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. 

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.  

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

Young Adults Invited to Apply for Mission Program

Young adults may now apply for the 2013 class of Mission Interns and US-2s. Feb. 15 is the deadline to submit application materials for these long-term mission assignments through the United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries.

Mission Interns will now commit to 25 months of service that include 20 months of international service, followed by two and a half months of integration and interpretation in their home country.  US-2s will continue to commit to two years of service in the United States.

Young adults are encouraged prayerfully to consider applying for these programs if they:

• are between the ages of 20 and 30,
• have a bachelor’s degree or equivalent life experience,
• feel called to address the root causes of injustice,
• are open to new settings and new perspectives,
• want hands-on experience living in Christian community, and
• feel called to serve with, not to or for others.

Organizations interested in being a placement site are encouraged to apply before March 24.

For more information and an application, please email the young adult mission service office. Please share this information with any young people whom you think might be interested.

The full press release includes program details and is available on the Global Ministries website www.umcmission.org.

DEACONESSES & HOME MISSIONERS

December 7-9, 2012

God is calling.

Home Missionary, Gary Locklear, talks with an UMVIM group in home repair ministry in Robeson County, NC.

You have the opportunity to pause, listen and respond to God’s call. This fall, local United Methodist laity will explore God’s invitation to become a deaconess or home missioner at a special event in North Carolina.

This discernment event, at Rockfish Camp and Retreat Center in Parkton, N.C., fromDecember 7-9, 2012, will allow laypersons of the United Methodist Church who are living in nearby North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia and Tennessee to gather and explore whether the deaconess or home missioner calling is for them.  For more Information, please see:  Deaconess-Home Missioner Discernment Event. 

To Register, please see:  Registration for Discernment Event