Dear Friend of the Mission,
Thank you. as we quickly move toward the end of our fiscal year on September 30th, the most important thing I can say is thank you. Please accept my heartfelt thanks for –
- Above all, for your prayers (no one has gotten sick at the Mission from COVID-19!).
- For standing with us during the good times and the not so good times such as now.
- For your extra generous gifts when we had to close both of our thrift stores in March under Governor Wolf’s orders (losing over $150,000 from March until now). Your financial gifts kept us afloat.
- For your patience in waiting for my thank you letters and receipts. I really fell behind because of the extra challenges brought on by the pandemic – my days get filled up so quickly with more to do than time to do it. Though my thank you letters are very belated, my gratitude is still very real and present. I don’t have enough words to thank you.
- For holding onto your donations for our thrift stores until our stores reopened. We thank the Lord that on June 19th our Germantown Thrift Store reopened, and by the time you read this newsletter, our Lighthouse Thrift Shop will have reopened on September 4th.
- For sending non-perishable food, supermarket gifts cards, fresh produce, special meals for our men and other food items to us. The huge amount of food we used to get from the Philabundance Food Bank was reduced to a trickle. Your food donations really helped.
- For encouraging notes, cards, phone calls, emails, texts and Facebook postings sent our way. You are a friend that sticks closer than a brother or sister.
I really love this photo of the Whosoever Gospel Mission’s first location in Germantown. It used to be a bar that our founder, William Raws, used to go and get drunk in during his previous life as a homeless alcoholic from England. But then the Lord got hold of his life and placed in his heart an unstoppable desire to open the Whosoever Gospel Mission.
In our 128 year history, we have been through a lot – most recently our catastrophic arson fire of 2006 and now the COVID-19 pandemic. I have served at the Mission for 31 years, and I am confident that the Lord will bring us through this pandemic through dear friends such as you.
With heartfelt thanks and friendship.
Robert A. Emberger, D.Min.
Executive Director
