep the few tools he had collected on the trailer. He had another organization — Cookson Hills.
Cookson Hills Ministry Center works to alleviate poverty in Native American communities in Oklahoma. They work in three of the poorest counties in the state. According to their website, “Poverty is systemic and all of the effects of poverty can be seen here in this area — domestic violence, addiction, incest, gambling, child neglect, hunger, lack of transportation and spiritual depravity. 38% of our children go to bed hungry, and 38% of our elderly go to bed hungry.”
Cookson Hills had a trailer full of tools that they would take along with them to help do repairs in the community. Unfortunately, the trailer was broken into and all of the tools were stolen.
So, Ray was planning to take the tools he had collected to Cookson Hills in the next few weeks.
After he shared the story, Brad had an idea. He told Ray that he hadn’t unloaded the donated trailer full of tools, and if Ray was willing to unload it, he could pack up the tools he thought Cookson Hills would need, and add it to his own trailer!
After several hours of unloading and sorting, taking down shelves and brackets, the job was finished. Ray was astounded by the amount of tools. Brad took a look at the supplies, and decided Ray could take everything but the generator, as it’s something that gets requested quite often.
Ray’s trailer was loaded up with all of the tools, and he reached out to Cookson Hills’ director to tell her the good news.
The New Lenox team went back to the Lodge that night and prayed about the opportunity.
The next morning, Ray profusely thanked Brad Walton and Chantel Corrie, Midwest Mission’s Executive Director. He told them Cookson Hills’ director said now the only thing they need is a generator!
Upon hearing this, Brad told him he should go ahead and take the generator too. Ray all but jumped for joy.
He will be taking the trailer over to Cookson Hills in the next few weeks, and we look forward to hearing about the impact of the tools in the community.
Thank you, God, for working in only the way You can — the right donations, the right people, and the right timing.
Illinois Treadle Training - Next Week
Have you ever been curious about refurbishing treadle sewing machines? We are in need of more volunteers who can come to Midwest Mission in Illinois regularly to work on treadle machines.
For those who might be interested, there will be treadle machine training, with our treadle expert, Clarence Harms, in March:
Wednesday, March 12
Wednesday, March 19
Training will be 8:30am-4pm, with a 1-hour lunch break from 11:30am-12:30pm. You can bring your lunch, or leave for lunch!
If you’re interested, sign up here.
There are only two spots available each day!