Living Locally During Lent

Instead of giving up chocolate, French fries, television or other typical worldly pleasures for Lent this year, about 60 Savannah-area residents are observing the Lenten season in a different way: by living locally. Striving to eat locally produced food, patronize locally owned businesses and build relationships within the community, they are attempting to live more simply during their 40-day experiment.   Trinity United Methodist Church pastor Rev. Enoch Hendry is leading two six-week...

Mondays are marvelous with Willacoochee UMC and Beulah UMC

Every Monday afternoon, a diverse group of about 70 children from Willacoochee Elementary School bound off the bus and swarm the grounds of Willacoochee United Methodist Church. They are participating in Marvelous Monday, an after-school program run by Willacoochee UMC and Beulah UMC. Begun by former pastor Rev. Eddie Morrison, who now serves at Winona Park United Methodist Church in Waycross, the program has continued to thrive under the leadership of Rev. James Duvall, who was appointed in...

Young Harris College Adds Five New Baccalaureate Programs

Young Harris College has earned approval from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) to offer five new bachelor’s degree programs beginning in August 2010.   The College received notification Friday afternoon that the SACS Commission on Colleges has approved the addition of the following five degree programs: bachelor of arts in communication studies, bachelor of arts in history, bachelor of science in outdoor education, bachelor of arts in theatre and bachelor of...

Special session of General Conference unlikely

 Do not expect a special session of General Conference in advance of the 2012 meeting in Tampa, Fla. The limited amount of time available to put together a special session, the cost and the U.S.-focused agenda for a worldwide meeting of United Methodist leaders are among the reasons such a session is unlikely, church leaders said in interviews this week. “My personal read suggests there may not be a call” for a special session, said Bishop Gregory Palmer, president of the...

First UM church plant in Columbus District in 50 years hosts launch service

 The Ridge, the first United Methodist church planted in the Columbus District in the past 50 years, held its launch service on Sunday, February 21. More than 300 people, including 60 children, joined together to worship, fellowship and celebrate the birth of the new church.  Four people accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior, and one infant was baptized. Meeting in the United Cheerleading facility on Knology Way in Columbus, The Ridge had four monthly preview services, held the...

Aldersgate UMC member honored for local missions work

Norma Curry, missions chairperson for Aldersgate United Methodist Church in Savannah, has been named one of A Working Woman In Need’s (AWWIN) Top Ten Working Women of the Year. Curry, a 75 year-old retired nurse and lifelong advocate for those in need, is being honored for her commitment, passion and service to the women and ministry of AWWIN.  AWWIN, a Savannah-based ministry, exists to deliver a wide range of support services for the single working woman and her family through a...

Offering is UMCORs backbone

The ability of her team to get to Haiti quickly was due in part to One Great Hour of Sharing, an annual churchwide offering for UMCOR taken on the fourth Sunday in Lent. This year’s offering is on March 14.Eight days after the January earthquake in Haiti, Melissa Crutchfield led a small team to the island to start assessing emergency needs for the United Methodist Committee on Relief. To Crutchfield, who coordinates international emergency response for the relief agency, One Great Hour...

Teamwork Stretches Across the Miles to Realize a Dream for West Angola

Moving thousands of pounds of agricultural equipment 9,000 miles may seem to be a daunting task. When members of the team needed to accomplish that task are 2300 miles apart, it may seem undoable – or at the very least, unlikely. But that's not accounting for United Methodist Connectionalism! This "journey of a thousand (plus) miles" began, as all such journeys do, with a single step – in this case taken in October, 2008 by four members of the California-Nevada Annual...

United Methodists respond to Chile earthquake

  United Methodists were scrambling to respond to a massive earthquake that struck Chile early on Feb. 27 and prompted tsunami warnings across the Pacific region. The magnitude 8.8 earthquake, which hit about 60 miles northwest of the town of Chillán, left nearly 150 people dead, according to news reports, including at least three people swept into a large wave on an island 400 miles off the coast of Chile. Santiago, the capital, is 200 miles northeast of the...

Bishop King to appoint Ben Martin as Statesboro District Superintendent

Bishop James R. King, Jr. announces the projected appointment of the Rev. Dr. Ben Martin as the next Superintendent of the Statesboro District.  The appointment will become effective at the conclusion of the Annual Conference session in June.  Dr. Martin is presently serving as senior pastor of Springfield First United Methodist Church.   Previously, Dr. Martin served Wrens UMC, Vidalia First UMC – Associate, and the Brewton Charge. “Ben Martin has...

