Mission Bear Journeys

 by Kelcy Newton

     In the summer of 2005 St. Andrew United Methodist Church started a project that we hope might spread all over the world.  It is called the Mission Bear Project.  It was first suggested by Rebecca Wheeler, a member at St. Andrew.  She wanted to see love and goodwill spread all over the world.  To accomplish this goal, she went to Build a Bear Workshop and purchased many medium, inexpensive bears.  She then asked other members at St, Andrew to take the bears with them on their summer vacation and give them to somebody they met during their journey.  She got the idea from a school in the United States.  They were using geo-bears to learn about geography.  They would send them out, get postcards and study the places the bears went.  She did this exact same thing only she connected it to the church.  The bears have gone to Europe, Spain, Peru, Canada, Mexico, Massachusetts and many other places.  There have been about nine or ten bears sent out to these places and many others.  I myself took a bear to Europe when my family went.  There is one church in Indiana that we believe will be sending out more mission bears very soon.  I go to St. Andrew UMC and we have gotten many postcards from all the bears.  All the postcards have been from the bears and their caretakers.  There are a lot of places in the world that don’t have the stuff or the technology or even the government that America has.  We are very fortunate to have all this, but sometimes we just don’t realize it.  We are hoping these mission bears will be a sign to all the people in the other countries that even though they don’t have much now doesn’t mean they should give up hope for the future.  The entire purpose of these mission bears is to spread love and goodwill and even hope.  I do hope that one day every church in America will be using these mission bears for their one, true purpose.

Kelcy Newton is a life-long member of St. Andrew UMC and is currently in the fifth grade at Carrollton Elementary School.