Society Of St. Andrew Needs Your Help Hosting Potato Drops In May!

Society of St. Andrew needs help with bagging and distributing 150 tractor-trailer loads (approximately 6 million pounds) of donated sweet potatoes during the next 3 weeks. We are very excited about this opportunity to feed the hungry in our communities, but this quantity far exceeds our current budget and distribution channels! We hope to partner with church groups and community organizations to do Potato Drops across the Carolinas.

Please review the time, space, and resource requirements listed below. If you can meet the requirements independently or in partnership with other churches and organizations, contact Anna MacDonald Dobbs at 919-683-3011 or: sosanc@endhunger.org to coordinate a Potato Drop.

• Your location must be an open, flat space large enough to accommodate the 18-wheeler, your volunteer work force, and the coming and going of agency vehicles.
• It takes 100 or more volunteers 4-5 hours to bag a 40,000-pound truckload of potatoes. Additional time is needed to oversee distribution and cleanup. Local grocery stores may be able to donate bags and boxes.
• Society of St. Andrew can help you coordinate with food banks, pantries, soup kitchens, shelters and other hunger-relief agencies to distribute bagged potatoes.
• You will need volunteers with trucks to deliver to agencies that cannot pick up the potatoes. A pickup truck can hold 800-1,000 pounds.
• Potato Drop sponsors are asked to help with the cost of freight, which is based on mileage (typically $1000 or less). The value of the donated sweet potatoes is $14,000-15,000 per load!
• Please keep in mind that Society of St. Andrew receives potatoes because they are not in perfect condition and there will be waste. You will need to have a way to dispose of the bad potatoeseither a dumpster or a truck to haul them to a dump or livestock farm.

Please let us know if you would like to participate in a Potato Drop and cannot meet all of the requirements. We may be able to coordinate multiple groups to distribute large loads in your area. Thank you for your responding to our need and the needs in your community!

Updated:  4-19-12 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 thousands of people 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 250 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.

For our NC districts and local churches, if you are willing to have your facility be used for work teams for this, or any, disaster, please fill out the Disaster Response Facilities Survey and send it to disasterresponse@nccumc.org .

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

Note from Outreach Team Coordinator:

Mary and Herbert Zigbuo are long term missionaries who have served Jesus and God’s people with passion, love, sacrifice, and courage.  Mary is now working here in North Carolina.  Herbert is now retired and is battling cancer.   In this current struggle, Herbert lives with courage, grace, and humor, the way he has always served God and those whom Jesus calls “the least of these.”  These servants of God are blessings to us all.  - Steve

Dear Friends,

In March, I was humbled to be part of a celebration of courage, hope and love!   The Fellowship Hall was filled with family, invited guests, volunteers, and friends!  The hall appeared like a scene of what I perceived the kingdom of God to resemble!    A diverse group of people from all walks of life sat around tables making small talk.   Symbols of Christ-like acceptance and support were demonstrated by pats on backs, hugs, embraces, laughter! Walking around the hall greeting people, Miss Bertie* held fast to baby boy Ti ‘Reem* as he sought to play with her glasses!   Talking came easy!  “My bad”, a young man said to an elderly gentleman as they conversed.  Then the young man quickly added “Oh, I mean…” but was interrupted by the elderly gentleman.  “I know what you meant” he said with a quick smile and a wink.  He was actually proud of his new attitude of comprehension and acceptance of what he used to negatively refer to as “street talk”!

A love beyond what the world teaches us was present in that Fellowship Hall!  A love where judgment is suppressed and acceptance is encouraged….. a love Paul spoke of in Romans 12:10: “Love one another with brotherly affection, giving precedence and showing honor to one another”.   That’s the kind of love United Methodist Church supported Anson County Circles of Hope portrays.

