TCW Team in Myrtle Beach

If a pair of young college students rings your doorbell between March 27 and April 3, they won’t be trying to sell you anything. They’re there to extend a personal invitation, and to bring you up-to-date on a community event. Four representatives of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) are coming to Myrtle Beach to participate in mission work for Amazing Grace Lutheran Church.

They’ll be traveling as WELS Kingdom Workers on a Travel Canvass Witness (TCW) trip, which gives college students the opportunity to assist congregations all over the country. They’ll be making residents aware of the church’s Easter services, and they’ll be talking about the upcoming ground breaking for the new Amazing Grace church building in Carolina Forest.

This will be the third TCW trip for Nyssa Becker, a 21- year-old University of Wisconsin- Madison student who anticipates being a high school biology teacher. “I have loved getting to know my fellow WELS members in other parts of the country and being part of their outreach efforts,” she said. “I am looking forward to yet another chance to serve the Lord and my fellow believers while having fun and meeting people from a different region than the Midwest.”

Katie Dogs, a 21-year-old junior at the college studying agricultural journalism said she’s excited to use Spring Break to serve the Lord. “The warm Myrtle Beach sun and a day at the beach are nice perks too,” she added. Natalie Schuler, a 21-yearold senior who is a student of textile and apparel design, and Ashley Zambo, 20, a nursing student at Madison Area Technical College, are also part of the TCW team coming to Myrtle Beach.
Amazing Grace Lutheran Church, which meets now at 4761 U.S. 501 in Suites 5 and 6, behind the newly constructed Dollar General store, and in the same complex as The Carolina Forest Chronicle and Myrtle Beach Herald offices, will hold Easter service at Carolina Forest Elementary School at 9 a.m. Sunday, April 4. A light continental breakfast will follow at 10:15 a.m. and an Easter egg hunt will begin at 10:30 a.m.

In addition to extending an invitation to attend the Easter service, Pastor Benjamin Zahn said the college students will also be sharing the good news of the church’s building project. “Details are still being tweaked, but we’re looking at breaking ground the end of April or early May, God willing,” Zahn said.

The pastor said he’s hoping to actually be in the new building by February, 2011 at the latest. “God willing we’ll be in by Christmas, but there are always variables,” he said. The new Amazing Grace Lutheran Church will be built north of the Plantation Lakes subdivision, next to the site of the proposed Carolina Forest park. The college students will be canvassing the Carolina Forest area in pairs, going only to those communities whose by-laws allow them to do so.

Zahn is hopeful the students will be able to reach about 2,500 to 3,000 homes. “I’m hoping we’ll be able to invite people and further their awareness by telling them the church will be right around the corner. “When they see concrete being poured and see the façade going up, they’ll know what that is,” he added.

Amazing Grace Lutheran Church meets for Sunday school and Bible class at 9:30 a.m. Sundays and for worship at 10:45 a.m. For more information, see the Web site at www.amazinggracelutheran.com or call the church at 236-9134.

Article appeared in the Carolina Forest Chronicle - March 25,2010 - written by Ettie Newlands. Used with permission