The Mission Ministry Team of Oakville Presbyterian Church actively supports the following local outreach programs. We encourage our members to volunteer their time, energy, and resources to support our local community. We seek to provide for the needs of the community through participation in food banks, crisis assistance, Christmas toy projects, and many others.
Mid-Valley Fellowship
Mid-Valley Fellowship is a non-profit interdenominational ministry serving the Central Willamette Valley that offers support to those struggling with pornography/sexual/love addictions or unwanted same-sex desires. MVF also ministers to survivors of sexual abuse and spouses impacted by sexual brokenness. This support is presented from a Christian worldview, emphasizing an individual’s ability to choose growth and change.
Pacific Northwest Adult & Teen Challenge
This nonprofit is dedicated to putting hope within reach of every person struggling with addition through long-term residential discipleship. The program is designed to help the individuals get sober and encounter God. The goal is lasting change and gospel powered transformation. They have a facility nearby in Shedd, Oregon.
StandUpGirl.com
When a woman discovers that she is pregnant, it can be such a joyous time! However, for many women, the news of an unplanned pregnancy is simply terrifying. There are so many competing opinions on the Internet that are clinical and lack compassion when all that a woman needs is a friend to talk to. A friend who will understand and listen without judgment or contempt. Standupgirl.com is a website that comes alongside women. They encourage and advise them to make the courageous decision to choose life for them and their child.
Love INC of Linn County
Love In the Name of Christ or Love INC of Linn County is part of a nationwide network of Love INC affiliates. Love INC of Linn County was launched in 2009 and has 30 partner churches, one being Oakville. The mission of Love INC is to mobilize local churches to transform lives and communities in the name of Christ. It is a transformational ministry that seeks to help people reach their potential and learn valuable life skills. Love INC supplies medical equipment, transportation, does basic maintenance and cleaning, builds wheel chair ramps, and provides classes for self-improvement.
Options Pregnancy Resource Center
The staff and volunteers at Options are committed to providing evidence-based medical information and compassionate patient advocacy to those experiencing an unplanned pregnancy. Everything Options does is focused on empowering the client to make a well-informed decision. Options has a brick and mortar office in Albany and a mobile clinic where it offers free pregnancy tests, ultra-sounds, pre-natal vitamins and medical referrals. Options provides information on parenting and adoption, and also examines the risk and procedures associated with abortions.
Everything the center does is focused on allowing women to make healthy, informed, and livable choices. At Options Pregnancy Resource Center, women will encounter a supportive, non-pressured environment in which to explore all their options as well as offering a variety of services, all of which are free and confidential.
Fish of Albany, Inc.
FISH provides people with basic needs like food, clothing, medicine, gasoline, bus tickets, emergency and transactional shelter for pregnant and parenting teens, and transitional housing for individuals and families.
Volunteers are needed to answer phones and direct clients to services, pack food boxes, sort clothing, do yard work, do building maintenance, and serve on the Board of Directors.
Volunteers of all types are needed including teens, adults, families, seniors, and men’s and women’s groups.
Volunteer training is provided one-on-one as needed.
Union Gospel Mission of Salem
This Salem, Oregon mission was founded in 1953 by a group of Christian businessmen who became concerned for homeless men and women in the Willamette Valley to work the harvest. Today this mission continues to help men, women and children break free from homelessness by giving physical help and sharing the transforming power of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Willamette Valley First Responder Chaplains
Founded in 2018 by Dean Aithwaite with support from Oakville, this ministry provides emotional, physical, and spiritual support to first responders, such as police and firefighters, as they deal with the stresses of crisis events. Nationwide more than twice as many police and firefighters take their own lives than are lost in the line of duty.
The purpose of the chaplaincy is to help the helpers, the first responders, but the chaplains also assist law enforcement officials when providing death notification to the family of the deceased. The chaplains are servants to all people and, while providing support, do not evangelize or proselytize to the first responder or member of the public until these persons initiate the conversation, at which point the chaplain can provide Christian support. In these soul-searching moments, many people do seek this support.
Molly Mazon, Regional Missions Coordinator
Since the summer of 2021, Molly has been serving as the Regional Missions Coordinator for Grace City Church in Corvallis, Oregon. She works alongside Every Nation’s North America mission team to strategically send missions teams of college students to the nations.
Based in Corvallis, she plans and administrates trips for churches along the West Coast and empowers college students to step out in faith and share the Gospel in cross-cultural settings.
These trips sent by Every Nation aim to do two things: First, we prioritize joining in on what is already established by the international hosting church. We serve where they ask and seek to further their established ministry efforts on the ground. We typically focus on campus evangelism and outreach on international universities.
Second, these trips do something life changing in the hearts of the participants that go. Missions trips create catalytic moments where students learn to sacrifice their time, energy, and funds for the furthering of the Gospel to the nations. Our students return home charged up to see their friends reached and are often more committed to a missional lifestyle.
Ways to Strategically Pray
- For Molly and Matthew’s marriage as Molly often travels quarterly for missions trips.
- For grace and wisdom over the mission trip administrative planning process.
- For health and protection over Molly, the Pastoral Leads that she works with for each trip, and the trip team members.
