CQ

We want to tell you about something exciting that is happening at Westside. This past year our school felt led by God to seek out opportunities to help each student develop a heart of compassion. Westside Outside is our new vision to encourage every student during his or her four years here to travel somewhere outside our building for an “open-heart” encounter, for we know that off-campus mission experiences infuse hearts with deepening love and empathy towards others.

After much prayer and research, Westside is beginning by partnering with Remember Nhu, an organization dedicated to eliminating the use of children in the sex trade. Westside has made a commitment to raise the funds necessary to build and maintain an orphanage home in northern Thailand for children who are at high risk of being sold or tricked into forced prostitution. In the summer of 2007 a large group of Westside students plan to travel to Thailand for a month-long ministry at this brand-new orphanage home. Westside desires to have an ongoing relationship with the children and staff of this orphanage and plans to take a group of students there annually.

This summer, beginning June 20, 2006 a smaller group of staff, students and friends of Westside will be going to Thailand for a 14-day mission trip. This team is going to develop relationships, capture vision and begin making plans to implement the project. We are excited about what God is doing at and through Westside, and feel blessed to be a part of it. We expect to be stretched, challenged, and changed by God during this trip, and are committed to helping pass on the vision to the rest of the Westside Community when we come back home.

We would like to invite you to help in any of the following ways:

1. Pray for our team and our trip to Thailand this summer

2. Support our team financially to help cover the cost of the trip. Each team member’s total cost is $2,450.

3. Help build the orphanage. In the near future, construction on the facility to house these precious children will be underway. The expected cost for a permanent structure that can house 60 kids is about $75,000.

4. Commit to supporting the ongoing operating costs of the orphanage home by sponsoring a child. It costs $50 per month to cover the costs of room, board, and school supplies for a child. This will be an ongoing monthly commitment. Each sponsor will receive personal information about their child.

Thank you for prayerfully considering how you might help lay the foundation for a ministry that will save children’s lives in Thailand and change the hearts and lives of Westside students. Click on the link below to download a pledge form. All contributions to this project are tax deductible.

Gratefully,

Westside Outside – Thailand Team