For Monday February 1, 2010
This newsletter is paid for through your annual conference connectional ministries tithe.
Edited by Dan Gangler, director of communication
The Rev. LeKisha Reed, Associate Director of Mission and Advocacy, is available to you in the new Indiana Conference Center and would like to hear what your congregation is doing in mission and advocacy. Submit mission news, information and volunteer opportunities to lekisha.reed@inumc.org or call 317-924-1321. The Indiana Conference Mission and Advocacy area has created a Facebook Fan Page. Check it out here.
UMCOR – United Methodist Committee On Relief is now on Facebook.
Keep up to date with UMCOR FB updates. Subscribe to receive SMS messages with news about UMCOR’s work in Haiti and around the world. UMCOR has more than 19,000 fans at www.facebook.com.
There is an immediate need for the following: Requesting physicians of specific specialties to deploy with the National Disaster Medical Assistance teams to Haiti. The need is for trauma surgeons, orthopedists, anesthesiologists and others with experience in treating crush injuries. Volunteers must be able to serve for at least two weeks and be willing to live and work in Spartan-like conditions. Preference will be given to physicians who are Creole or French speakers, and to those currently credentialed through the Medical Reserve Corps in their home state, or the ESAR-VHP program (Emergency Services Advanced Registration of Volunteer Health Personnel).
These volunteers will need to be credentialed as temporary federal employees and will need to be able to provide credentialing paperwork as soon as asked. Credentialing normally takes about a week. If you are a doctor that fits the above criteria, please email us immediately for more details.
We will put you in contact with our Federal Partner at once. Thank you for your willingness to serve. For more information, contact Kevin Cox Hope Crisis Response Network e-mail Kevin@hcrn.info.
Mission Volunteers in conjunction with the Jurisdictional United Methodist Volunteers in Mission (UMVIM) Coordinators and General Board of Global Ministries staff have recommended and instituted a National Database for volunteers wishing to go to Haiti, when we are invited to enter Haiti. Names and e-mails responses from many people have been received. They need to click here and register their intent to volunteer in Haiti in the future, along with listing their skills and aptitudes for being a United Methodist Volunteer In Mission. Once a week, the database will be forwarded to your Jurisdictional Coordinator to keep everyone in the loop.
Please register even if you already have your name. This database includes more information.
For past announcement, visit archived e-mails. Thank you!
Here is a note to Indiana VIMs from Lorna Jost, UMVIM-NCJ Coordinator
You are indeed in the North Central Jurisdiction! Each jurisdictional Coordinator is to keep a list of volunteers so that when we are allowed back in we can have a coordinated effort from our UMC members. Team members will need a valid passport, updated tetanus shot and hepatitis A and B shots.
Teams going into Haiti will have to have team leaders that are trained UMVIM team leaders. The team leader will have to have had some experience in Haiti. Some Early Response Team experience would not hurt also.
Your conference coordinator is Bonnie Albert and she has been copied on this note. She is offering team leader training soon in the Indiana Conference.
When going to Haiti, you pay your own way and may have to bring in all food and supplies. This is dependent on when we are allowed in and the conditions in the area you are placed in. Teenagers would probably be fine but I would suggest that a parent travel with them. What they might see is not going to be pretty.
We will wait for the word from the Methodist Church of Haiti and from UMCOR as to when it is advisable to go in. That will be the juncture when it seems that volunteers can help more than just consuming valuable time and food and other resources needed by the Haitian people. All will endeavor to do good, do no harm and definitely learn to love our God more while on this mission.
We are wanting to work on some spiritual formation resources - so that we are able to better serve the mental/ physical and spiritual issues that will be facing the Haitian people. Every family in Haiti has lost someone... many have lost a lot of relatives, some whole families are gone.
The Haitian people will need us. Thanks for sending in your contact information.
I will also put you on an e-mail list for updates on Haiti.
If you are interested in volunteering for relief projects in Haiti, send you contact information to LeKisha Reed.
