Middletown Christian Church

The Cornerstone Foundation

The Cornerstone Foundation remains one of our global partners, as they support the efforts of the hospital Loma de La Luz and children’s home and school located in the very remote and yet highly populated northern area of Honduras near the city of Belfate.

Dr. Jeff McKenney and his wife Rosanne Lillard McKenney were called to Loma de La Luz (Hill of the Light) and founded the Cornerstone Foundation in 1992. Through their work with the Honduran government, they saw a tremendous need for the people there, and worked to build the infrastructure necessary to support a hospital. It took over ten years to cut roads, bring electricity and water to the remote location, but in January 2003 the 30,000 square foot, 50 bed, modern, full-service medical care facility was opened.

Today, an average of 900 patients are treated in the clinic and through outpatient surgery every month and many more are treated in triage. These patients are also ministered to through the Chaplaincy program at the hospital.

Middletown Christian Church has sent a team annually to Loma de La Luz since 2003, to build casitas where hospital patient’s families can stay near their loved one. Most must travel many miles and hours on foot through the jungle to reach the facility. The team has also worked to restructure a former single-family home into the children’s home where children suffering from abuse or those left behind find safety, healthy food and an education.

A trip is planned for the fall of 2010. More information on the upcoming mission trip will be posted in the coming months and can be found by clicking here.

For more information on Cornerstone International, go to www.crstone.org.  

Week of Compassion

The ministry of Week of Compassion is a faithful and effective way for Disciples congregations, members and friends to channel their resources and concerns to the humanitarian needs of suffering people in the world. Through Week of Compassion, North American Disciples reach out in the name of Christ to:

• provide emergency and long-term assistance to people in the aftermath of hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, droughts, civil war and other natural and human catastrophes. In a typical year WOC responds to a disaster about once every two days.
• respond with help, hope and hospitality to people who have been uprooted and displaced from their homelands by war, environmental catastrophe, famine and natural disaster. There are more than 30 million uprooted and displaced people in the world. Many of them are children.
• support programs of sustainable development and rehabilitation that empower people and communities to stand against and rise above hunger, poverty, disease, illiteracy, and other forces of injustice that deny and destroy human dignity. WOC supports projects in nearly 100 countries on every inhabitable continent of the earth.
• encourage and support volunteer groups in "hands-on" mission and service opportunities. Annually, MCC supports Week of Compassion (WOC) through our outreach giving.

Our continued support of WOC ties in directly to our global missions efforts to reduce the impact of poverty in the lives of children. Recently, the congregation pitched in to provide hygiene kits for the earthquake survivors in Haiti. (Click here to learn more.)

Want to learn more? Visit www.weekofcompassion.org.