Mountainside Lutheran Church BLOG

Mountainside Lutheran will be collecting cans of soup for those in Avery County during the weekss of January 15th-February 12th. If you would like to help with feeding Avery County please bring cans of soup to Mountainside Lutheran Church during office hours. Thank you for your support to this wonderful cause!

Angel Tree Giving

Angel Tree Giving-Thank you to all that have supported this wonderful cause whether through prayer or donations.

Please join us for delivery of gifts and caroling to Cranberry and Heritage homes. We will be meeting at the church @ 1:00.

All are welcome to join!

Samaritan’s Purse-Operation Christmas Child Shoeboxes!

45 boxes filled for children all around the world! Thank you to all that made this project a success this year!

The building of the new bridge!

Pastor Bryan interview with Spectrum News-

Please click on the link below to veiw the interview-

https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nc/charlotte/news/2022/09/16/bridge-being-replaced-at-camp-linn-haven

“Crossing the River, to the Glory of God!”

This new bridge has been a vision of both our church and of Camp Linn Haven since 2005, and in these years of waiting, planning, praying, and trusting in the Lord, we give thanks that now is the fullness of time in which our Lord is leading us to complete this project, to the glory of His holy name.

The bridge has been approved to go up! Thanks be to God!

Buckeye Bridge LLC. will start building in August and the bridge will be completed before Christmas.

We need continued fund raising to pay for the bridge-The Pledge Goal is $300,000 for payoff of the new bridge.

To read about Camp Linn Haven and Mountainside Lutheran’s joint efforts for the new bridge please click on the link below:

Fundraising-Brochure-2022-1 (1

Pictures from Octoberfest!

LINVILLE — Avery County Schools and Camp Linn Haven collaborated with a giveaway on Thursday, July 28, to ensure students coming back to school have all the supplies they need to succeed.

In both the rain and sunshine, teenage members of Camp Linn Haven were passing out backpacks stuffed with supplies to families in cars. The teenagers did all of the work for the event, including fundraising for the event at their churches, while the county schools assisted with buying notebook binders and some of the supplies.

Around 600 backpacks were distributed to families during the event that saw three separate shifts of students come to the camp based on which school(s) children attended. The backpacks were available for children from preschool to high-school age. For younger children, the backpacks were plain colors, but for the older children, the backpacks were designated by gender.

The event had a line of cars which snaked through a parking lot, as the teenagers passed out the backpacks assembly-line style.

Leftover backpacks from the event are kept at the Avery County Schools Central Office in Newland for children who may have missed the event, or to assist if a new family moves into the school system and has need.

Many of the school system’s principals, resource officers and board members were on hand to cheer on the members of Camp Linn Haven and greet the children going through the line. A major part of the event for school staff was to get children excited about coming back to school.

Thomas Howell, human resource director of Avery County Schools, was at the event, and this is Howell’s 22nd year in education.

“The school system is doing something a little different this year,” said Howell, “We are going to make to make sure that parents aren’t going to have to buy a bunch of school supplies. I’m a parent too, and those can get up to $100 to $200, easily. We don’t want to double tax the parents.”

Dr. Jamie Johnson, principal of Avery Middle School, said the impact of the event was not just the free supplies, but also the sense of community cultivated by the event, “which is great for the small school system,” he said.

Hannah Webber was one of the individuals volunteering at the event, speaking to the families in the car, getting their names and marking them off of the list. Another volunteer, Abigail Tabor, assisted in areas that included packing the bags and shopping for supplies. In total, Tabor helped pack roughly 600 backpacks. This was Tabor’s second year participating in this event.

“It’s just so nice to see people come through here and to know that all the work you have spent packing these bags make someone else’s life just a little better. It just feels great,” Tabor said.

Pastor Luke Self, the spiritual leader of the week at Camp Linn Haven, was excited about the impact on the teenagers working at the event.

“We have an amazing group of high schoolers and they are hard workers. They ran this whole thing.” Self said.

Self grew up going to Camp Linn Haven, and was excited for the teenagers to see “the fruit of the seeds they planted,” Self said.

Teirsa Lane, manager and director of the camp, could not help but tear up as she spoke about the work the camp was doing to help those in the community. The bookbag event has been a tradition at Camp Linn Haven for roughly five years now.

“The blessings that they receive from doing this event is just unbelievable,” Lane said. “The same kids every year come back for the week, and they immediately say, ‘I’m doing back packs again.’”

The camp originally was a girls camp until 1940 when men from the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod purchased the camp. Now, Camp Linn Haven operates 12-week summers in which two weeks are high school servant event weeks. Outside of the summer months, the camp operates as a Christian retreat center and home to the Mountainside Lutheran Church.

Camp Linn Haven orchestrates multiple events during their Servant’s Heart Week, including the backpack drive, volunteering with a local hospice organization and much more. Lane hopes that the backpack event will grow over the next few years to become more of a festival where people can bring their families to enjoy the camp.