Stop Hunger Now Food Packaging Event at 2013 Annual Conference

Stop Hunger Now’s meal packaging program is a volunteer-based effort to package highly nutritious dehydrated meals comprised of rice, soy, vegetables, flavoring, and a mixture of 21 essential vitamins and minerals.  These meals are easily transported to crisis burdened areas or to school feeding programs around the world.

Many of our churches in our Conference Area have hosted meal packaging events.  This year, Lay Members of Annual Conference and Pastors are invited to help meet the challenge to package 100,000 meals during the 2013 North Carolina Annual Conference in Greenville—a challenging goal which has been established by Bishop Hope Morgan Ward.

To meet the goal, we need two things:  volunteers to package the meals and donations of $.25 per meal.  To accomplish the goal, we would need several hundred volunteers and $25,000 of donations.  All volunteers are MOST welcome!  You do not need to be a delegate to Annual Conference to come and join us for this exciting event.  Small groups are welcome!  Youth groups are welcome!  Sunday school classes are welcome!  Whole congregations are welcome!

Come and join the party! Having fun as we assemble meal packages for those who would otherwise go without — turning the tears into proclamations of joy!

To volunteer, go to the website by following one of the links below (Wed, Thur, or Fri) for the specific day you would like to volunteer.  On the linked form, you will see two highlighted blocks on the left side of the page.  One is to Make a Donation for the event.  The other is to Register for Event.  Please do both.  Please register, for the event and please make a donation for the meals that you will help package.  Your donation will help us pay for these meals for our desperately hungry brothers and sisters.  Also, if you are not able to be with us to help package meals, you can still join in the ministry by making a donation.

• Wednesday – Sign Up Here
• Thursday     – Sign Up Here 
• Friday            - Sign Up Here

The packaging event is scheduled to be held in Ballroom E at the Greenville Hilton next to the convention center.

To donate funds, you may donate in advance on any of the web sites above. Baskets will be available for donations at the Conference Picnic on the lawn, Thursday, 5:00 P.M., June 13^th.  Special offering envelopes will be provided in your Annual Conference registration packet.  Download PDF of Stop Hunger Now Event Here

Stop Hunger Now is an organization driven by the vision of a world without hunger and a mission to end hunger in our lifetime by providing food and life saving aid to the world’s most vulnerable and by creating a global commitment to mobilize the necessary resources.

Stop Hunger Now is celebrating its 15^th Anniversary this year.  The founder of Stop Hunger Now, Ray Buchanan, will be a guest at our Annual Conference.   For more information on Stop Hunger Now, follow this link ==> SHN

Our Lord Jesus continually reminds us that he is incarnate in the hunger of the poor when he says to us, “I was hungry …”  Please come and join us so that together we might hear Jesus say, “… and you fed me.”  Alleluia. 

We now have a Facebook presence for Outreach Ministry.  We hope this will provide another venue where we can better connect with one another as we proclaim the love of Jesus in the world through our missional community of the North Carolina Conference.  We also hope it will be a place of celebration of the many ways you share and participate in connectional mission; a space where we might continue to remind one another of God’s amazing love, particularly for the poor and vulnerable; and a point of journey where we might discover more of the many possibilities for joining in the mission and justice of the Way of Jesus.   We invite you to join us there as a friend and participate in our mission of disciple-making and transforming God’s world into that place we so often pray for, “On earth as it is in heaven.”  Please also extend this invitation to your other Facebook friends.

Nancy Van Antwerp, our Deaconess recently appointed to the North Carolina Conference and serving with the Mission Team, will be our Facebook page administrator.   We are grateful for her service.  So, please join Nancy and our other friends over at Outreach Ministry of the NC Conference of the UMC on Facebook! 

Child receives Christmas Box at AGAPE Center

In this week’s Connections address, Bishop Hope invited your church to be directly involved in Project AGAPE, the unique mission of North Carolina United Methodists with Christians in Armenia.

