ONE GREAT HOUR OF SHARING – March 18, 2012

LIFE-CHANGING MINISTRY—A RESPONSE TO GOD’S LOVE

Join United Methodists everywhere by participating in this special offering that supports our United Methodist Committee on Relief’s (UMCOR) vital work.  Your gifts to One Great Hour of Sharing (OGHS) lay the foundation for our UMCOR to live into God’s mercy and compassion for suffering people everywhere.   Be assured that when catastrophes cause suffering, your church, impelled by Jesus’ love and compassion, will be in the lead to ease the pain.

This offering is one of six special offerings per year across the whole of the United Methodist Church.  OGHS is the one offering each year to assist UMCOR in providing its infrastructure for ministry.  This assures that for all other giving, 100% of the offering goes to the ministry needs and not to “keeping on the lights.”   OGHS will also provide the initial funding to respond to disasters and other desperate needs before the Advance giving for the specific need can be brought on-line.  This is an incredibly important offering.

Please go to One Great Hour of Sharing to learn more information and to download or order materials for your bulletin and envelopes for the offering.

Your gift may save a life.  Your gift will honor Jesus.

Impoverished Armenian children are loved and celebrated in the AGAPE ministry.

Project AGAPE Armenia, a joint ministry of churches in the NC and WNC Conferences, continues to serve in ministry with some of the most vulnerable people in the world – refugees and displaced persons in eastern Armenia.  Though the ministry remains critical, funding and congregational support for the ministry grows smaller.  Continued ministry beyond June 2012 is in real jeopardy.  You are invited to an AGAPE ministry meeting at the Methodist Building in Garner, on Tuesday, December 6, 7:00 PM – 8:00.  We will have an overview of the ministry’s history, look an current actions, and strategize about possible future responses.  Please RSVP to Kathy Reavis at kreavis@nccumc.org or 800-849-4433 ext 256.

For more AGAPE information, please see:  Project AGAPE Armenia

Refugee settlement - the result of war. Photo - Steve Taylor/NCCUMC

Each year people all over the world recognize World Refugee Day. World Refugee Day encourages us to prayerfully reflect on the lives of refugees, and raise awareness in our communities and congregations about refugee resettlement.

UMCOR, together with congregations and the Church World Service resettlement network across the country, has developed a series of World Refugee Day materials that can be accessed online and downloaded. There is a church bulletin insert for use on Sunday June 19, the day before World Refugee Day. Additionally, you can arrange to make an announcement about World Refugee Day during worship or another church gathering. Your church may also consider planning a worship service around the theme of refugees. You can download the poster and other materials here.

We need YOUR HELP to get the word out about these materials so please forward this email to your networks, colleagues, pastors and friends. We hope that you will make every effort to lift up this important day at your worship service on Sunday June 19^th.

Do you have an idea for raising awareness in your congregation about refugees? Is there a way that UMCOR might be able to help? Please don’t hesitate to contact us at UMCORRefugee@gbgm-umc.org or 212-870-3888. The more we hear from you, the better!

From Rev. James Labala in Liberia – Ivory Coast Refugee Crisis:

My dear friends and partners:

As some of you may know by now, there is fighting going on in the Ivory Coast. Gompa District has common boundary with the Ivory Coast. Right now more than 100,000 refugees have crossed over into Liberia. Our supervising pastor in the Gborplay area reported to us during our district planning retreat that the entire area is overcrowded with refugees. The burdens are so much on our local members and the communities. We decided that all of our local churches in Gompa District take a special offering on the first Sunday in April to help provide some relief for our brothers and sisters in the Gborplay Area.

As our partners in ministry, we invite you to pray along with us as we initiate this effort to provide some support for our brothers and sisters in the name of Christ. As the body of Christ, we are called to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, and welcome the strangers…

Thanks so much for your support.

Blessings,
James Z. Labala
District Superintendent
Gompa District, Liberia

You can join in partnership with our Brothers and Sisters in Liberia by making an on-line donation or through the Advance Giving Ministry.   Please don’t wait.  The need is now.  100% of your gift will go to ministry in Liberia.

A UMNS Report By Linda Bloom*

The United Methodist Church, which has had a long-time relationship with Christians in Japan, has been monitoring events following the catastrophic March 11 earthquake and tsunami — and subsequent nuclear threat — in Japan. Here is some basic information regarding the church’s response and relationships there:

How can individuals contribute to relief efforts?

The United Methodist Committee on Relief is working with the United Church of Christ in Japan and GlobalMedic to bring immediate relief to the affected communities. The name of UMCOR’s emergency appeal has been changed from Pacific Emergency to Japan Emergency, UMCOR Advance #3021317 and donations can be made here.

