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Area native continues food outreach, fostering new one

DELIVERY TIME — During a recent visit to his hometown area before the coronavirus brought a stay-at-home protocol, Pastor John Majeski of Akron checked out some of the frozen meat he was about to deliver to residents in need at the Gaylord Towers. That’s been his monthly outreach for the past seven years. A new outreach he’s interested to see happen is “Ezekiel’s Wheel,” a transportation ministry. -- Janice Kiaski

STEUBENVILLE — When the area begins a post-coronavirus return to normalcy, Pastor John Majeski hopes to put “the wheels in motion” to bring an outreach vision to fruition.

The Church of God pastor already makes monthly mission trips from his home in Akron to Steubenville, his hometown area, to deliver donations of meat to residents in need at Gaylord Towers on Market Street.

“The meat products are frozen and freezer wrapped,” explained Majeski, who noted about 11 or 12 families are being helped through the ministry he calls “Meat for the Needy.”

This ministry is funded through money that comes from various sources. “I collect donations from anywhere, mostly the Akron area, Indiana and I have a church in Sugar Creek, a Church of God, that just recently put me on their budget,” he said during a recent visit to town.

“People need protein, and it’s expensive,” he said of an outreach that brings him joy and purpose. “I feel that it’s a great thing to do, and I am blessed to do it. As long as God supplies the equity, I am going to do it.”

A second outreach he hopes to develop is a transportation ministry he envisions as being “Ezekiel’s Wheel.”

“The prophet Ezekiel had a vision of many wheels — the huge wheel probably symbolizes the sovereignty of God rolling down through the ages,” he explained. “This term, ‘Ezekiel’s Wheel,’ describes the ministry of transportation. Simply stated, the ‘Ezekiel’s Wheel’ ministry would provide a loaner car for low-income or no-income people to use to get to job interviews and to drive to work when a job is accepted.”

Majeski has touched base about the idea with Kelly Jeffers, the director of new initiatives at Urban Mission Ministries who heads up its Jobs for Life program, a ministry of discipleship where men and women learn a theology of work. Jobs for Life is curriculum based off of Biblical principles that teaches people about their identity in Christ, what their gifts and talents are and how to use them in practical application in life and employment.

Each class has no more than 10 people at once. The structure is 16 sessions in eight weeks, with two classes per week and a closing graduation ceremony. At that time, students have completed strict graduation requirements, including homework, job searches and resume building. Upon graduation, they receive their Jobs for Life Certificate.

Majeski said he hopes to meet with Jeffers to discuss the possibilities.

Anyone interested in helping Majeski with “Ezekiel’s Wheel” can contact him at (330) 329-8683.

Majeski, ordained in 1971, has been in ministry for nearly 50 years. He grew up in Steubenville, moved to Richmond in 1957 and graduated from Jefferson Union High School in 1961. He was 26 when he entered the ministry, by then married to the former Ruth Carpenter, and raising a family that included a daughter, Janette of Akron, and two sons, Mark and Kevin, both of Indiana.

“When I was 20 years old, I made a commitment to Christ at the old Bloomingdale Church of God on Route 22 and that’s when I was getting the call into the ministry,” he said. When that minister left, Majeski began preaching in a lay-person capacity.

“I did that for years, conducted some revivals and did fill-ins at churches, and then eventually the opportunity was given to me to accept the pastorate at the Bloomingdale Church of God,” he said. From there he served at churches in Wheeling, Bridgeport, Johnstown, Pa., and his last one in Barberton, near Akron.

“Then I traveled 13 years as a full-time evangelist,” he said, noting he made a couple of trips to Jamaica where there were Church of God churches. Mostly, though, trips involved travel in the United States. “Then I was interim pastor for about 15 churches, and now I have been in ministry over 50 years, if you take (into consideration) when I was ordained in ’71,” he said.

At one point during the 1990s, Majeski rented downtown Steubenville store space on North Fourth Street, operating the Steubenville Church of God there and then at other locations during its brief existence. “We wanted a building but didn’t find one,” he said.

There are 200 some Churches of God in Ohio, including Rayland and Tiltonsville, according to Majeski, who hopes to relocate back to the area.

Though he resides in Akron, Majeski said he has a heart for helping in his hometown.

“I have a burden for the city of Steubenville,” he said.

“There’s an old scripture in Joel that I claim for this city, and it says ‘he will restore the years the locust have eaten’ and the locust have eaten — there’s unemployment, drugs, no jobs, and it’s my hope that God will do this (restore), and I want a small part of trying to do this.”

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