Our church women, individuals in the community, and other church organizations in the community donate money to buy yarn. Our women then buy the yarn and take it to Portage to the prison.

The Assembly food pantry still exists and operates as food pantries usually do: once per month, not every month, folks pick up their food on certain days, etc. The other "branch" of food pantry in Ellendale attempts to get food to the rural folks who need it, whatever that may take. Attached are copies of a letter to community people, a press release for the local newspaper, a note that goes into each delivery of food.

Are you a deer hunter? Is there someone in your congregation who is? Will you be hunting in a "Zone T" area? This is the second year for a new program in the state of Wisconsin that can help feed the hungry right in your own community. Every year there are hunters who are fortunate enough to bag one or more deer but who do not have use for all the meat. Now, through a program of the Wisconsin DNR with the cooperation of groups like Hunters Against Hunger and Hunt for the Hungry, you can donate all or part of your deer to be given away at local food pantries.

The local food pantries were in need of food, and our members certainly were willing to help out. Here is the plan we used to make sure that the food received actually matched the current needs of the food pantries.

Part Three of “Journey Together Faithfully” has now been published and the responses are due by November, 2007. The task force, in encouraging congregations to take part in this study, believes that making a convenient and easy-to-use outline will encourage more congregations to take part in this study and therefore respond to the ELCA Churchwide Task Force.

The Wndmill Task Force was initiated last year to explore the possibility of erecting a windmill on the property of Madison Christian Community. The task force quickly discovered that using renewable sources of energy is just one component of becoming a community committed to stewardship of the environment. Some of the task force's labors will bear fruit. We are in the process of applying for a grant with Wisconsin Focus on Energy to implement energy saving measures.

The following prayers are for small town communities and rural life. They are written by members of our synods Rural Faith and Life Task Force and the Hunger and Justice Committee. Our goal is to keep the concerns and reality of rural and small town life before us.

As 2005 ends, the country of Malawi, along with other countries in sub-Saharan Africa, finds itself in the midst of a hunger crisis. To respond to this crisis, Immanuel Lutheran Church and congregations of the Northwest Synod of Wisconsin, in a Companion Synod relationship with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Malawi, are making a hunger appeal. This card can be used as a bookmark or Christmas ornament to make a life-saving gift in honor of a loved one or friend.

Your donations are going directly to the feeding stations in support of our sister church in Malawi, to help those in need of something so simple as a meal. Remember to stop in the back of the Narthex and donate a roll or "dough" for a roll from the French Confection.

We borrowed a "Coin Tornado," one of those "things" onto which you drop a coin so that the coin rolls around and around and around as it descends down a funnel, from a local Kiwanis Club and placed it in the narthex. Young and old are having great fun emptying their pockets.