MISSION MEMO: New World Outlook, November/December 1999 Issue on Mission Volunteers GRAPHICS VERSION

Record Giving to the Advance
General Conference Delegates Surveyed
Missions Partner in Sierra Leone
A Plan for the Congo
Venezuela Relief Efforts
Deaths

Record Giving to the Advance

In 1999, United Methodists set a new record for giving to the Advance for Christ and His Church. William Carter, director of the Advance, reported $44 million in 1999 contributions to Advance projects, compared with $30 million in 1998. The previous record of $34 million was set in 1985. From 1998 to 1999, contributions to the United Methodist Committee on Relief nearly doubled, from $15 million to $29 million.

General Conference Delegates Surveyed

Of the 831 US delegates to General Conference who responded to a GCOM survey, 648 are professionals. Seven out of 10 are over 50; 8 out of 10 have total household incomes over $50,000; and 49 percent have household incomes over $75,000.

Missions Partner in Sierra Leone

Thirty representatives from a number of different Methodist groups and ecumenical partners met in Wuppertal, Germany, to discuss joint mission programs to aid in recovery efforts in war-ravaged Sierra Leone. United Methodist Bishop Joseph C. Humper hosted the meeting, which was coordinated by United Methodist missionaries Joe and Carolyn Wagner, who work with Operation Classroom in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Also represented at the meeting were the General Board of Global Ministries, through the United Methodist Committee on Relief and the Women's Division; the Swedish and German United Methodist Board of Missions; the Methodist Church in Ireland; the British Methodist Church; the European Baptist Mission; Bread for the World; and the Methodist and United Methodist churches of Sierra Leone. The groups agreed to coordinate common programs between the United Methodist and Methodist churches in Sierra Leone, to minister to refugees and displaced persons in the refugee camps, and to assist with repatriation and resettlement. They also agreed to work in the critical areas of sanitation and health care, providing mobile clinics and renovating hospitals; to help farmers through their first new crop period after the war; and to establish a national trauma-counseling program.

A Plan for the Congo

A group of six religious leaders from the Democratic Republic of the Congo traveled to New York for a special session of the UN Security Council in an effort to reconcile the warring factions in their country. United Methodist Bishop Fama Onema was one of the religious leaders who came with a plan to implement the Lakasa Peace Accord, an agreement signed in the summer of 1999. With the backing of Congo president Laurent Kabila, the religious community proposes to organize a consultation, or Inter-Congolese Dialogue, to foster peace and security in the region. The delegation called on invading countries to withdraw their troops from the Congo and urged the UN Security Council to send peacekeeping forces. Contributions to UMCOR's International Disaster Response #982450-8 can support reconciliation efforts and UMCOR's ministry with the area's refugees and displaced persons.

Venezuela Relief Efforts

The United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), Church World Service (National Council of Churches), and Action by Churches Together (ACT, the disaster relief arm of the World Council of Churches) are working together to bring aid to the victims of catastrophic flooding in Venezuela. Nationwide from 15,000 to as many as 50,000 people were lost.

Deaths

Rachel Divers, retired deaconess with 36 years of service in the United States, died July 20, 1999...Don W. Holter, retired missionary with 11 years of service in the Philippines, died September 12, 1999...Alice Nearhood, retired deaconess with 24 years of service in the United States, died October 2, 1999...Gerassimos Patrikios, retired missionary with 10 years of service in Southern Zaire (now the Congo), died October 21, 1999...Eunice Allen, retired deaconess with 36 years of service in the United States, died November 30, 1999...T. Jeanne Conover, retired deaconess and home missionary with 43 years of service, died December 8, 1999...Ruth Cox Rudy, a retired missionary who served in Zimbabwe, died December 13, 1999...Irvin A. Unruh, retired missionary with 14 years of service in India and Pakistan, died December 15, 1999...Wendell B. Kramer, retired missionary with 9 years of service in Bolivia, died December 19, 1999...Barbara Helen Beecher, retired missionary with the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, with 30 years of service in India and 5 years of US service as a deaconess, died December 22, 1999...Horace S. Williams, retired missionary with 20 years of service in China, died December 29, 1999...Cleo Barber, retired deaconess with 34 years of service in the United States, died January 11, 2000.