On May 18-19, United Methodists around the globe will unite in service with their local communities for the fourth annual Change the World weekend. People in more than 1,500 locations internationally observed Change the World in 2012. United Methodist Communications has created several free planning resources including a sermon series and ideas for service projects. To locate an event in your area, go to RethinkChurch.org

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. 

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. 

Updated:  5-07-2013 at 12:45 PM

Hurricane Irene Recovery

Waves break over railings of a home’s raised deck. Storm surges were up to 8 feet in some areas.

The NC Conference continues to have an on-going operation for disaster recovery.  Over 27,000 homes were damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Irene in August 2011.  We have hundreds who remain unable to move back into heavily damaged or destroyed homes.  We have deep need for work teams to do both repair/reconstruction and new construction.  The NC Conference disaster recovery call center can place your team in an area where people continue to desperately need your help.   We have had over 350 teams respond and we need many, many more.  We are deeply grateful for the efforts and gifts of these wondrous servants.  We have been staggered by the generosity of those who have responded in such manner.   Please join us.  Your efforts will make a difference.

Anyone wanting to volunteer should email disasterresponse@nccumc.org or call 888-440-9167.

We continue to need additional funds for the recovery work.  Please also consider reaching out financially by giving to NC Storms Emergency Response – NC Advance #S-00176. 100% of every gift to this Advance will go to storm response.  You can give online at:  Hurricane Irene Giving

You can also send funds to:  NC Conference, P.O. Box 60053, Charlotte, NC 28260.  Please be sure to note Advance #S-00176.

— Steve Taylor/Outreach Team Coordinator

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.  

Wil and Yolanda

Greetings from Costa Rica!  We hope that this update finds all of you doing well.  In January we started work on our first project of 2013.  We’re building two Sunday school classrooms, a church kitchen and a battery of bathrooms at the church in Pavones.  The congregation has been forced to meet for the last three months under a tarp in front of the parsonage because the existing facilities were not up to the Health Ministry’s specifications.  We have already re-wired … Read More at Costa Rica Mission Projects.