Mission Ingathering is back, in person!

MT. PLEASANT — The Mission Ingathering returns in person this year on the first Saturday of November.

Each year on the first Saturday in November at five sites around Iowa, United Methodists gather to bring gifts, to share offerings, and to learn about ways that their offerings for missions are put to work to relieve suffering, teach sustainability, and spread the Gospel.

During the pandemic, this gathering was reduced to a drive up and drop off event. This year, we are live and in person!

For years, Mt. Pleasant, the Iowa Wesleyan campus was a center of activity on Ingathering Saturday.

With IW gone, Southeast Iowa church representatives will bring congregations’ gifts to 309 North Main—First United Methodist Church — to be counted, and kits to be loaded on the truck.

Church congregations bring gifts of student kits and personal dignity kits, and other kits containing basic supplies for education and for hygiene.

Youth and adult volunteers will help unload your vehicle, then stack the cartons on the truck for the trip to Midwest Mission Distribution Center (MMDC) where they are staged until a call comes to send them to a place or a people with a need.

The kits may be sent anywhere that they can be useful, without regard for the religious views of the potential recipients. Kit contents are readily available to any of us, but are often unavailable due to weather events, economic difficulties, or political injustice.

From 8-11 a.m., the Fellowship Hall will include a bazaar table, a form for making cushions from shopping bags, and a refreshment bar, with tables to rest.

Persons coming to the Ingathering will meet friends to compare notes and share stories, visit with the booth representatives, and then imagine ways to be in ministry.

The bazaar table may have a variety of craft items for sale, everything from woodcrafts to ceramics to crochet to knitting, plus a few baked goods. Some things are purchased as gifts, and others are eaten that morning!

All proceeds of the bazaar table are used to fund efforts to combat hunger and poverty in Southeast Iowa.

The funds are available for use in and near the neighborhoods and towns of the congregations who can imagine ways to reduce and prevent hunger among their neighbors.

In the Fellowship Hall at 11 a.m. those present will join in a Service of Sending, during which the people present focus attention and gratitude toward God for the opportunity to be stewards of such abundance.

There is no admission charge to enter the Mission Ingathering site at First United Methodist Church. Parking is free around the building, and the building is handicap accessible.

Persons who are interested in mission opportunities and mission work are welcome to explore ways to work together.

Most of the Ingathering projects are interdenominational: Church World Service, Heifer International, Self Help International, and Mission Mobility have unique ways of ministering to neighbors in need.