Missions
The Mission Focus for April is Living Water International
Living Water International exists to demonstrate the love of God by helping communities acquire clean drinking water, and to experience “living water”—the gospel of Jesus Christ.
884 million people around the world lack access to safe drinking water. Lack of safe drinking water traps a community in poverty – the inhabitants, especially the children constantly suffer from water-related diseases and parasites. Hours of otherwise productive time, every day, have to be spent walking over long distances to get and carry it back home.
Living Water International, for 20 years now, has been working to train, consult and equip local people to implement solutions to their lack of clean water. In those 20 years, Living Water International has completed more than 9,000 community water projects in 26 countries to provide safe, clean water to more than 10 million people every day. And in doing so, they are spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Haiti is one of the countries in which Living Water International has been working for some time. In Haiti, clean water was a terrible problem even before the recent earthquake, and now it’s a huge crisis. Living Water International has the goal to work with local partners to repair 500 broken wells in Haiti during 2010, serving at least 250,000 people.
To see some inspiring videos on Living Water International efforts around the world, including a series of “Helping Haiti” webisodes, go to www.water.cc
If you care to contribute to the work of Living Water, you can place your donation in the Mission Globe in the Narthex, or by putting an offering in the plate marked Living Water.
FUMC Spring Bicycle Drive:
Saturday, May 1st , Noon – 3 pm
Once again our church will be sponsoring a used-bicycle drive for the local charity, Pedals for Progress (www.p4p.org ). Now in their 21st year of collecting bikes, they expect to collect their 125,000th bike this spring.
Every year, affluent Americans buy 22 million new bicycles and discard millions of old ones, abandoning many more unused in basements, sheds, and garages. Most of these end up in our already overburdened landfills. Meanwhile, poor people overseas need cheap, non-polluting transportation to get to jobs, markets, customers, and schools. Pedals for Progress has received, processed and donated over 124,000 bicycles, 1,000 used sewing machines and $10.8 million in new spare parts to partner charities in 32 developing world countries.
Furthermore, Pedals for Progress promotes bicycle repair businesses in the developing world. Pedals for Progress isn't just donating used bicycles: It's also helping developing world economies by promoting self-sustaining bicycle repair businesses. So clean out your garage, basement or wherever to give a new life to those bikes and their new owners. Please contact Mike Ultee at ulteemit(at)aol.com with any questions on this drive.
Mission Focus - 1Q2010:Hunger
One of the most disturbing and extraordinary aspects of life in this very wealthy country is the persistence of hunger. A report issued last November from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported that in 2008:
· Over 49 million people in the United States live in food insecure households. Of these, nearly 17 million are children (22% percent of all children in the US).
· Very low food security had been getting worse even before the recession. The number of people in this category in 2008 was more than double the number in 2000.
Black (25.7 percent) and Hispanic (26.9 percent) households experienced food insecurity at far higher rates than the national average. In some developing nations where famine is widespread, there can be very severe and visible clinical malnutrition. In the United States, hunger usually takes a less severe form, in part because of established “safety net” programs. While starvation seldom occurs in this country, children and adults do go hungry and chronic mild under-nutrition occurs when financial resources are low. The mental and physical changes that accompany inadequate food intakes can have harmful effects on learning, development, productivity, health, and family life.
In February, Mission Globe donations will go to SHIP. The Samaritan Homeless Interim Program (SHIP) is a faith-based, interfaith and community funded, assisted and supported, grassroots organization. It has been operating since 1984. From SHIP”s website:
“Our clients are the homeless, near-homeless, working poor families, and individuals in Somerset County Regions who are not able to obtain assistance from government or other private agencies, and are therefore denied a opportunity to receive the basic humane assistance they need and deserve.”
Services offered by SHIP include:
· SHIP’s Galley, a soup kitchen funded by our donations and located at Saint John's Episcopal Church, just a few doors down the street. Members of our church assist with this service on the fourth Wednesday of every month.
· SHIP's Mobile Soup Kitchen-Disaster Unit
· SHIP's Food Pantry (Emergency Subsistence Food)
· SHIP's Emergency Meal Vouchers
· Tic-Toc's Grove (client picnic area)
We’ll also take up our annual “Souper Bowl” collection for SHIP on Super Bowl Sunday. Support your favorite team with a donation, and have 100% of that money go to SHIP to support the homeless and hungry.
ONGOING MISSIONS:
Empties 4 Cash - Our children are collecting empty ink jet print cartridges for Heifer Project International. Please bring your “empties” to the church narthex.
Pennies for Potatoes - is a campaign for the Society of Saint Andrew (Harvest of Hope). Your loose change dropped in the glass globe marked “Pennies” in the narthex will help fund the society’s programs to help pay for food storage and delivery of gleaned food from the local farms.
Pastor’s Pantry - We welcome currently dated canned food for Pastor’s Pantry; please place them in the tub in the narthex. Ready-to-eat type foods, like canned meats, for the homeless are needed. If you would like to donate to the Pastor’s Discretionary Fund for those in need, please place your donation in an envelope marked “Pastor’s Pantry” and place in collection plate! Thank you!
Macaroni and Cheese & Campbell’s Soup UPCs - Don’t forget! Every week the UMW collects Macaroni and Cheese in the narthex for the Food Bank. They also collect Campbell’s Soup UPC labels.
Box Tops For Education – Please deposit your Box Tops for Education in the jar in the church office. We donate them when the box is full to our local Somerville Schools!