LWML Giving
LWML Means Mites for Missions
Giving like the widow's mite
Martin Luther once said, "We cannot give God anything; for everything is already His, and all we have comes from Him. We can only give him praise, thanks, and honor." When our sisters in the faith met at the LWML's organizing convention in 1942, one of their first acts was to select mission projects to support. First was the support of Christ Church Chapel for the Deaf in Cleveland in the amount of $15,000. In postwar Europe, we sent aid to children orphaned by the ravages of World War II.
During the 2011-2013 biennium, mites will fund 19 national grants for a total mite goal of $1,825,000. Since 1942, the grand total of national gifts for grants and inreach to women is over $25,000,000. Adding the 75 percent kept by the districts for their grants gives an amazing sum of more than $100,000,000 – a tremendous testimony to the power of mites when blessed by the Lord.
Today, we, like our founders, seek to live our Christian lives in faithful service and outreach. Our mites currently support some of the following grants:
- Providing tangible care to orphans in Haiti and outreach to at-risk children in Detroit, Michigan, as well as establishing Christian child care centers throughout the United States.
- Ministry support to members of the Crow Indian tribe in Montana and for Haskell Indian Nations University Lutheran Campus Ministry in Lawrence, Kansas.
- Enabling Word and Sacrament ministries in Kenya through the Lutheran Malaria Initiative to educate health care providers about malaria so that they can treat the most vulnerable, especially children and pregnant women.
- Lives of babies are being rescued in Malaysia from the horrible practice of baby dumping.
- Cancer patients receive the care and love of Christ through those who prepare Care Packages for them.
- Youth connected with Project JOEL in Central and South America, as well as children with developmental disabilities in the Dominican Republic, benefit from our mite-giving.
- Seminary students, missionaries, and prison and jail ministry workers will be enabled to carry out the work that God has planned for them.
- Impoverished people on the US/Mexico border, as well as in Vietnam, will be fed and nourished, not only physically, but with the rich life-saving message of the Gospel.
- Christian materials and Bibles will be published in Braille and in languages for people who will hear and see them in print for the first time in their lives.
In the past 70 years, over $100 million has been contributed through mite offerings. Your gift, along with the contributions of others, will provide perpetual funding to assist the LWML in continuing its history of mission-ministry in the church, the community and among the people of the world.
The Lutheran Women's Missionary League is a tax-exempt organization by the Internal Revenue Service under section 501c(3) of the IRS Code. Contributions to LWML are deductible by donors as provided in section 170 of the IRS Code.
There are many ways to support the LWML:
- Donate Online
- Gift Planning Services
- Endowment Fund
- Employer Matching Funds
- Joyful Response (PDF, 160KB)
- Mail your check or money order to:
Lutheran Women's Missionary League
P.O. Box 411993
St. Louis, MO 63141-1993