Trinity Church in Papillion, Nebraska, has been a longtime partner of The Raining Season. Their church community has supported The Raining Season through sponsorship, fundraising, prayer, and traveling since 2010.
Trinity Church connected with The Raining Season after participating in a packing event for Kids Against Hunger, where they packed 25,000 meals. Not long after the Kids Against Hunger event, founder Erica Rust reached out to the church to see if TRS could travel from Tennessee to Nebraska to personally thank the church and share more about The Raining Season.
Erica visited the church and shared about The Raining Season’s work and ministry in Sierra Leone. At the time, TRS had just taken in around forty new children after a ferry accident left many children from the Shenge village as orphans. The number of children TRS was caring for went from forty to eighty overnight. Trinity Church members began sponsoring many of those children and continue to do so today.
Erica’s visit to Trinity in 2010 became the first of many visits. Erica, as well as her husband Jason, have visited on multiple occasions. In 2017, Jason shared about The Roots Project, which was just launching at that time. Our former Executive Director, Francis Pyle, also visited the church sharing updates on The Raining Season and Sierra Leone. Last year, Jason and Lori visited Trinity Church and shared updates on The Roots Project, our special needs apartment, The Hope Room, and the impact your support has on our kids.
This year, Jason and Lori had the opportunity to share an update on the ten children who came to our center last fall, as well as some relationships TRS has been able to foster within Sierra Leone that want to help The Raining Season continue and further its mission. Lori also shared about sponsorship and its importance, “We talk about how we couldn’t do it without our staff, and that is obviously very true. But we really couldn’t do it without our sponsors. Our sponsors are what allow us to do the programs that we have, to feed our kids, to clothe our kids, and to provide medical care. We need people who will come beside us, see our mission, and go for that with us. We are not just looking for people that are going to just give money to the organization. We have opportunities for you to really get to know these children and for them to be part of your family as well.”
Through the years, the church’s financial support has made a major impact on TRS’s work in Sierra Leone. It was after Lead Pastor Erik Boye traveled to Sierra Leone with several members from the church that the church began regularly giving to TRS financially. The trip made such an impact on Pastor Erik that he wanted to do more. Initially, their regular giving allowed Pastor Daniel to transition from caregiver to full-time pastor. Pastor Erik wanted him to be able to focus his time and energy on his ministry, both at the center and in the Freetown community. They have provided shelter through the building campaign, supported education, helped The Raining Season keep its doors open during Ebola, sponsored through Trinity Kids, and given to TRS in too many ways to name.
It was an honor for Jason and Lori to travel to Trinity Church and share about The Raining Season with the congregation. If you would like to view Lori and Jason sharing with Trinity Church in its entirety, you can view it HERE.
A big thank you to Trinity Church for being a longtime partner and supporter of The Raining Season. The Raining Season has been blessed by your partnership. Thank you for sponsoring, traveling, and supporting our mission.
Many blessings,
The Raining Season
Comments