Local and International Missions
For more information about these outreach opportunities, contact the Rev. Dr. John K. Graham at 713/985-3815.
These groups provide us the opportunity to use our gifts and talents to help build God's kingdom on earth. Some groups meet weekly, others every-other-week, or periodically. Serving in one of these groups can help you grow spiritually and develop leadership skills, as well as get to know other parishioners with similar interests.
| Local Missions |
The Angel Tree Program – collects toys, clothes, and other gifts at Christmas for needy children and their families at DePelchin Children’s Center.
Bo’s Place – offers free ongoing grief support groups to families with children ages 3 to 18 who have experienced the death of a parent or sibling. It was founded on the belief that grieving children need to share with other grieving children in order to heal.
Boys & Girls Country – accepts children 18 years old and younger from families in crisis, and changes their lives by loving and nurturing them in a Christian home environment, raising them to become self-sustaining and contributing adults. Volunteers are needed to sponsor a cottage, tutor children, and raise money.
Child Advocates – trains and provides court-appointed advocates for thousands of abused and neglected children in Harris County; their vision is to help every abused child in Harris County who needs an advocate. Volunteers are needed to become an advocate for a child, give everyday items for the children, and donate funds.
Christian Community Service Center (CCSC) – was founded by a coalition of Houston area churches including St. Martin’s, to serve the poor, hungry, homebound, disabled and otherwise needy; it provides a back-to-school and Christmas program for hundreds of low-income children, and emergency assistance for families in need, including food, clothing, social services and job training.
Elves & More – brings hope to multicultural, impoverished children by giving neighborhoods of children bicycles at Christmas. They emphasize bicycles because a lack of basic transportation prevents poor children from exploring a wider world, confining them to neighborhoods filled with drugs and crime. Volunteers are needed in December to assemble and deliver the bikes.
Emergency Response Team – prepares, delivers, and serves meals to people who find themselves in emergency shelters as a result of a natural disaster like the recent hurricanes or a major incident like a fire or explosion.
Epiphany Community Health Outreach Services (ECHOS) – is an Episcopal ministry dedicated to helping the medically and socially underserved of southwest Houston access needed health service and better choose health and social services through collaboration with non-profit Community Service Providers.
“Feed My Sheep” Team – consists of volunteers for our “Family to Family” and “Group to Group” programs that match individual families and groups, respectively, from the St. Martin’s community with families and groups of people in need to take them meals and gifts. The opportunities are one time commitments through the year including Thanksgiving and Christmas and volunteers of all ages are needed. It also includes our new “Agape Emergency” program that helps families sent to us by institutions such as Texas Children’s Hospital and Memorial Hermann Children’s Hospital, who have immediate needs. These are last-of-the-moment calls for emergency needs. Our available team member will go out and buy (with church outreach funds) the needed items, such as baby items and/or food, and deliver them to the family.
The Gift Shoppe – net profits provide resources for St. Martin’s outreach to help needy people both within and outside St. Martin’s parish. Volunteers are needed to work in the shop.
The Giving Tree – is St. Martin’s alternative giving program that offers people the opportunity to honor family members and friends who have everything and at the same time support a charity and help others.
Habitat for Humanity Faith Build
Habitat for Humanity is an ecumenical Christian ministry committed to helping working families purchase simple, decent affordable homes. With our great "build leaders," St. Martin’s has built a dozen homes over the last nine years starting with the Jimmy Carter Blitz Build in 1998.
St. Martin’s Health Fairs – are organized by St. Martin’s volunteers, funded by St. Luke’s Episcopal Health Charities and St. Martin’s Agape Fund, and are in partnership with other local churches. They provide underserved children with needed immunization, and children and adults with needed dental and medical screening and information on how to enroll in insured medical programs. School supplies, books, and uniform vouchers are given to children who utilize health services. We held two this past summer – our large one at ECHOS, and a smaller one for new students entering The Rusk School and their families. We helped over 1,200 children and adults this summer.
The Lord of the Streets (LOTS) – ministers to the spiritual, emotional, physical and social needs of the tired, hungry, and poor, many of whom are homeless in midtown Houston; and provides a community for them to live in while helping them receive treatment for their underlying problems. Volunteers are needed to assist in the packaging of emergency food and hygiene packs, and donations of gently used clothing, non-perishable food and toiletry items, and financial and prayerful support are always welcomed.
Open Door Mission – is a Christ-centered emergency relief and rehabilitation shelter dedicated to meeting the needs of men in our community who are homeless, addicted, destitute and disabled. Positive life changes are wrought through structured residential programs, which focus on spiritual renewal, recovery from substance abuse, education and job training, job placement, convalescent care and access to healthcare.
Outreach Collection Boxes – are in the Activity Center and Café St. Martin’s for the collection of items, i.e., non-perishable food items, eye glasses, gently used adult and children’s clothing, back packs, baby items, and toiletries, needed by our agencies and programs.
Prison Fellowship – founded by Chuck Colson, seeks the transformation of prisoners and their reconciliation to God, family, and community through the power and truth of Jesus Christ. Opportunity to mentor, teach and provide services to inmates at the Carol Vance Unit in Sugar Land. Also needed are support folks to assist inmates, upon release, in the area of housing, jobs and professional services.
St. Martin’s Mentors — was begun in 2005 to mentor children at Rusk Elementary School who come mainly from low-income families living in or near downtown Houston; its mission is to help children understand, through clear teaching and affectionate sharing, that reading will enrich their lives. The program moved to Yellowstone Academy for the 2007 – 2008 school year.
The Seniors Place - is a day center which cares for older adults with mild to moderate memory loss. The Seniors Place offers participants an individualized wellness program with lots of socialization and stimulating daily activities. Caregivers receive respite and families are offered guidance, encouragement and support for their loved ones.
Telephone Pioneers – was started over 20 years ago by a group of retired telephone employees who clean and repair donated eye glasses, determine the prescriptions, and package them for mission trips to underserved communities in the third world. The communities receiving these recycled glasses are often remote and too small to support optical shops.
Westside Homeless Partnership –was founded in 1995 to address homelessness among families with children within the Spring Branch Independent School District, by providing them with resources and supporting services that lead to self-sufficiency.
Young Lives – is a ministry that teams mature Christian women with teenage moms through individual mentoring and monthly meetings that include dinner, worship, singing, testimonials, and babysitting. It is a division of Young Life. Volunteers are needed to provide babysitting and meals at monthly meeting, as well as mentoring candidates.
Food for the Homeless – provides a handout, a non-perishable food item containing the Houston/Harris County Crisis hot-line number, for you to keep in your car and give to homeless persons you encounter on the street.
| International Missions |
The Amistad Mission – is a Christian partnership between North Americans and Bolivians to 1) meet the medical, nutritional, educational, public health, and spiritual needs of the Quechua natives, and 2) raise orphaned and abandoned Bolivian children through independent adulthood in a Christian family/community environment. This summer’s trip was June 23 through 30.
Episcopal Medical Mission to Corinto, Honduras – issponsored by the Diocese of Texas, led by St. Mark’s of Bay City, and offers essential medical services, ongoing assistance to residents and surrounding communities of this remote village near the Guatemalan border. This summer’s trip was June 13 through 20.
The Texas Water Mission – is sponsored by the Diocese of West Texas and directs water well drilling missions to Honduras and Mexico to provide safe drinking water. St. Martin’s has provided financial support in the past and is now sponsoring a trip early next year, to drill a well and educate villagers in hygiene and sanitation.
"What does the Lord require of you but to do justice,
to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"
Micah 6:8