During the celebration, eleven persons were honored for their completion of an 18-week ‘Getting Ahead’ class that includes a comprehensive curriculum in which participants investigate the causes of poverty in their communities and Read more »

Children in AGAPE Christian Education

Conference contractor JP McGuire is leading a construction mission work team to Armenia July 28 – Aug. 12.  Construction experience is not necessary for this trip, just a willingness to be God’s servant in hands-on building ministry.  There is a particular need for persons with good computer skills.  The cost of the trip is projected at $3500 – all inclusive.

We have multiple openings on the team.  You will be blessed and you will be a blessing.

For more information on this team, go to Armenia team.

The United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) is in contact with United Methodist annual conference Disaster Response personnel in conferences affected by the recent severe storms across the Midwest, to assess relief needs.

UMCOR executive for US Disaster Response, the Rev. Tom Hazelwood, reached out to Disaster Response coordinators in the Kansas East, Missouri, Illinois, and Illinois Great River annual conferences, where tornadoes were reported to have touched down and caused widespread damage.  You can read more at:  UMCOR Tornado Response

You can give to U.S. Disaster Response at:  Give Now to U.S. Disaster Response.  100% of your gift will go toward the work of disaster relief.

Aly Stanley is serving as a short-term Mission Volunteer with Project AGAPE, Armenia.  Initially, she is teaching English with college aged students and later, will serve with the Agape Children’s Home in Nagorno Karabagh.  You can follow her blog at:  Aly in Armenia.   She would love to hear from you as she shares the love of Jesus in this, the oldest of Christian nations.

You too can be part of this incredible ministry through a Mission Work Team scheduled for  July 28 – August 12.

Children dance at the AGAPE Children's home. Some children at the home have living parents who bring their children to the home because the parents are so impoverished that they cannot feed their own children.

And as always, you can join with your gifts, where with every donation, 100% of your gift is used in the ministry.

Contributions may be made through your local church or mailed to:

NC Conference, PO Box 60053, Charlotte, NC 28260.

Make check payable to:

NC Conference designated as Project AGAPE

Project AGAPE can be found in Lane #4 – World Missions in the Rainbow Covenant/Advance Service Commitment Booklet.   Advance #S – 00004.

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.

Child at AGAPE Orphanage receives Christmas gift through your generosity. this Christmas season, let us who are warm, sheltered, clothed, and fed, remember there are brothers and sisters in the world who are not. In Armenia, the oldest of Christian nations, many struggle for life. Through your action, they will not be alone. Through your action, in the midst of despair, they will know hope.

Following this Christmas season, let us who are warm, sheltered, clothed, and fed, remember there are  brothers and sisters in the world who are not.  In Armenia, the oldest of Christian nations, many struggle for life.  Through your action, they will not be alone.  Through your action, in the midst of despair, they will know hope.

January in the NC Conference is Project AGAPE month.  Project AGAPE is a joint ministry with the Western NC Conference, proclaiming the name of Jesus in an area that suffered the devastation of a generation of communist rule and state-sponsored atheism, a war with Azerbaijan, and a place where thousands of refugees continue in a struggle to survive.

Please prayerfully consider supporting our brothers and sisters with an AGAPE offering.  If you cannot do it in January, please consider any other day that works for you.  Your gift could make the difference between life and death, spiritually and physically.   Jesus births God’s light into our existence, so that we may birth the same light into the lives of others.  Please help.

To download the AGAPE bulletin insert, please click:  AGAPE Brochure – AGAPE SUNDAY

To learn more Read more »

Early Responders - You will make a difference!

Two Early Responder Team training sessions this week!  

The mission of an Early Response Team is to provide a caring Christian presence in the aftermath of a disaster, under very specific guidelines that enable the team to be productive and caring while causing no further harm or being a burden to the affected community.  Classes are taught by authorized trainers credentialed by the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR).

The following upcoming classes are offered free of charge (including cost of background checks):

Saturday Dec. 10, 8 a.m. – 4 p.m. at First UMC, 402 N. Main St., Fuquay-Varina  Phone  919-567-8384
Saturday Dec. 10,  8 a.m. – 4 p.m., Love Joy UMC, Substation Rd., Troy  Phone 910 576-4531 

Visit Early Responder Training to register for either session.

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