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Despite airline delays, 17 out of 18 potential
deaconesses attended the New York City
Discernment Event from April 11 to 13, 2008,
sponsored by the office of the Deaconess and
Home
Missioner. In Christian lingo, to discern means
to listen to God's call or spiritual direction.
Date posted:May 30, 2008
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Through narrow dark streets we pressed on from
house to house, singing out the good news,
feeling more like the front row of a rock
concert than a hymn-singing choir!
Date posted:May 29, 2008
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Over the past 30 years, the GYTTE program has
trained and equipped tens of thousands of people
to take care of their own needs and also serve
others. In 2007, approximately 15,000 people were
empowered to move from subsistence living to
lives of dignity through training events,
learning experiences, and community activities.
Date posted:May 27, 2008
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The UMCOR Hotline for May 27, 2008
US: Tornadoes Cause Extensive Damage Across the
Midwest
CHINA and MYANMAR: Partnering to Bring Relief
US: Preparing a Home for Newcomers
DRC: Seeds for the Harvest
JFON: Crossing Over
Date posted:May 27, 2008
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A new 4 Goals of Mission brochure is now
available in English, French, and Portuguese.
The free resource unfolds in the shape of a
cross to emphasize the fourfold
responsibilities of the General Board of Global
Ministries.
Date posted:May 23, 2008
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Last week, five US-2s completed their two years
of service and gathered in New York to share
insights and plan. US-2s are missionaries in
their 20s and 30s who work in hope-filled
places -- in this case, United Methodist-related
mission centers.
Date posted:May 21, 2008
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The UMCOR Hotline for May 20, 2008
In Today's Hotline
CHINA: Amity Foundation Helps China Survivors;
MYANMAR: Cyclone Nargis Recovery;
US: In the Footsteps of Jesus;
EVENT: Recipe of Hope Campaign
Date posted:May 20, 2008
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Bishop Felton E. May issued a challenge to the
church to wield broom and mop in speaking to
the 170th annual meeting of the United Methodist
City Mission Society, a mission organization
that serves the five boroughs of the City of
New York. The retired bishop is the interim
general secretary of the General Board of
Global Ministries, the international mission
agency of the denomination.
Date posted:May 20, 2008
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Thirteen United Methodist Primetimers arrived
in Macedonia on May 15 for two weeks of
ministry as Volunteers in Mission.
Date posted:May 20, 2008
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A New Podcast: Finda Quiwa
Finda Quiwa is a Regional Missionary with the
Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist
Church serving in Sierra Leone as coordinator for
the Global Justice Volunteer, Africa Pilot
Program. Interview by Rachael Barnett, Global
Ministries staff of The Advance.
Date posted:May 20, 2008
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Cuatrocientas personas inmigraron a
Postville, Iowa, una por aquí, otra por allá.
Cada una cargó en sí misma una parte única de la
luz de Dios.
Four hundred persons immigrated
to Postville, Iowa, one here and another there.
Each one carried within them a unique part of the
light of God.
Date posted:May 19, 2008
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Como Obispo de la Conferencia Annual de Iowa de
la Iglesia Metodista Unida y como una person de
fe, creo que como comunidad estamos llamados a
hablar respecto a la redada por la inmigración
que se llevó a cabo el 12 de mayo al
Agriprocessors, Inc. en Postville, Iowa.
Date posted:May 19, 2008
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As the Bishop of the Iowa Annual Conference of
the United Methodist Church and as a person of
faith, I believe we are called as a community to
speak about the immigration raid that took place
on May 12, at Agriprocessors, Inc. in Postville,
Iowa.
Date posted:May 19, 2008
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I am deeply concerned about the humanitarian
implications of the recent arrests by federal
authorities of migrant workers at their places
of
work in both Iowa and West Virginia. Church
sources say that not only did the Immigration
and
Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency seize workers
at
a chicken processing plant near Romney, West
Virginia, but also went into schools and took
away children.
Date posted:May 19, 2008
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May 18, 2008, is a significant day for United
Methodists: congregations will observe Heritage
Sunday and Aldersgate Day and receive the Peace
with Justice Sunday
offering.
Date posted:May 16, 2008
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Within five hours of the May 12 earthquake near
Chengdu, China, the Amity Foundation, a Chinese
social service organization and Global
Ministries’ partner, had sent staff to the city
to initiate relief efforts. By 7:00 that evening,
Yue Yaomeng, Amity’s project officer for disaster
programs, began to assess crisis relief.
Date posted:May 15, 2008
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The China News Summary is compiled monthly by
the United Methodist China Program, Room 1335,
General Board of Global Ministries, The United
Methodist Church, 475 Riverside Drive, New York,
NY 10115.
