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“I want to broaden my horizons, share my culture and all that I’ve learned, and try to show people there can be a better life for everybody.”
— Lauren Oxendine, Lumbee, Robeson County, N.C.”
Spiritual Connections is a youth-mentoring project of the faith-based Sacred Pathways Inc. in Robeson County, N.C., that provides food and other basic needs to low-income people. While its roots are among the Lumbee people, the project is racially diverse, like the county it serves.
Supported by United Methodists through the Native American Ministries Sunday offering, Sacred Pathways counsels and nurtures young people, teaching them to work cross-culturally to improve their lives and their communities. That includes seeking answers to widespread poverty and decreasing numbers of school dropouts, teen pregnancies and gangs.
Members of the interracial Youth Leadership Cabinet, drawn from area high schools, learn critical thinking skills, team building, self-esteem and personal goal setting. They also learn to respond creatively to concerns such as saving the environment and fighting global hunger and homelessness.
“This program taught me so much that I will take with me wherever I go,” says Lauren Oxendine, 19, who made new friends and discovered a passion for community service as a cabinet member. “I want to broaden my horizons, share my culture and all that I’ve learned, and try to show people there can be a better life for everybody.”
Your gifts on Native American Ministries Sunday fund ministries that pave the way for those who aspire to serve Christ’s church by making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Because of your generosity, young people like Lauren discover a world worth saving, congregations become stronger, seminarians prepare to serve, and communities are transformed. |