Trinity supports a number of local, national and international ministries and is involved with several local community service projects.

Appalachia Service Project
www.asphome.org

For 36 years, the Appalachia Service Project has been using volunteers to make the homes of people in Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee warmer, safer and drier. This year (2008) will be the 24th consecutive year that Trinity youth and adult leaders have participated in this week-long mission trip.

In July 2007, 37 youth and adult leaders traveled to Lenore, Mingo County, West Virginia. Working in six teams, they installed new roofs, insulation, and sheetrock, built a handicap walkway, painted, and made plumbing repairs while getting to know the families they served.

Rev. Michael and Rachel Weller, Missionaries, Ethiopia

Michael and Rachel serve as mission specialists. Michael is a board member of the Ethiopian Church, serving in evangelism and leadership development. He is also a board member and curriculum writer for the Gidada Bible School. Rachel, a friend of Pastors Barb and Brad, is coordinator of Western Wollega Bethel Synod’s health department.

Habitat for Humanity, New Castle County, Delaware
www.habitatncc.org

Habitat for Humanity is a non-profit, Christian housing ministry that works in partnership with people in need to improve the conditions in which they live. Habitat depends on hundreds of volunteers who like to swing hammers, raise roofs, and paint walls. The mission of Habitat is to build affordable housing at no-profit through a combination of volunteer labor, “sweat equity” and no-interest mortgages.

Trinity volunteers help to build Habitat homes in Wilmington twice a month. In 2005, a five-year pledge was made to Habitat’s “More than Houses” Campaign. As part of Trinity’s 50th anniversary celebration in 2007, a special one-day build in Trinity’s parking lot resulted in two and a half frames for homes.

Emmanuel Dining Room, Wilmington, Delaware

Each month, a team of volunteers from Trinity helps prepare and serve a hot lunch to more than 125 people at Emmanuel Dining Room in Wilmington. The Emmanuel Dining Room is supported by volunteers from more than 90 churches, synagogues and civic groups that prepare and serve meals on a rotating basis.

Meeting Ground
www.meetingground.org

Meeting Ground came into existence in 1981 in Maryland and Delaware as a faith-based response to the growing epidemic of wasted human life, both in this nation and across the globe, and especially in the form that has come to be known as "homelessness." Rooted in Christian values and inspired by various religious traditions, Meeting Ground grew from the concept of "shelter" to the reality of "home" for the homeless and those whose lives they encountered at the place of hospitality: volunteers, college & seminary students, mission-trippers, clergy, formerly homeless persons, and others from all walks of life.

Friendship House
www.friendship-house.org

Friendship House is a non-profit Christian corporation committed to making a positive difference in the lives of the homeless people in Wilmington, Delaware through the traditional spiritual ministries of hospitality, education, empowerment and community. A coalition of over fifty churches, schools and community organizations, Friendship House believes that loneliness, self-hatred and hopelessness bind people to the cycle of homelessness just as surely as poverty, unemployment and chemical abuse. All the works and programs of Friendship House strive to affirm the sacred worth of every person, no matter how rich or poor, weak or strong, young or old, violent or vulnerable.

In church basements and parsonages, Friendship House operates eight shelters housing sixty homeless individuals and families on any given night. Its logo is a community of people sheltered by caring hands, for Friendship House remains a house without walls. It has no buildings of its own; it possesses neither endowment nor guaranteed income. Like those whom it serves, Friendship House walks in the faith that if it does the work of the Kingdom, a way will be found to serve.

The Clothing Bank of Delaware

The Clothing Bank of Delaware is a ministry of Friendship House that includes more than 80 churches and community organizations. The purpose of The Clothing Bank is to employ women entering the work force for the first time in their lives or after lengthy unemployment. Clothing is available to any agency, church or institution that will distribute the clothing free-of-charge. Volunteers are welcome in the warehouse to sort donations. The Clothing Bank is located at 1603 Jessup Street, Wilmington, Delaware.

John McCall, Missionary, Taiwan

The Rev. Dr. John McCall is a missionary of the Presbyterian Church USA. John is teaching and directing a program of spiritual formation at the Taiwan College and Seminary in Taipei. He also teaches classes in worship and preaching at the seminar. John graduated with Pastor Brad from Princeton Seminary in 1984, and they have remained close friends.

The Open Door, Rev. Dave Carver
www.opendoorpgh.org

Dave Carver, son of member Frank Carver, and son-in-law of members Gene and Mary McCoy, was instrumental in the creation of The Open Door in 1987. Dave is now pastor at the Crafton Heights Presbyterian Church near to where The Open Door is located.

This community center, located in Pittsburgh’s West End, unites the neighborhood church, merchants, adults and young people. The Open Door presents positive alternatives to what our present culture has to offer to the neighborhood and its young people. It’s a helping hand when times are tough. It’s the heart of the neighborhood. It’s a ministry that offers the hope found only in Jesus Christ to the kids and families of the community.

Adult Work Crews and Disaster Teams

Trinity’s adult work crews have given many hours to local organizations such as Meeting Ground, The Clothing Bank of Delaware, and Friendship House to do electrical work, repair and paint walls, clean rooms, repair screens, build storage areas, and install lighting.

Trinity’s adult disaster relief teams have partnered with Mennonite Disaster Assistance and traveled to Tennessee, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Mississippi, West Virginia, and Louisiana to help rebuild those areas stricken by natural disasters. Participating in a work crew not only repairs or renews physical structures, it also builds fellowship between Trinity and other communities.

Doctors Without Borders
www.doctorswithoutborders.org

This organization was founded in 1971 by a small group of French doctors who believed that all people have the right to medical care regardless of race, religion, creed or political affiliation, and that the needs of these people supersede respect for national borders. Each year, more than 2,500 volunteer doctors, nurses, other medical professionals, logistics experts, water/sanitation engineers, and administrators join 15,000 locally hired staff to provide medical aid in more than 80 countries.

Rev. Donald Marsden

The Rev. Donald Marsden is the newly appointed Associate Director, Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship. Don and his wife Laurie were mission workers in Russia since 1993, prior to Don’s calling to the Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship. The Fellowship works to extend the gospel of Jesus Christ to unreached ethnic groups having no self-producing church in which the gospel is preached in the language and terms of their own culture. Don will work with US churches, and also continue to focus on outreach to the native peoples of Siberia.

One Great Hour of Sharing

For more than 50 years, Presbyterians have responded generously to this opportunity to help brothers and sisters around the world gain a firmer foothold on their paths to a brighter future. Gifts to the One Great Hour enable Presbyterian World Service, the Presbyterian Committee for the Self-Development of People, and the Presbyterian Hunger Program to work as partners with people in need throughout the United States and the world, helping them to meet both their immediate and long-term needs.

Rev. Dr. Lyle and Terry Dykstra

Rev. Lyle is retired pastor of the Limestone Presbyterian Church. He and Terry are in the second three-year term of service to the students of the Presbyterian University of East Africa. Lyle and Terry are teaching clinical pastoral education to graduating students studying for Christian ministry. This program of study prepares pastors as they minister to those caught in disease, crime and poverty. They also minister to the 270 vulnerable and orphaned children of the Wee School.

Medical Benevolence Fund
www.mbfoundation.org

The Medical Benevolence Fund works to save and transform lives through medical mission in some of the most needy countries and communities in the world. Formed in 1963 by health professionals, lay persons and pastors, the Fund’s mission was and still is to provide medical personnel, equipment, supplies and financial assistance to hospitals and clinics outside the boundaries of the United States. The Fund works to support 118 medical missionaries in 36 countries worldwide.