The following UMVIM TEAM Leader Trainings are scheduled. More will be forthcoming.
WEST OHIO - Feb 27: UMVIM Team Leadership training. Columbus Conference Center. Contact: Dee Stickley-Miner.
WEST OHIO - Two more spring UMVIM Team Leadership trainings being scheduled. One in Central Ohio and one in Maumee Watershed District. Contact: Dee Stickley-Miner.
United Methodist Volunteers In Mission will hold an Early Response Team Training Event on Saturday, March 13, Early Response Team Training. This class, limited to 35 students, will be held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Hope United Methodist Church, 5980 Wilmington Pike, Dayton, OH 45459. Contact, Leo Scholl, 937-901-0165. or Julie Bassett, West Ohio Conference UMC, 32 Wesley Blvd., Worthington, OH 43085-3585, 800-437-0028.
INDIANA - Mar 20: UMVIM Team Leadership training Bloomington St. Mark’s UMC. Contact: Bonnie Albert, Indiana UMVIM Coordinator. 219-464-1447.
DETROIT - April 10: UMVIM Team Leadership training in conjunction with the Festival of UMVIM Opportunities. Place to be announced. Contact: John Walls, vim.jewalls@yahoo.com Detroit Conference UMVIM Coordinator, 734-282-5930.
INDIANA - April 10: UMVIM Team Leadership training Mexico UMC. Contact: Bonnie Albert, Indiana UMVIM Coordinator, 219-464-1447.
More updates will be posted on line as they come in - see Training Schedule.
For information on UMVIM teams /project sites, write Lorna Jost, UMVIM-NCJ Coordinator.
HEALTH AND LAYETTE KITS NEEDED
According to the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), there will be a great need for volunteers to help rebuild once the initial crisis is past, but it is not safe or possible for volunteers to go to Haiti at the present. However, UMCOR’s two relief supply warehouses are asking United Methodists to provide health kits and layette kits that will be sent to Haiti. Instructions for assembling and shipping health kits are available on the UMCOR Web site at www.umcor.org.
Here is information for those who would like to take a volunteer team to the Midwest Mission Distribution Center in Illinois to assemble the shipment to Haiti. There is a need for volunteer groups in the months of February and March. Please contact MMDC to make your team’s reservations. Contact: Midwest Mission Distribution Center, 1022 New City Road, P.O. Box 56, Chatham, IL 62629, phone: 217-483-7911, fax 217-483-7981 or online.
Please be sure all items are new.
Health Kits – Suggested shipping donation $1 per kit to defray costs. 1 hand towel (not finger-tip or kitchen size), 1 wash cloth, 1 comb (regular size, not pocket size, no rat-tail combs, no barber combs; suggestion – Little Goody 2 Pack), 1 fingernail clipper or file (no emery boards), 1 bar of soap (3 oz. or larger in original wrapper), 1 toothbrush (in original single wrapper, no multiple packs), 1 tube of toothpaste (3.5 oz or larger, in original wrapper. Check expiration dates; it must be at least ONE YEAR ahead.), 6 adhesive bandages (*Band-Aids; no pictures or colors, regular size and wrapped in a rubber band). Wrap the items in the hand towel. Items may be placed in a one-gallon plastic zip-closure bag. All new items please. Please make sure all items are correct sizes. If they are not the correct size they are unusable.
Layette Kits – Suggested shipping donation $1 per kit to defray costs. All new items. Many women do not have clothes with which to welcome a newborn into the world. Layette kits provide them with basic supplies. Include: 6 cloth diapers (3-ply birdseye, new), 2 undershirts or onesies, 2 baby washcloths, 2 gowns or sleepers, 2 diaper pins, 1 sweater, and 2 receiving blankets (no quilts or knitted). Bundle the items inside one of the blankets and secure it with diaper pins.
We are grateful that donations continue to come in online. Donors may also contribute by placing a check in the offering plate at any United Methodist church or by mailing it to UMCOR, P.O. Box 9068, New York, NY 10087. Checks should indicate “Advance #418325” in the memo line.
