Religion

With rain drops falling on a stormy February afternoon, about two dozen homeless men and women began arriving at a temporary "intake center" set up at Messiah Lutheran Church in Citrus Heights. Familiar "guests" were checked in using simple paper identification cards with a photo, and newcomers were screened for alcohol and drugs before having a picture taken and an ID created...

Pioneer Baptist Church on Old Auburn Road, a congregation located in the first church building ever built in the Citrus Heights area, has reported a rash of vandalism incidents in recent weeks. Pastor Kyle Conley told The Sentinel the first incident occurred about five weeks ago, when someone fired a pellet gun or threw a handful of rocks into the stained glass windows of the sanctuary during a morning church service...

Southern California-based leadership consultant and author Tony Baron, Ph.D., is scheduled to give a public lecture on "servant leadership" at Messiah Lutheran Church in Citrus Heights, Friday evening.

The Citrus Heights Community Center was filled with Ukrainian orchestra music, prayers and presentations Thursday night, as churches, business owners and political leaders joined together to support the relief effort for those caught in war-torn Ukraine. "We are Christian people, and our faith must be shown by acts of love," said organizer Stephan Skots, of the Citrus Heights-based Ukraine Relief group who put on the event. "We live in America, and we have learned from our American brothers and sisters to help others.” Showing the mixed heritage of many of the participants, the evening began with the national anthems of both America and Ukraine, before progressing somewhat like a church service, with opening and closing prayers, scripture references peppering speeches, and a call for donations...

With a live orchestra loudly playing in the background, an 18-wheeler full of supplies headed out of the parking lot of a Citrus Heights-based charity Thursday, as local pastors and community leaders joined to celebrate the shipment of their first container of relief supplies to Ukraine. "We are motivated by the amount of people who have reached out and offered emotional or material support," Ukraine Relief said in a statement, promising to supply those in Ukraine with clothes, food, medical aid and shelter. "Ukraine Relief would like to thank every person involved in relief efforts." Mostly made up of the area's large Ukrainian immigrant population, organizers say the newly formed volunteer organization was created "to connect and unite people, businesses, organizations, and religious communities together" to provide aid to those caught in the current turmoil in Ukraine.

In what sounded like a script for a suspense-filled, emotional film, a young Ukrainian-American couple shared their recent story of adopting two children from tumultuous Ukraine, during a speaking engagement at Reality Church in Citrus Heights last week.

20 years after a horrific genocide wiped through Rwanda, the country has made ties with churches worldwide, including a church nearly 10,000 miles away in Citrus Heights. Advent Lutheran Church of Citrus Heights is the sister congregation of the Matimba Parish, a small church founded in 2007 in eastern Rwanda. The local congregation aids its Rwandese partners through prayer and monetary support -- and even soccer balls.