Announcements

April 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively affected health systems globally, crippling service delivery in both high and low-resource countries. However, the effects on already weakened health systems in the developing world have been far more devastating. In recent weeks, the COVID-19 case count – first in Brazil and now in India – has risen dramatically, stressing health systems as well as the supply of essential drugs and medical equipment.

Global Ministries and UMCOR are responding to the health crisis in India by supporting long-term Indian partners who are working on the ground in emergency humanitarian and health response. Support to Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore will allow the organization to cope with the direct health consequences of the pandemic. This includes the purchase of emergency medical equipment, beginning with bedside ventilators as they expand their capacity to treat COVID-19 patients at the behest of the government. Additional hospital beds are also being requested to increase capacity. CMC Vellore is a long-established and highly credible institution in the country. Additionally, UMCOR will support Church’s Auxiliary for Social Action (CASA) to respond to the humanitarian consequences of the pandemic through information campaigns, hygiene support and unconditional cash transfers to help people meet their basic human needs. CASA is one of the largest faith-based humanitarian organizations in the country representing all Protestant denominations, including the Methodist Church in India.

Through Global Health and Humanitarian Response efforts, UMCOR will continue to provide emergency aid when needed as countries face health and humanitarian crises associated with COVID-19, such as the one being faced in India. Additionally, UMCOR’s COVID-19 response will include ongoing support of essential health services throughout the UMC health network and support of communities affected by the burden of COVID-19.

To further address this crisis, Global Ministries will again promote its UMCOR COVID-19 Response Fund (Advance #3022612) to allow those throughout the church to share in this outreach. Gifts can be made online at https://umcmission.org/advance-project/3022612/ or sent by mail to Global Ministries/UMCOR, PO Box 9068, New York, NY 10087-9068. (“Advance #3022612” should be written on the memo line.)

UMCOR’s Response to COVID-19 PDF

Bishop Ward asks us to give thanks this month particularly for teachers, our Asian-American pastors and Asian-Pacific Ministries, and for mothers and other women who have nurtured and supported us throughout our life.

Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus Christ.

It’s the beautiful month of May. Birds sing, flowers bloom. All of nature beckons us to come out and to give thanks to God. During the month of May, I invite you to give thanks for and to give thanks to three groups of people.

First teachers. This is Teacher Appreciation Week. Take time to reach out and thank a teacher. The vocation of teaching is an honored and cherished one among us, and we are grateful to teachers who, in this season of pandemic, have done amazing work reconfiguring lesson plans to teach virtually and supporting students in wonderful ways. Teachers, we give thanks to God for you.

Second, May is Asian-Pacific Heritage Month and we give thanks to God for our pastors of Asian-American heritage. We give thanks for the ways in which you lead and guide, for the ways in which your life of prayer and your deeply spiritual leadership gives our entire connection. Asian-American clergy, we give thanks to God for you.

And third, as Mother’s Day approaches, we give thanks to God for the women in our lives who have nurtured us – mothers and grandmothers and great grandmothers, aunts and sisters, cousins and friends, for nurturing women in our lives. We are deeply grateful and this month, in May, we give thanks to each of you who have had a nurturing role in our lives.

The beautiful month of May is a wonderful time to give thanks. Let us reach out in thanksgiving to one another in this holy, lovely, flowering season.

May Christ be with you as you extend thanks. 

The week following Andrew Brown Jr. losing his life at the hands of sheriff deputies in Elizabeth City, an ecumenical group of clergy gathered at Mount Lebanon AME Zion Church to march to the location where he was killed.

Dear United Methodist friends in Christ,

I give thanks to you all, using the words of the Apostle Paul in Philippians, for partnership in ministry from the first day until now. Called to ordained ministry, I was set apart for this life of itinerant clergy leadership 42 years ago at the North Carolina Annual Conference Session in Fayetteville. Little do any in the company of clergy know of all that will unfold from that day forward!

I would like you all to know that I have requested retirement, effective September 1, 2021. Your welcome nine years ago to episcopal leadership here in North Carolina was a gift beyond measure.  

Mike and I are deeply grateful for the journey together across these nine years. We will continue to live in Raleigh and will pray with you for our new episcopal leader, yet to be discerned and announced through the ongoing discernment of the Southeastern Jurisdiction Committee on Episcopacy and the College of Bishops.

With gratitude to God for the life we share in Christ’s ministry,

Bishop Hope Morgan Ward