Tag Archives: 25th

November 2015 Newsletter

19 November

We’re living in a time when it’s easy for things to fall apart. All across the board of our culture, it seems like disintegration has become the new norm. Whether in the changing values that weave our national fabric or under the rooftop of a home that shelters a family, the evidence is abundantly clear that it’s becoming harder and harder for people to hold it together in these ever-changing times.

I’m not sure that anything is insulated from this trend. Businesses, churches, schools, government agencies, civic organizations, clubs, families, and friendships all seem to be prey to this permissive and unfortunate cultural climate.

Of course, at the end of the day, nobody really wins, and while voices are raised and fingers are pointed, all of us are losing something as precious as life itself: the sense that we really do matter to one another and that, whatever the cost may be, we can always discover new ways to hold it all together.

We learn a lot about holding it together at Hosanna Industries. As we daily build with hammers and saws, we learn in very practical ways that every board needs a nail, every block needs mortar, every part and piece of a structure needs a fastener in order to be properly and meaningfully placed in relationship with all the other pieces so that the whole house can be held together.

More than 20 years ago, when the mission was in its earliest years of learning how to master its craft, I met a man on a new home construction site up in Mercer County. He was an old and experienced builder, and he showed up to offer his assistance to a little young mission that was really trying to do its best. I learned a great deal from this friend, and during the course of my learning, he taught me how to use a transit in establishing the perimeter of a home.

This exercise is absolutely vital prior to construction, establishing the actual dimensions and outer limits of a structure before it is built, and the method involves the use of a 360° calibrated telescope situated on a dead-level platform that is supported by the three legs of a tripod. Beneath the level platform is suspended a plumb-bob on a line, the sharp point of which is lowered until it just touches the head of a physical point which is driven into the ground. As I watched this master builder perform this operation for the first time, I marveled at the proficiency and experience which guided his every move, and as he gently adjusted the plumb- bob line so that the index point could be accurately referenced, I wondered how he would hold the two ends of the lines together so that everything could be fixed.

Expecting him to tie some kind of knot, he surprised me by reaching into his pocket to locate a little device I had never seen before. He called it a line-cinch, and he showed me how to use it to hold the lines together. I was so impressed by its usefulness and simple design, that I inquired where he got it so that I could get one too. He smiled at me and explained that he invented it years earlier when necessity required it, and then quickly began to make me one from a scrap piece of copper wire, a little length of tubing, and a pair of pliers.

I’ve carried that little keepsake in my pocket for more than twenty years now, and it always reminds me of an old friend, now gone for quite a few years, who knew how to hold things together.

2015 has been an astonishing, amazing year for Hosanna Industries. We have been blessed to help 142 households with pressing needs through the course of the year. We have been blessed to labor with more than 1500 volunteers who came from far and near to be a part of the mission’s work. We have been blessed to pursue and raise $881,196.70 against our expenses of $960,188.86, and we are so grateful for all that has been so graciously given. We have been blessed to celebrate our 25th anniversary year, which I never anticipated would or could happen when the mission was first starting out, and as unexpectedly as any of the many miracles Hosanna Industries has witnessed through the years, we have been blessed to acquire a new auxiliary mission campus consisting of 9 beautiful acres of land in Gibsonia, PA, essentially doubling the

physical capacity of a mission that was born to hear Hosanna cries and to help all kinds of needy people learn new ways to hold it together. Through every hour of this past year, I have seen God’s hands hold the mission together, and I am overwhelmed with gratitude.

According to our now 22 year long tradition, we have included in this newsletter a Christmas tree ornament, handmade by the mission workers of Hosanna Industries. It is a gift for you, from our hands and from our hearts. It is a line-cinch, identical to the one given to me years ago. I hope it will remind you of the significance of holding it together as you place it on your tree. Maybe, after the holiday season, you’ll choose to keep it in your pocket.

Of course, in a very big way, that’s what Christmas is all about. The disharmony and despair that has always plagued the human race, isolating ourselves from one another and alienating us from God, is not only exposed but eradicated because of Christmas. Christ is the solution. Christ is the one who can teach us how to hold it together if we listen to His Word. At Christmastime and always, He teaches us to forgive, to try again, to go another mile, to give, to pray, to suffer sometimes, and to always love.