Offerings received in congregations need to be send to their District Centers using the same P.O. Box address used when sending in the conference tithe. Checks sent to the conference office should have “Haiti Emergency” in the memo line. Thank you for your generous contributions,
Remember, 100 percent of gifts go directly to Haiti Earthquake relief efforts. Administrative cost has been paid through the One Great Hour of Sharing special Sunday offering.
For more Indiana Conference-related information about recovery efforts, early response training, kit assemblage and special offerings to UMCOR for Haiti Emergency, visit www.inumc.org and click on Haiti Emergency in left column.
In celebration of the Indianapolis Colts reaching the Super Bowl, the Roberts Park UMC of Indianapolis has issued a challenge to the First UMC of Slidell, La. Robert Park has challenged their partners in the New Orleans area to see which Super Bowl community can collect the most health kits for Haiti Relief. These health kits are distributed by the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR). The churches will engage in this friendly competition collecting relief supplies through Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 7. Health kits will be shipped to a packing site and distributed directly to those in need in Haiti.
Items for health kits include: 1 hand towel, 1 wash cloth, 1 comb, 1 nail file or fingernail clippers, 1 bath size bar of soap, 1 toothbrush, 6 adhesive plastic strip sterile bandages and $1 for the purchase of toothpaste. For more information about this competition, please contact the Rev. Howard Boles at 317-635-1636.
SHREVEPORT, La. (UMNS) – A tent city on the campus of Centenary College dramatizes the plight of Haitians and encourages Shreveport residents to provide money for food, medical aid and reconstruction efforts. Titled “Cite Lespwa” (City of Hope), the tents are the brainchild of Britney Winn, 22, one of three members of First United Methodist Church who were working in an orphanage in Les Cayes when the earthquake occurred. The orphanage, located 140 miles southwest of Port-au-Prince, was undamaged and none of the workers or the 75 orphans were injured. Click here for the full story.
UMTV’s “College Campout for Haiti” is available here. Find this and other UMTV stories on YouTube and Tangle by typing “UMTV” in the keyword search. You also can find the latest UMTV videos on Facebook if you become a fan of the page for The United Methodist Church.
MT. JULIET, TENN. (UMTV) – Donating money for Haiti can be as easy as going online or sending a text message. But members of Grace United Methodist Church near Nashville wanted to do more: a project they could do with their own hands. The result was 10,000 health kits. These are personal care items, like clean towels, soap and toothbrushes, packed together for distribution to people left homeless by the earthquake. Find this and other UMTV stories on YouTube and Tangle by typing “UMTV” in the keyword search. You can also find the latest UMTV videos on Facebook if you become a fan of the page for The United Methodist Church.
Click here to see the story.
MELLIER, Haiti (UMNS) – Twenty-nine community leaders met with three UMCOR representatives in Mellier, 48 miles from Port-au-Prince. Asked which is the most important – food, potable water or shelter – the group said all three. Because most of the attention of the humanitarian aid has focused on the capital city, not much help has reached more than 3,000 in this town and another 7,000 in the surrounding area. Before the earthquake, 80 percent of the population was unemployed. Now it is 100 percent. “There also are many more orphans and elderly people living alone,” said Pierre Naccsae, a lay leader in the Methodist Church of Haiti. Click here to read the complete story.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (UMNS) – The doctors and staff at Grace Children’s Hospital are caring for 10 to 15 children since the Jan. 12 earthquake. They are the “abandoned” ones – children who were in the hospital when the disaster struck, or lost ones found alone and brought there. The staff knows most of their parents probably died. Under the shade of a blue tarp are a few cribs. These are the children too young or too sick to be in the tents with the others on the hospital grounds. They are all brothers and sisters. The ones who are not known have been given the last name of Innocent. Faith keeps many patients and staff going. Click here for the complete story.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (UMNS) – Six young Haitian Methodists spent an afternoon dividing 55-pound bags of rice and 100-pound bags of beans into family-sized portions to feed more than 160 families who have had little assistance since the Jan. 12 earthquake. Staff members of the United Methodist Committee on Relief came to Haiti Jan. 21 to assess the damage to the country. On Jan. 29, they will distribute food to Mellier, a rural town outside of Port-au-Prince. “The distribution will serve as a pilot program for UMCOR,” said Melissa Crutchfield, an executive with the relief agency. “We are starting on a small scale, distributing enough food for over 750 of the most vulnerable people,” she said. Click here for full story.
