The annual Oktoberfest was held at St Peter’s Church Hall on Sunday October 7th. Attendances were from St Luke’s, and other participating church groups and the general public from the community.
The Oktoberfest is now in its sixth year and is proving to be a great Christian fellowship and gathering opportunity. A great time was had and everyone thoroughly enjoyed the German festive food served during the course of the luncheon.
The ladies did a wonderful job preparing the food and many hands made light work in the kitchen
Pastor Ernie Kiss our interim Pastor at St Peter’s gave a prayer and the blessing prior to the luncheon being served.
Bev & Peter Burgess gave an informative talk and power point presentation on Operation Christmas Child which is a worldwide project conducted by Samaritan’s Purse and briefed us on the needs of some of the receiving countries. Bev & Peter are from the River Church and are the Albury Wodonga Area coordinators for Operation Christmas Child.
Operation Christmas Child is a worldwide Christian organisation taking the Word of God into 159 countries in the form of a shoebox which has the booklet “The Greatest Gift of All” presented along with their shoebox. In the weeks following the distribution of the shoe boxes, the children 7 years and over are offered “The Greatest Journey” which is a 12 lesson discipleship course running over 12 weeks. At the end of these lessons the participating children receive their own bible and certificate. 3,435,228 children have received Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
This year, as with the past four years we completed 90 boxes each year of both girls & boys, of all age groups. All the helpers worked each month to put the boxes together. This group together, has built up a great fellowship and the donations of goods has been really remarkable with: knitting, sewing of clothes, school bags, and pencil cases. A huge thank, you to all of our people for their contribution.
The purpose of the Oktoberfest is to raise funds to send the boxes overseas. Each box costs $10 to send and this cost covers many aspects of their journey right down to tutoring of the missionaries who conduct the classes. Australia and New Zealand each year co-ordinate together in sending boxes to the following countries; Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Samoa, Vanuatu, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam. Whilst we don’t know what countries our boxes are sent to we are assured they will be well received by the children in those countries.
The goal for 2018 in Australia & New Zealand is to bless 350,000 children in developing countries with a shoebox.