Jesus is the world’s line-cinch, and He’s yours and mine as well! Merry Christmas, dear Hosanna friend, and thank you for all you’ve done to help God’s hands hold Hosanna Industries together.

~DDE

Read more here: 2015 November Newsletter

September, 2015 Newsletter

13 October

“Tools. It’s hard to get anything done without them. Dentists need drills. Surgeons need scalpels. Teachers need chalkboards or whatever we call the more modern version. Preachers need books. Farmers need tractors. Gardeners need spades. Mission workers at Hosanna Industries need trucks and ladders, hammers and saws, and hundreds of other valuable instruments…”

Read more in our latest newsletter: 2015 September Newsletter

 

What’s Next?

11 June

From the 2015 June Newsletter:

Life is full of questions, and when those questions are asked, we’re often benefitted with answers. For 25 years at Hosanna Industries we’ve been building with dreams, visions, architectural plans, ideas, tools, materials, machines, and human skills, and I’ve learned that one of the most important questions a builder asks is “What’s next?” Until the work is over and the project is completely finished, a good builder is alway asking, “What’s next?” and preparing for what’s to come.

A few months ago, the mission paused along the way of its usually busy activities to express deep gratitude to God for the innumerable blessings of the past 25 years since Hosanna Industries was born. More than 300 people gathered to break bread, reflect upon the past, and scan the distant horizons. I am grateful to everyone who attended and supported the event, and especially appreciative that we all had the opportunity together to thank the One from whom all blessings flow.

In my remarks that evening, I noted that through our first quarter of a century of service, an estimated 100 million pounds of material had been moved and handled by mission workers and volunteers in conducting the thousands of projects across the country that we’ve been privileged to lead, and as dedicated hearts and diligent hands moved those 50,000 tons of material, we were continuously asking the builder’s question, “What’s next?”

How deep should we dig for this footer? How many yards of concrete should we order? What will we do if it rains? When can the volunteers break for lunch? What must be complete by sundown?

What’s next?

Less than a year ago, I met a new friend at a meeting in which he presented a vision to establish a place of beauty, healing, spirituality, and nature upon a tract of land where he was raised by the loving and creative people who once called that place their home. Six months ago, that same individual sat down with me in my home and described the heartbreaking reality that the task was too hard and the burden too heavy for his hands to bear alone. I asked,“What’s next?” He responded,“Do you have any ideas?”

The next evening I shared a quiet, mid-December dinner with the president of our Board of Directors,Todd Rossman. I described the history of the property, the sequence of conversations, the development of relationship, the possibilities for the future. With a great step of faith and leadership,Todd answered my “What’s next?” with “Let me take it from here, I’ll begin to look into it.”

Two weeks ago, I received word from Todd that following four months of investigation, discussion, prayerful consideration, and hard work, our Board of Directors unanimously decided to acquire this new property and to establish a new spectrum of programming there that will seek to help many more people through the avenues of art, healing, spirituality, and nature while promoting and advancing Hosanna’s primary task of alleviating the suffering of those who need our help.

Because of the gracious generosity of people just like you who have supported not only Hosanna’s past but have also given to promote the promise of a stronger future, all that is needed has already been provided, and soon the new beginning, as unexpected as it is remarkable, will come to be.

What’s next?

On April 9, 1990, the Monday morning after the Palm Sunday when Hosanna Industries was born at Bakerstown Church, I met in the early morning hours with Andy Yates, Scott Mahan, Todd Ewers, and Rob Boone. These were our first mission workers on their first day of work in the life of a brand new mission. With the excitement and enthusiasm of strong young people, they had one question on their minds,“What’s next?”

I began then to answer that question to the best of my ability, and I suppose in some important and maybe even mystical ways, we’ve really never stopped hearing that question and doing our best to answer it with the resources of God’s love and grace.

Life’s full of questions. Sometimes, we even get answers.

In the Gospel record of His spoken teachings, Jesus taught of another question that people sometimes ask. “Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee or thirsty and give thee something to drink? When did we see thee a stranger and invite thee in or needing clothes and clothe thee? When did we see thee sick or in prison and go to visit thee?”

Jesus answered that question this way, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

Thank you, dear Hosanna friend, for all you do to make this happen.