For more information, including damage to churches, team response possibilities, and possible future actions, please read the complete article here.

Some of the many JFON volunteers. They reach out in the love of Jesus and find that it is Jesus whom they meet.

The Justice For our Neighbors (JFON) Peace and Justice Clinic is a joint ministry in partnership with the Western NC Conference.  Here is an opportunity for you to participate or to go for needed services.  We have a real need for Spanish interpreters in this critical ministry that shares the love and hospitality of Jesus.

“Professor Sean Lew and 15 law students from the Charlotte School of Law who are taking an advanced immigration course will join the other volunteers at the March 12th Peace and Justice Clinic at Matthews United Methodist Church.   They are interested in seeing and participating in the clinic’s hospitality ministry associated with the delivery of high quality free immigration legal services.   They will Read more »

Hamest has been a recipient of God’s love delivered through your prayers and gifts.  This is a small portion of her story:

The smile never disappears from the faces of her family members because they will no longer be cold and wet each time the winter rains come.  Hamest says she showed the pictures of the new roof to their son drafted to the army just two weeks before the team started the house renovation and her son didn’t believe it was their house.  “Now he counts the days remained to come and see it first hand,” says Hamest with tears in her eyes.  “We were born in a country teaching us that it’s the most humanist country in the world and we couldn’t believe what was happening to us during the war in that “humanist” country.  We had lost our faith…  And I would never believe that there are people like these who care about others and love them like their sisters and brothers.  Our eternal prayers will be with them.  I have a feeling that they are Angels sent by God to let us know that there isn’t only violence in the world, we had to go through.  May God bless them richly, as they blessed our house and brought the light of Jesus and hope back to our hopeless souls.”

You have made a difference in this family’s life.  You have been the proclamation of Jesus.  For more stories of AGAPE, please see the 2010 Year End Newsletter and Project AGAPE Page.

Also, if you did not receive an offering during AGAPE month in January, please prayerfully consider doing so on some other date.  The Project AGAPE funds are low and the ministry remains critical.  Please join Read more »

Dear Friends and Partners in Mission,

We are pleased to inform you of the 2011 Cambodia Consultation March 31 to April 2 in San Jose, California, sponsored by the General Board of Global Ministries and the California-Nevada Conference of The United Methodist Church.

The purpose of this periodic gathering of friends throughout the U.S. of the United Methodist mission initiative in Cambodia is education, planning, fellowship, and celebration of Cambodian-American ministries. The focus will be on concerns and perspectives of (1) the Khmer church leadership, (2) missionaries, and (3) volunteer in mission teams, all of whom will be represented.

Bishop Warner H. Brown, Jr. extends a warm invitation to attend. “When I visited Cambodia last February, I saw a beautiful land with a rich cultural heritage that had lost nearly a whole generation of leaders in the 1970s. I saw first-hand the urgent need today for leadership development and for alleviation of poverty. And, I saw the excitement and vitality of Methodists and new Christians practicing their faith in a setting where they are very much a struggling minority. The California-Nevada Annual Conference is proud to support its Cambodian-American community in sponsoring this Consultation.”

Click on the link below to register.

Get more information

Register Now!

At Abu Jabra, another camp where UMCOR workers have provided seeds and tools, a resident prepares the ground for planting. Credit: Paul Jeffrey/UMCOR

United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) continues to work in Sudan, named as the worse humanitarian disaster of the 21^st Century.  Over 400,000 people are estimated to have been killed in fighting and over 2 million people are displaced.   This critical ministry provides radial hospitality to some of the most vulnerable people in the world.   UMCOR works in Darfur and other areas bringing agriculture extension, emergency supply distribution, feeding the growing numbers of starving people, refugee resettlement, and small-scale livelihoods.    And you can help.   Please prayerfully consider a gift to this important ministry.  A gift can be made for the local Sunday offering by denoting on the gift:  Sudan Emergency Advance # 184385 or give on-line at Sudan Emergency.  For more information:  See UMCOR Food Ministry for Sudan.

Woman receives assistance from JFON case worker

Today’s 10-Fold ministry is UMCOR’s Justice for Our Neighbors (JFON) Program, a ministry that welcomes immigrants into our churches and communities by providing free, high-quality immigration legal services, education, and advocacy.  Simply by following the link “Be counted” and submitting, $1 will be donated to the ministry by today’s sponsor.

Motivated by Christian values of love, justice, and compassion, JFON serves Read more »