Worship

Middleburg Missionaries Lotts Creek Through the Years

In the 1920’s, a teenage Alice Sloan was sent from the hills of Kentucky to Cleveland for an education. She returned and in 1933 founded a school on Lotts Creek. Alice Sloan fought hard to overcome the prejudice toward education and built a school for both boys and girls.

In 1953, after 20 years in log buildings, she built a modern school building and dormitories for students who could not commute daily because of poor roads.

A couple of years ago the present school was built down the hill from the other buildings.

Cordia grade and high school is now state-of- the-art serving about 200 students The school buildings are owned by the Lotts Creek Community School Inc., a charitable organization. The school is staffed by Knott County Operations are funded by a partnership of private and governmental sources originally supported by what are now mostly abandoned strip mines.

The Lotts Creek valley and most of Southeastern Kentucky have very difficult economic problems but the Lotts Creek valley itself shows signs of relative prosperity with many nice homes.

The educational opportunity brought by Lotts Creek Community School is probably the critical ingredient in that prosperity.

  (That’s where we come in!)

 Middleburg Missionaries participate in that outreach by doing home repair and improvement projects.

In a small way, we continue Alice Sloan’s legacy of making a difference.

The mission starts on Saturday morning at about 8 am. We meet in the church parking lot and pack up the church van and trailer. It’s about a 360 mile trip

Accommodations are in the old school dormitories. Nice kitchen and dinning room. The food is outstanding. And, it’s not all work. There's swimming was on the agenda each afternoon. Softball games occupy the evenings and usually one afternoon is devoted to a trip to the Natural Bridge.

It may not seem like it while we are busy working, but these trips are very educational. We learn:

Building skills

• Team work
• Cultural sensitivity and a wider world view
• What giving something really worthwhile feels like.
• These things are summarized in daily devotional time, but they really sink in later, after the trip is over.

Summary -

• Beautiful country,
• Great people,
• Rewarding work,
• Fellowship,
• New experiences,
• Making a difference

View Photos

See-sawing to feed the hungry

By Jaime Anton
Staff Writer

Imagine a group of children and teens teeter-tottering for 48 hours straight outside in the bitter cold.

No, they're not trying to break into the Guinness Book of World Records. But this group does have a mission in mind.

Brenda Bentler, 15, and Jessica Willesch, 16, teeter-totter during frigid temperatures and snow for an hour during a 48-hour fundraising event over the weekend at the Middleburg Heights Community Church. Sun photo by Jamie Anton.

Kids and adults from the Middleburg Heights Community Church took turns riding a see-saw outside the church from 6 p.m. Friday to 6 p.m. Sunday to raise money for a teen program at Church Street Ministries in Berea called Teen Outreach Through Christian Help.

These teens feed the hungry, take blankets to the homeless, donate clothing to the needy, and work with elderly in nursing facilities.

"This started out as a youth program — youth raising money for youth — but it has become a church program," Jane Fredriksen, church educator, said. "Kids of all ages and families work here collecting money, teeter-tottering, bringing food or supervising."

This was the 31st year the church has done this event but the first time it has donated to Church Street. Since 1976, some $134,000 has been raised.

Sandy Uhl and her husband, George, have participated in the event every year.

"It's estimated that two-thirds of the donations come from the community, and a third come from the church," Sandy Uhl said. "It's unique. We have kids from different communities come like Parma, Strongsville, Berea, Olmsted Falls and North Olmsted."

For the rest of the story, see your local Sun newspaper.

© 2007 Sun Newspapers