~Donn Ed, Founder & Executive Director of Hosanna Industries

Everyday Disaster Relief

08 April

timeline

I was asked to make a timeline of Hosanna Industries’ work since our inception. It was going to be the guestbook for our 25th anniversary dinner. I was told to put in the major events in Hosanna’s history because people were going to sign in near the year that they first became involved with the mission. So many new friends find Hosanna when we are working on major projects that having these on the board would help people to know when they first joined the mission in case they’d forgotten.

And so I did my research. I came up with a list of major events. Almost every year there was something really big that the mission workers and volunteers had tackled. I wrote the events on plain paper and took them to my Sunday School class. The children drew a picture of each event and I transferred them to a board and added some color.

Then I stood back. I looked at the work. I have to admit, I was a little surprised at what I saw. It isn’t unusual for me to tell people in the course of my work about Hosanna’s disaster recovery. It almost rolls off my tongue – we helped people in Florida after Hurricane Andrew; St. Genevieve, Missouri after the flooding in the mid-90’s; in Arkansas after the racial burning of churches in the late 90’s; in North Carolina after Hurricane Floyd; in our own area after Hurricane Ivan; in Gulfport, Mississippi and New Orleans, Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina; in Haiti following the earthquake; and in Joplin, Missouri after the tornado. To see it on the timeline was amazing though. I had just drawn the major events in Hosanna’s history and there were five hurricanes, two floods, an earthquake and a tornado.

In my mind when I think about what Hosanna does, it isn’t the disaster recovery work that comes to my mind first. It’s the elderly widow who is all alone and her roof is leaking into her bedroom. It’s the single mom whose windows are drafty and rattling. It’s the young hard-working dad who can’t afford to replace the furnace in their home to keep his wife and kids warm. It’s the disabled person who needs a wheelchair ramp to allow him or her access to the world outside.

If this is what I think of when I think about Hosanna and I’ve been working their for 17 years, why did my timeline look like a history of natural disasters? It didn’t seem right.

But it was right. People rally together to solve major crises. They come out offering what they can – a day, a week, a dollar, a thousand dollars, a pan of brownies, a meal for 40 volunteers, a 2×4, a pallet of shingles. They see the tragedy on the news. They talk about it at work. They wonder what they would do if disaster struck their own home and neighborhood. And they respond. And miracles happen.

The problem is people experience their own storms, their own disasters, their own tragedies all the time. A motorcycle crashes and a young mom is now raising two kids on her own. Cancer strikes and someone’s world is turned upside-down. A wife walks out one day and never returns. A child is born with severe disabilities and the house suddenly becomes too small for this young life and all the necessary medical equipment. An elderly man passes away peacefully but his widow’s income instantly drops to 1/3 of what it was the day before. Multiple sclerosis demands that a home be made wheelchair accessible. And so on and so forth.

Thankfully a young wife and mother once asked her husband, “Who is going to help the people in our own backyard.” And thankfully he responded by giving his life to a little mission that can help people through these storms in life.

I am thrilled to see people respond to others’ needs when hurricanes and tornados, earthquakes and floods strike. But it stirs something deep in my soul to see people respond to those quiet but desperate cries of Hosanna – “Rescue me now” – that are just as real and just as pain-filled and right in our own backyard. Changing these hosanna’s into hallelujah’s is what Hosanna does every day. Thank you to all of you who allow these miracles to happen!

-Julie Wettach, Mission Worker

Seeing Jesus

12 January

Hot off the press (in December, 2014)!

Seeing Jesus

Seeing Jesus, Reflections on the mission of Hosanna Industries upon its 25th Anniversary, Written by our Executive Director & Founder, Dr. Donn D. Ed

To order a copy of the book, call the office at 724-770-0262.

Suggested donation is $15.00, shipping $4.00

25th Anniversary Campaign– opportunity to double your donation

12 September

Double your anniversary donation!

Hosanna’s mission workers, board members, and friends are working together to raise $250,000 in celebration of the mission’s 25th anniversary in 2015 and to help move the mission forward.

From September 22nd, 2014 through October 3rd, 2014 an anonymous donor has agreed to match anniversary donations given to Hosanna Industries.

Credit card or PayPal donations are accepted via our website ‘Give to Hosanna‘ button and checks can be mailed to 109 Rinard Lane Rochester PA 15074. Please mark your gifts anniversary.