One of the ways we are partnering with our Armenian Sisters and Brothers is in our AGAPE Christmas Box Ministry.  For many children in refugee communities located in the Kashatagh District, this is the only Christmas gift they will receive.  For some of them, this will be the first toy they have ever received.  Though these boxes may seem like a small gift, they will carry the priceless love of Christ.  Children who receive these boxes will know that they have been remembered and loved.  We hope that you might join us in this beautiful action that proclaims Jesus’s AGAPE.

To find box contents and packing instructions, please see AGAPE Christmas Box Ministry.  

Sunrise over Project AGAPE

DEAREST SISTERS & BROTHERS,

On behalf of 1500 and more families or more than 8000 habitants of Kashatagh region of Nagorno-Karabagh Republic I would like to express my deepest WORD of GRATITUDE for EVERYTHING you do to help these families survive in the conditions that NOT MANY IN THE WORLD WOULD CONFRONT.

Recently I had an opportunity to meet and speak with a 21 year old Armenian refugee from Syria. His name is Raffi and he came to Karabagh with his mother. His father and brother are still in Syria looking … for entire letter follow this link – A Proclamation of Love & Hope in a Desperate Reality.

For more on this important ministry, please see Project AGAPE. 

Rural church nominations for consideration of the Key Taylor Award are needed by May 17. 

Congregations can nominate themselves. For 2013, $1300 will be awarded.  The award, sponsored through the United Methodist Foundation, is to call attention to the mission work of all rural churches by honoring the specific achievements of one rural church.  To nominate a church, respond via email in narrative form on one page to the criteria below by May 17 to Kathy Duncan (kduncan@nccumc.org)  at the Office of Outreach Ministries.  Please include the names of the church and district.

●  The church is in a community of Read more »

Nara Melkonyan, director of our mission in Armenia, Project AGAPE,  will be visiting the North Carolina Conference area during the month of April, 2013.  

Project AGAPE is a joint ministry of both the Western North Carolina Conference and the North Carolina Annual Conference.  Nara will be able to share how you are making a difference and bringing hope through the crucial ministry of AGAPE.  Here, we are in mission in a place which is still recovering from extreme poverty and suffering brought by a generation of Soviet rule, a massive earthquake in the late 90s that devastated much of the country, a war, and continuing political tensions.   AGAPE works with the Armenian Orthodox Church to offer humanitarian relief in the name of the Lord Jesus.

NC Conference work team brings internet connectivity to Project AGAPE computer class – bringing education and possibilities to vulnerable Armenian children.

To schedule Nara to visit your Church for any sized gathering, please contact the Conference Mission Secretary, Bill Haddock at revbillh@nccumc.org or 910.262.3831.  

During Annual Conference 2013 in a partnership ministry of the NC Conference United Methodist Women, Church and Society, and the Mission Team, we will be collecting UMCOR Birthing Kits.

Every 90 seconds a woman somewhere in the world dies from complications during pregnancy or childbirth.  356,000 women die every year, most of the deaths occurring in the developing world. Annually 4 million infants die within a month of being born.  When a mother dies, it dramatically increases the risk of death for her baby.  Birthing kits provide the essential items to promote a safe, clean delivery and to encourage good after care.  Using a birthing kit can double a woman’s chance of surviving the birth.

All are invited and all can participate in this life-giving ministry – youth groups, Sunday school classes, small groups, UMW Circles, UMM groups, and individuals.  Please follow the instructions below and join us in the name of Christ, as through these small gifts, we share the love of Jesus and bring health and hope and joy into the spaces that would otherwise have only contained the tears of mourning and the sounds of death.

A collection point will be available where you can drop off your kits at Annual Conference 2013 in the Greenville Convention Center, 303 SW Greenville Blvd., Greenville, North Carolina on June 12-15, 2013.   Once you are on the Convention Center campus, look for the signs.

Following Annual Conference in the early fall, we will continue to need your hands and hearts in ministry.  We have set aside three other dates for sorting and shipping the birthing kits – September 21, 27, and 28th.  Please hold these dates open on your calendar.  We will soon have information on the location for the work of shipping and sorting.

Birthing Kit Instructions, Video, & Mary’s Advent are below: Read more »

Young Adults in Mission From Around the World

Application deadline: March 1, 2013

Come to the Orientation: June 8-15, 2013