Helping Hands food pantry helps those in need

Unemployment is rampant. Food, gas and energy prices are breaking budgets. Families are struggling to stay in their homes.  And too many people wake up and go to bed hungry every day. St. Marys United Methodist Church’s Helping Hands Ministry has stepped in to help alleviate the hunger problem in its area.  With a mission to help end hunger in Camden County, the ministry distributed 46,403 pounds of food and made a difference in the lives of 1,018 families, 1,112 adults, 694...

McCord Named to Campus Ministry Staff

General Secretary Jerome King Del Pino is pleased to announce the appointment of the Rev. Michael McCord as director of Campus Ministry Resources and Training in the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry’s Division of Higher Education. McCord joins GBHEM on May 1, upon the recommendation of the search team and approval of the appointment by Bishop James R. King.   “With this appointment, we continue to strengthen the Board’s commitment to campus ministry and...

Feeding folks, body and soul

Heritage United Methodist Church in Macon, through its Heritage at Houston ministry, is feeding people in the Houston Avenue area of Macon. They’re being fed a hearty breakfast every Sunday morning, with bacon, scrambled eggs and toast, but more importantly, their souls are being fed. Started a little more than four years ago, the breakfast ministry at Heritage at Houston averages 40 to 50 people every week.  While eating their free meal, attendees hear the Gospel and are...

Haitian tragedy hits close to home

Through the shock and fear and heartbreak is a gnawing uncertainty. Rev. Albert Melifaite and members of First Haitian United Methodist Church in Roswell are coping with a myriad of emotions that are unlikely to ebb anytime soon. The massive 7.0-magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti on Jan. 12, centered 10 miles southwest of Port-au-Prince, was felt more than 200 miles away in Cuba. Other aftereffects, not detectable on the Richter scale, are being felt strongly in north...

Digital Resource Packet for Haiti Response Available from GBGM

The General Board of Global Ministries has put together a Digital Resource Packet for use by conferences, churches and groups to help interpret and promote mission and ministry in Haiti. Please click on the link below to view and download the contents individually or all together. http://multimedia.gbgm-umc.org/pindownload/login.do?pin=TPV48   This digital packet includes:   - UMCOR Haiti multimedia presentation, incorporating new images and music - to be used in worship, on...

Letter from the Methodist Church of Haiti

  On behalf of the Methodist Church in Haiti and the Haitian people, we thank you. Thank you all for your outpouring of love, support and Christian brotherhood in our great hour of need. Haiti has suffered a great tragedy, and to rebuild, recover and strengthen, it will take us all. You have kept us in your prayers and we are grateful. You have sent donations through the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR). We thank you for your generosity. You have expressed your selfless...

UMCOR begins pilot aid project for Haitians

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. “This is meeting their first need,” said Val Keteline, 24. “The people will be very happy.” Workers move bags of flour in the Boutique Market in Port-au-Prince, ...

United Methodist doctor helps set up Haiti clinic

The patients ranged from a toddler with scabies to a man with prostate cancer. Dr. Troy Silvernale, a United Methodist family physician, walked the grounds in the backyard of the Methodist Guest House, checking people and handing out numbers. The most serious patients had the lowest numbers. Those who could wait had the higher numbers. Silvernale and Bill Johnson, a trauma nurse, came to Haiti as part of a medical team from Michigan. They found rooms at the Methodist Guest House and on their...

Sewing stitches of love at Allentown UMC

They call themselves the Agape Stitchers, this group of women in their 60s to late 90s who snip, stitch and sew for those in need. Meeting two days a month for almost six and a half years, the women of the Agape Stitchers group of Allentown United Methodist Church have made more than 4,500 girl’s dresses, 2,000 boy’s shorts/shirt outfits, and 600 baby blankets, all of which have been sent to needy children around the world.   Started in August 2003, the women who make up the...

Food, water, housing top priorities for Haitians

Food. Potable water. Shelter. A girl carries water from the well at the Methodist Church compound in Mellier. Those are the top needs a group of 29 church and community leaders told three executives from the United Methodist Committee on Relief. Asked which is the most important, the group said all three. The Jan. 12 earthquake left Mellier, about 80 kilometers from...