While volunteers are being discouraged from traveling to Haiti until first-response groups have a chance to make the area more secure, United Methodists are finding other ways to provide relief now. Jurisdictional leaders of Volunteers in Mission are gathering names of future volunteers and trainers, food and medical supplies are being delivered, and benefit concerts are being held. North Alabama Annual Conference sent a planeload of medical supplies and water purification systems to Haiti. The PX airplane also delivered a satellite-uplink system to an orphanage. A&M United Methodist Church in College Station, Texas, learned that an $11,000 mobile medical clinic they had donated survived the quake and is now being used by survivors. For full story click here.
PETIT GOAVE, Haiti (UMNS) – “You have your 9/11, now we have our 1/12.” That is how the Rev. Ralph Denizard of the Methodist Church of Haiti describes the way people in his nation feel after a massive earthquake struck Jan. 12. Denizard and the Rev. Maude Hyppolite, both superintendents in a circuit outside of Port-au-Prince, met with members of the United Methodist Committee on Relief to tell them about the damage in their area. Petit Goave has a population of about 119,000. Many of the survivors are living outside because either their homes were destroyed, or they are too afraid to live in them. For full story, click here.
GRESSIER, Haiti (UMNS) – In 20 minutes, Sharlene Jean learned how to save her community. Jean, one of the thousands of Haitians living out in the open since an earthquake destroyed their homes Jan. 12, learned to take muddy river water and turn it into clean drinking water with PUR, a water purifying powder developed by Procter & Gamble Co. The United Methodist Committee on Relief, working with GlobalMedic, brought the key to life-saving water to Jean’s community, which was sleeping in an open field. For full story, click here.
LEOGANE, Haiti (UMNS) – A soccer field has become home to more than 5,000 traumatized Haitians here. It is one of many makeshift communities tucked in every corner of the city and in open fields in the outlying areas. A massive earthquake Jan. 12 shook more than 400,000 people from the safety of their homes. Home doesn’t mean safe anymore. The communities can’t really be called tent cities, because most of the people don’t have any kind of shelter. Wooden poles covered by sheets provide a little respite from the hot sun during the day. A group of Haitian medical doctors and nurses operates a clinic, set up in a corner of the field. A pharmacist says he took all of the drugs from his store and brought them to the field for the medical team to use. For complete story, click here.
More than 3,000 families and individuals grow their own vegetables, thanks to individuals and groups in the Greater New Jersey Conference of the UMC who help Jackson Area Ministries (JAM) provide vegetable seeds, tomato plants, seed potatoes and flowers. JAM is a mission project of The United Methodist Church serving the Appalachian counties of Ohio. The Green Thumb Garden Project in 2009 initiated 3,174 gardens in 19 southeast Ohio counties. – UMNS
NEW YORK (UMNS)—As concerns flare over attempted terrorist attacks against the West, a United Methodist pastor is in Indonesia this week for an interfaith dialogue aimed at encouraging cooperation between the United States and Muslim-led countries. The Rev. Bud Heckman, director of external relations for the New York-based Religions for Peace, is among 20 American religious and civic leaders participating in the Jan. 25-27 dialogue in Jakarta with Indonesian and Southeast Asian counterparts. The event was arranged through the U.S. government. For full story click here.