Date posted:May 15, 2008
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"God has given us a special privilege to work
with an institution characterized by its
sensitivity in responding to the training needs
of the churches and people of Latin America,”
say Ivonne and Isaias Ramos.
Date posted:May 15, 2008
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Textbook open, Mariela studies environmental
science while her three younger sisters watch TV
before bed.
In a few minutes, she will help them brush their
teeth and say their bedtime prayers. But the 18-
year-old is not babysitting. Mariela is the
primary caregiver for her sisters ages 2, 4 and 7
now that their mother is gone--arrested in an
immigration raid at her workplace.
Date posted:May 15, 2008
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The United Methodist Committee on Relief is
partnering with CWS on emergency relief for
nearly 1 million people that the United
Nations estimates were left homeless after
Cyclone Nargis struck the Southeast Asia
nation on May 3. Up to 100,000 people may have
died, and tens of thousands are missing.
Date posted:May 13, 2008
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A United Methodist pastor in the Philippines
was released from jail on May 5 when trumped up
murder charges against him were dropped,
according to reports received from the church's
Southwest Philippines Annual Conference.
Date posted:May 12, 2008
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A New Podcast: Guillermo (Willie) Berman
Willie serves in his home country of Mexico as the
Mexican Methodist Border Mission Coordinator based
in Reynosa. Interview by Rachael Barnett, Global
Ministries staff of The Advance.
Date posted:May 12, 2008
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After nearly four months of political wrangling,
widespread violence, and bloodshed, Kenya is
charting a new course that hopefully will lead
to
peace and prosperity.
Date posted:May 09, 2008
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A number of petitions, including five from U.S.
annual (regional) conferences, were folded into
one petition on "divestment" that called on the
denomination's pension board and finance
agency "to review and identify companies that
profit from sales of products or services that
cause harm to Palestinians and Israelis and
begin phased selective divestment from these
companies."
Date posted:May 04, 2008
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United Methodists have decided to wipe out
malaria because "brothers and sisters don't sit
back and let each other die," said William H.
Gates Sr., co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation.
Date posted:May 02, 2008
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We oppose unilateral first/preemptive strike
actions and strategies on the part of any
government," declares a new phrase inserted into
the Social Principles of the denomination at its
General Conference, which meets every four years
and is the only official voice of the church.
Date posted:May 02, 2008
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The United Methodist Church "ramped up" its
commitment to fight malaria by agreeing to enter
into a capital campaign to raise $75 million to
$100 million for global health.
Date posted:May 02, 2008
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United Methodists have officially affirmed
support for 'the people of Tibet and their
struggle for independence and autonomy.'
The action came May 1 as General Conference,
the denomination's top legislative body, met at
the Fort Worth Convention Center. The petition on
Tibet was among the consent calendar items
approved that day.
Date posted:May 02, 2008
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Fair wages for small scale farmers was among the
concerns addressed by The United Methodist
Church’s highest legislative body that meets every
four years.
Date posted:May 02, 2008
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Looking forward to Ascension Sunday, United
Methodist Bishop Hope Morgan Ward of Mississippi
Conference reflected on "the great Christian
mystery that illumines our faith" in morning
worship at the denomination's General Conference
two days before the Ascension celebration on May
4.
Date posted:May 02, 2008
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Music at the 2008 United Methodist General
Conference reflected the increasingly global
nature of the denomination and taught the
delegates about their own cultural diversity.
Date posted:May 02, 2008
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General Conference delegates renewed three
resolutions initiated by the Women's Division and
the General Board of Global Ministries to protect
the environment in separate votes this week. The
measures required renewal under a 2004 General
Conference rule mandating review of resolutions
eight years after adoption.
Date posted:May 02, 2008
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The United Methodist Church will contribute to
the development of a learning center on the site
where in 1864 a Methodist preacher was
responsible for the deaths of 150 Native
Americans.
Date posted:May 02, 2008
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The United Methodist Church, on the last day of
its 2008 General Conference, celebrated the
100th
anniversary of its Social Principles, which are
guidelines for the social behavior of its
members
and institutions. Earlier in the meeting it
adopted a litany to accompany a denominational
Social Creed, which stands at the conclusion of
the principles.
Date posted:May 02, 2008
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The United Methodist General Conference on May 2
affirmed the denomination’s continuing
participation in the Religion Coalition for
Reproductive Choice, a non-partisan, interfaith,
and education organization.
Date posted:May 02, 2008
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Missionaries made significant contributions to
the proceedings of the 2008 General Conference
serving as delegates, interpreters,
photographers, accompaniers, and witnesses.
Their
quiet labors, which took place in large part
behind the scenes, created bridges of
understanding between people, among delegations,
and across the boundaries of national borders
that separate people from one another.
