GNCC executive director Sheila Schlisner (far left) and MENA Hope director Zainab Al-Baaj furnish backpacks with school supplies for children who immigrated to Lincoln, Neb. from the Middle East or North Africa.” (Photo courtesy of Steve Nazario)
Adventist-operated Good Neighbor Community Center (GNCC) in Lincoln, Neb., is slated to be the Oct. 10 cover feature of Parade magazine because of its “MENA Hope Project”—a ministry to mostly Muslim immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa.
“God has blessed us with a wonderful opportunity before the entire country,” says Sheila Schlisner, head of GNCC and Adventist Community Services director for the Mid-America Union. “The Parade journalist spent two days here, along with a photographer.”
GNCC began in 1973 as a collaborative ministry among Lincoln-area Adventist churches. Its founder was the city's first female Adventist police officer, Hulda Ropper, who saw the need for relieving basic and emergency needs. Today, many other churches in the community, representing a spectrum of denominations, contribute to the ministry of the center.
GNCC had 58,000 compassion contacts with Lincoln-area residents this past year in a building provided rent-free by the Kansas-Nebraska Conference. Its MENA division assists about 1,000 mostly-Islamic immigrants from 200 families who came to Lincoln from the Middle East and North Africa. In addition to providing immediate physical necessities, MENA offers cultural assimilation counseling along with classes in citizenship, healthy cooking, swimming and parenting.
“GNCC is showing that Christians and Muslims can interact in peace and compassion,” says Roscoe J. Howard III, president of the Mid-America Union. “This is exactly the type of cross-cultural, interfaith good-will initiative that society is yearning for and that Christ has called us to do.”
According to its website, Parade is the most widely read magazine in America, with a circulation of 32.2 million. A prototype of the Oct. 10 cover has been readied and will feature the GNCC story unless preempted at the last minute. Having an Adventist-operated ministry so honored is potentially a huge goodwill windfall for the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
To learn more about GNCC and its MENA Hope project, visit www।gncclincoln.org and click “Programs” on the tab bar.
Adventist-operated Good Neighbor Community Center (GNCC) in Lincoln, Neb., is slated to be the Oct. 10 cover feature of Parade magazine because of its “MENA Hope Project”—a ministry to mostly Muslim immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa.
“God has blessed us with a wonderful opportunity before the entire country,” says Sheila Schlisner, head of GNCC and Adventist Community Services director for the Mid-America Union. “The Parade journalist spent two days here, along with a photographer.”
GNCC began in 1973 as a collaborative ministry among Lincoln-area Adventist churches. Its founder was the city's first female Adventist police officer, Hulda Ropper, who saw the need for relieving basic and emergency needs. Today, many other churches in the community, representing a spectrum of denominations, contribute to the ministry of the center.
GNCC had 58,000 compassion contacts with Lincoln-area residents this past year in a building provided rent-free by the Kansas-Nebraska Conference. Its MENA division assists about 1,000 mostly-Islamic immigrants from 200 families who came to Lincoln from the Middle East and North Africa. In addition to providing immediate physical necessities, MENA offers cultural assimilation counseling along with classes in citizenship, healthy cooking, swimming and parenting.
“GNCC is showing that Christians and Muslims can interact in peace and compassion,” says Roscoe J. Howard III, president of the Mid-America Union. “This is exactly the type of cross-cultural, interfaith good-will initiative that society is yearning for and that Christ has called us to do.”
According to its website, Parade is the most widely read magazine in America, with a circulation of 32.2 million. A prototype of the Oct. 10 cover has been readied and will feature the GNCC story unless preempted at the last minute. Having an Adventist-operated ministry so honored is potentially a huge goodwill windfall for the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
To learn more about GNCC and its MENA Hope project, visit www।gncclincoln.org and click “Programs” on the tab bar.
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sS.
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