Outreach
ANGEL TREE PROGRAM
The Angel Tree Program offers you and your family an opportunity to share the love of Christ with someone less fortunate. In early December, a Christmas tree appears in the front lobby decorated with tags that identify an individual and some of their needs. You are encouraged to take a tag, have fun shopping for gifts from the suggestions listed on the back, and return your gift wrapped in a Christmas bag, ready to be delivered.
LOVE INC.
Love in the Name of Christ (Love INC.) is a strategy to help churches help their neighbors in need. It is a network of churches that links volunteers to people in need. It is a cooperative effort between churches and service agencies to provide effective help for the disadvantaged. Love INC. is a vehicle that helps churches, collectively and individually fulfill their biblical mandate to reach out to the poor and needy. A member church supplying a need in the community that cannot be met by the requested church is churches helping churches.
MISSION PROGRAM
For the past two years our mission program has been the Alfoli de Dios Church in Laguna Heights. Due to a fire their sanctuary burned to the ground. Through fundraisers, donations and pray we have made a giant leap in the re-construction and putting God’s love back into Laguna Heights. The superstructure is complete with windows and doors finished. They are having bi-monthly barbecues to provide the electric wiring needed to install lighting and start services Pews seating eighty persons were donated by a Spanish church up the valley recently.
AMIKids – Rio Grande Valley
The AMIKids, formerly Rio Grande Marine Institute, is a non-profit boy’s residential facility deep in the heart of South Texas. It is located six minutes from Christ Harbor Church next to the Cameron County Immigration Center and by the Cameron County Airport. AMIKids is one of over sixty schools operated by Associated Marine Institutes out of Tampa, Florida. They have been in existence since 1989. The students are involved in community projects. AMIKids strongly believes that the best way for young men to learn a new lifestyle is through building strong ties with positive role-models. At AMIKids you will see students working at changing their lives and staff assisting them in learning skills which will benefit them for a lifetime. What you won’t see are bars and fences. They receive their GED’s from teachers contracted with the Los Fresnos School District. Many leave with their GED in hand. Many attend Christ Harbor Church on Sunday and take part in church activities. This program is a juvenile judge’s alternative to the standard juvenile detention program.
ASSISTED LIVING CENTER
The Assisted Living Center at Laguna Vista offers cost-effective quality care that is personalized for individual needs by fostering independence for each resident, treating each resident with dignity and respect, promoting the individuality of each resident and allowing each resident choice of care and lifestyle. To protect each resident’s right to privacy while nurturing the spirit of each resident. The mission is to involve family and friends, as appropriate, in care, planning and implementation. We also provide a safe residential environment making the assisted living residence experience a valuable community asset.
SUNSHINE HAVEN
Sunshine Haven is a special care facility located in Olmito, Texas just north of Brownsville. They presently have three beds available, but have just completed ten additional beds in a new and totally updated facility. This thirteen bed facility will be the largest and most modern in the lower Rio Grande Valley. They are assisted by Odyssey, which is a nationwide support group. Their team of caregivers consists of registered nurses, physicians, home healthcare aides, social workers, chaplains, bereavement counselors and trained volunteers. They provide palliative care to ease pain and discomforting symptoms. In addition, they provide psycho-social and spiritual support for both patients and their loved ones. The commitment and spirit of Odyssey team members who provide care and support 24 hours a day/seven days a week is embodied in a simple phrase team members wear on their collars: “YCCOM: You Can Count on Me.”
PORT ISABEL FOOD PANTRY
At its inception, it was called the Pharr Area Food Pantry and directly served those living in Pharr and surrounding areas. In 1986, the pantry was incorporated to become the Food Bank of the Rio Grande Valley, Inc. In this way it could serve as a clearinghouse for smaller food pantries and on-site feeding organizations. The Food Bank of the RGV is a champion to hose organizations and churches who focus on making food accessible to residents in the Port Isabel/Laguna Heights area. This program meets a vital need for nourishing daily food requirements in our area. It also gives us an opportunity to bring and demonstrate God’s love to a needy world.
HEB ADOPT A FAMILY
Adopt a family for Thanksgiving is a program worked out with HEB stores where the church purchases a Thanksgiving turkey and HEB provides additional commodities to provide a well-rounded nutritious dinner keeping with good biblical principles. The selection of families to receive these meals is made in conjunction with the Port Isabel School District Councilors and the Cameron County Constable office. In many cases destitute families are given a wonderful holiday blessing.
CLOTHING DRIVE
A free clothing drive is given each year shortly before the beginning of the next school year. Donated clothing items are sorted by size and boxed to be given out at the Alfoli de Dios Church site in Laguna Heights. Families with clothing needs for the next school year met at no-out-of-pocket expense. This is a major blessing for many families.
MEDICAL SUPPLY MINISTRY
A new ministry just started this year provides medical supplies to our community and is run like a library. Equipment like hospital motorized beds, wheelchairs, port-a-potty, walkers, crutches and canes of all types are available. Items can be signed out at Christ Harbor Church and used during a convenience period. When no longer needed they are returned back to stock for someone else’s future use. This program will provide temporary use of what would be expensive medical equipment to purchase.
THE PEACEMAKERS (QUILTING)
This ministry would involve the making of lap quilts for shut-ins and elders persons in need. They would not be labeled until a name of the person to receive was known. Then, a label with Christ Harbor Churches’ logo and their name would be added. This would be a wonderful way of extending God’s love to someone in the community. We have already received donated sewing machines, sergers and material to start the program later on this year.
For more info, please email Outreach@ChristsHarborChurch.com.
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