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May 18, 2001
The number of internally displaced persons fleeing the fighting in Lofa, Liberia has grown to 20,000. UMCOR staff and the United Methodist Church in Liberia are working to provide food, other emergency supplies, and medical assistance. Your ongoing support of UMCOR's International Disaster Response, Advance #982450 enables UMCOR to respond to such crises.
The Clean Diamonds Act is currently in the House of Representatives and will soon be in the Senate. The goal of this bill is to eliminate conflict diamonds from being sold in the US. Conflict diamonds are diamonds under the control of rebel groups in Sierra Leone, Angola, and the Democratic Republic of Congo that allow them to purchase arms. The sale of conflict diamonds funds the ongoing wars in these countries. Many parents and children in Sierra Leone have had their limbs cut off by rebels who terrorize the local populations in order to maintain control of the diamond fields. Please ask your senators to support the Clean Diamonds Act and your representative, if she or he has not already done so. To help provide medical care and support community development in Sierra Leone, give to Advance #181605-8, "Sierra Leone War Recovery."
UMCOR staff held a Basic Disaster Response Academy at the Sager-Brown facility in Louisiana this week. 67 representatives from 24 annual conferences attended. Those who receive disaster response training are able to assist their annual conferences in responding more effectively when disasters occur. For information on future training sessions, or to request disaster response training within your conference, call UMCOR at (202) 548-4002.
Medicine Boxes are needed for Mexico, Serbia, Mozambique, the Philippines, and Vietnam. Congregations and groups assembling a Medicine Box contribute specific over-the-counter medical and healthcare items and $375 per box, which helps cover the costs of prescription medication and shipping. To find out more about the Medicine Box, visit http://gbgm-umc.org/health/medbox/, call (212) 870-3870, or order a Medicine Box Assembly Guide from the Service Center (800) 305-9857.
Gifts may be made through local United Methodist churches, or by calling 1-800-554-8583. Credit card donations are accepted. (Read more about how you can help UMCOR's emergency responses.)
UMCOR is providing emergency relief in many areas at this moment, including: Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, El Salvador, Eritrea, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, the Middle East, Mozambique, Sudan, the United States and many other parts of the globe. For more information on these and other UMCOR ministries, please visit the website: http://gbgm-umc.org/umcor
Please pray for those who suffer from hunger, poverty, natural and human-made disasters.