Date posted:May 02, 2008
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2 Mai 2008 | FORT WORTH, Texas (UMNS): L’Eglise
Méthodiste Unie a raffiné sa déclaration de
mission le 28 Avril, pour l’impliquer dans la vie
et le travail de l’église.
Date posted:May 02, 2008
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I recently watched an episode of the PBS series
American Experience entitled "Minik, the Lost
Eskimo." In a lifelong quest to reach the North
Pole, Robert Peary, an American explorer, visited
Greenland many times at the turn of the last
century. On a trip in 1897, he brought back six
Inughuit natives (the Inuit people of the Arctic
regions) to New York so that the Museum of
Natural History could study them.
Date posted:May 01, 2008
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After my term as bishop for the Evangelical
Methodist Church in Bolivia, I was invited by the
World Council of Churches to be a consultant on
indigenous issues. Before I began my ecumenical
work in Geneva, I thought the Aymaras and the
Quechuas and other Bolivian indigenous peoples
were unique in that they had faced colonization
for hundreds of years and had more or less never
attained their independence.
Date posted:May 01, 2008
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"They washed her mouth out with soap for speaking
her own language. They thought it was a dirty
language," Richard Grounds said of his
grandmother, who, as a child was uprooted from
her family, sent to boarding school, and forced
to speak English.
Date posted:May 01, 2008
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The Dumagat program of the Center for Community
Development of Harris Memorial College is an
attempt to reach out to the most disadvantaged
communities in Rizal, an area below Laguna de
Bay, southeast of Manila. The Dumagat people are
a cultural minority in the Philippines (there are
about 30,000 surviving on the islands) with their
own unique language and way of life.
Date posted:May 01, 2008
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It seems an obvious statement: Native people are
able to determine what is best for Native people.
Through success and failure, ultimately,
decisions are made within a Native context,
defined by Native vision. We make the best
choices when we are closest to our roots.
Date posted:May 01, 2008
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When Abraham, with his Chosen People, was
traveling to the Promised Land, his wife Sarah
died while they were in the land of the Hittites.
Abraham sought to bury his wife and asked the
Hittites if he could purchase a piece of ground.
They offered to give him land, but Abraham
insisted on purchasing it. The owner, a Hittite,
allowed Abraham to purchase land so he could bury
Sarah. (Genesis 23:19-20)
Date posted:May 01, 2008
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The growth of The United Methodist Church in
Africa is raising serious questions about
church organization and leadership. In
response, the denomination's legislating General
Conference decided that it needs a plan for
organizing new geographic units and naming new
bishops.
Date posted:May 01, 2008
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Delegates to the 2008 General Conference of The
United Methodist Church approved a plan that will
result in one less bishop in each of four of the
five U.S. jurisdictions, beginning in 2012.
Date posted:May 01, 2008
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United Methodists refined their mission
statement
on April 28, 2008, to infuse a mission directive
into the life and work of the church.
The statement now reads, "The mission of the
Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for
the transformation of the world." The latter
phrase was added in the revision and will now
appear in the United Methodist Book of
Discipline, the denomination's official manual.
Date posted:May 01, 2008
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The witness phrase, which highlights the mission
and evangelistic responsibility of church
membership, was added to the part of the liturgy
used when individuals make their professions of
membership. The addition was made by the United
Methodist General Conference, which meets every
four years to conduct the business of the
denomination.
Date posted:May 01, 2008
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The denomination's top legislative body affirmed
the church's continuing support and increased
focus on poverty at their quadrennial meeting
through three actions, which resulted in changes
to the Book of Discipline and the Book of
Resolutions. The petitions underline the
denomination's focus on "Engaging in Ministry
with the Poor," one of four focus areas for The
United Methodist Church for the next
quadrennium.
Date posted:May 01, 2008
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Last month, the Rev. Mariesol Villalon of the
Philippines received sad news as she prepared to
depart from Manila for Fort Worth, Texas. She
learned that Elisa Pera, a 26-year-old United
Methodist deaconess, had been killed in what
appeared to be a military operation at Tanay in
Rizal province on the outskirts of Manila.
Date posted:May 01, 2008
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"The Girl Child" resolutions acknowledged that
while all children are among the most vulnerable
in any society, many cultures place a lower
value on girls, creating unique perils that
require special protection.
Date posted:May 01, 2008
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Bishop Hee-Soo Jung said that both "are biblical
values and both are right, but they can [also]
both be wrong.
Date posted:May 01, 2008
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Delegates to the denomination's top legislative
body, meeting in Fort Worth from April 23 to May
2, adopted two comprehensive resolutions
covering both global migration and immigration
issues in the United States.
Date posted:May 01, 2008
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