On Thursday Feb. 11 at 7 p.m., the Indy Racing League Ministry will hold a “PIT CREW” meeting at the Brickyard Crossing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. This meeting is for anyone interested in volunteering with the ministry. We will be discussing any and all ways for people to get more involved, such as volunteering for the 2010 IRLM Golf Outing, prayer team, office help, presentations with the IRLM video and show cars, and various other ministry opportunities. If you are interested in partnering with the ministry you are invited to attend. We will have some special give away gifts for those attending. Please RSVP Bob Hills, director and chaplain IRLM by e-mail bhills@indycar.com or calling 317-716-8850.
Mission volunteers of First United Methodist Church in Mishawaka, Ind. are planning a mission trip to the United Methodist-related Henderson Settlement in Frakes, Ky. They will leave the morning of April 5 and return on April 10. The cost is $200 per person. They plan to paint houses, replace windows, repair porches, clean and meet other needs. The people of Appalachia need help; it is considered a third world type of place, right here in America. Poverty is rampant and there is minimal hope for improving their lives. Henderson Settlement provides ministries to the local area, as well as offering help to better their lives. We can be a part of this awesome task for one week. This trip is open to all, especially families, and will be a great chance to serve God together and grow. For more information, contact Isaac Nanney, director of student ministry, at First UMC in Mishawaka at isaac@fumcom.com or call 574-255-4707.
The floods may seem long gone and out of the news, however, volunteers are still needed to assist residence in northwest, far northwest and in the central parts of Indiana. (updated 6/15/09)
In far northwest Indiana, contact the Lakeshore Area Regional Recovery in Indiana (LARRI). Visit www.larri.info located at the United Way of Porter County at 951 Eastport Centre Drive, Valparaiso, IN 46384; ph 219-447-3583 or toll-free 877-LARRI4U; fax 219-477-5845. Lakeshore Area Regional Recovery in Indiana (LARRI) has been approved as an eligible volunteer location for Disney’s program Give a Day. Get a Disney Day. Effective Jan. 1, volunteers can go to the Disney site and sign up to work at a LARRI location and receive a voucher for a day at a Disney Park (Disneyland® Resort or Walt Disney World® Resort). Click on photo to go to the official Disney site. Watch for program updates. For details, click here. When asked for city online, type in Munster, IN. (updated Jan. 2010).
Across central Indiana. For work team schedules in the Columbus area, contact Angie Huebel at the United Way of Bartholomew County, 1531 13th Street, Columbus, IN 47201, ph 812-314-2344; ahuebel@uwbarthco.org. For other communities, Bonnie Albert, Indiana UMVIM Coordinator; ph 219-464-1447; bonkay@hotmail.com (Updated 12/14/09).
In Northwest Indiana contact Alan H. Welch, director, DANI-Disaster Assistance for NW Indiana, 1021 N 10th Street, Lafayette, IN 47904; ph 765-742-4718; welchah@gmail.com. DANI information is available by visiting http://daniflood.org.
Morgan County (Lannie Stecher, ph 765-318-8344, pastorlannie@yahoo.com) is in need of both skilled and unskilled volunteers to assist with rebuilding and repairing homes damaged by the June 2008 floods. The “500 year flood” impacted over 2,700 households, 48 percent of which fall below the Federal poverty guidelines. Housing in churches can be provided. Go to www.mcltrc.com to register and for more project information. (Updated 10/24/09)
Southern Indiana - Contact Disaster Response Coordinator: The Rev. David Powell, 820 W Mill Street, Danville, IN 46122; ph 317-745-4330; info@danvilleumc.org. Terre Haute and Bartholomew County areas in need of volunteers.
Here are the present opportunities for an Indiana United Methodist-related Operation Classroom volunteer-in-mission teams going to West Africa during 2010. The price is expected to be around $3,100 per person depending on the time of year and airfares.
Workteams to Sierra Leone 2010
Workteams to Liberia 2010
For more information about these opportunities, listings of ongoing projects and contact information, please visit http://inumc.org/pages/detail/171.
For more information about these opportunities, listings of ongoing projects and contact information, please visit http://inumc.org/pages/detail/172.