We Are All In This Together

No matter which direction God leads us, at Coker, we know “We are all in this together.” Our students matter, our families matter, our community matters and we are all in this together. In August of 2019, Coker assembled just under 1,000 backpacks to giveaway to local students. The students are the dependents of our Health & Wellness Center clients. Our Health & Wellness Center has distributed over 850K pounds of food since opening in 2009 and is projected to reach the 1 million mark in 2020. The Health & Wellness Center offers preventative health care services, a clothing closet, Christian Counseling referrals, food, and each year we distribute these backpacks.

Those in the picture are our Coker UMC Students who helped assemble the backpacks for distribution. Our Coker UMC students saw 31 professions of faith in Jesus Christ during this year’s confirmation class, and stand ready to be with their peers and in community.

Our middle school students attended a mission trip this summer called “Submerge,” in a videoed Testimony one of our students, Carolina, explained that the mission trip meant getting involved in, “not only our church, but going out and helping in our community.” While at the Submerge Middle School Mission Trip, Carolina said the biggest moment that stood out to her was in Coker’s Health and Wellness Center. She explained that many of the Health and Wellness Clients speak Spanish, and Carolina is bilingual herself, so she used her Spanish to ask one of our clients how her day was. Our client’s eyes lit up as she was so impressed by this young lady who spoke both English and Spanish. They carried on in conversation, and the client encouraged Carolina to continue growing in the Spanish Language. Carolina said, “Language is such a big barrier between people and communicating, and so it was cool that I got to overcome that barrier and make a deeper connection with that person.”

Carolina’s words and the generosity of all at Coker carry a witness for the Kingdom and our willingness to reach out communicates that we are all in this together.

If you would like more information on Coker’s Student Ministries, contact Colton at Colton.Willis@Coker.org or if you would like more information on Coker’s Food Pantry, contact Communications@coker.org