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UMNS Weekly Digest
November 17, 2006
NOTE: This is a digest of stories from United Methodist News Service for Nov. 13-17, plus additional news briefs. Full versions with photographs and related features can be found at http://umns.umc.org.
Stories this week:
Plus:
Africa University develops e-learning plans, officials say
MAPUTO, Mozambique (UMNS) — Africa University is on an e-learning threshold to become the pan-African institution it was created to be, school officials told United Methodist bishops. Throughout the United Methodist Council of Bishops’ Nov. 1-6 meeting, information technologists from Africa University provided a glimpse of how distance education would work to reach and provide learning opportunities to areas of the continent. E-learning will enable the university to reach out to several African countries in its initial phases, including Mozambique, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Liberia, according to Nodumo Dhlamini, the university’s director of communication technology. {669}
Bishops adopt calls to action for United Methodists
MAPUTO, Mozambique (UMNS)—The bishops of the United Methodist Church are calling members of the denomination to “live the United Methodist way” in their daily lives and public witness and be a community of believers who offer hope to the world. Nearly 80 bishops affirmed that call to action Nov. 6 during their first meeting outside the United States. The bishops accepted the concept, but are seeking to clarify what living the United Methodist way really means. The council also introduced an action plan that includes starting new churches across the globe, reaching and caring for children throughout the world and leading the effort to stamp out the killer diseases of poverty, malaria and HIV/AIDS. West Ohio Bishop Bruce Ough, chairperson of the bishop’s plan team, said that the call to action is an attempt to chart a response to the council’s adopted seven vision pathways and focus those pathways into four areas of emphasis to compel United Methodists to action. {670}
Global nature task force proposes a U.S. central conference
MAPUTO, Mozambique (UMNS)—A group of United Methodists examining the global nature of the denomination is proposing that the United States become a Central Conference. The proposal introduced to the United Methodist Council of Bishops on Nov. 3 would end the current system that splits the United States from the central conferences that govern the church outside the United States and would revise the United Methodist Book of Discipline into a “truly general book of doctrine, mission and discipline, deleting all portions that apply only to the United States.” The existing U.S. jurisdictional conferences would exist within a U.S. Central Conference. The proposal would group all five U.S. jurisdictions into one central conference, putting it on par with the central conferences already in existence. If approved, the changes would take effect in 2012. {671}
Bishops worship under cashew tree, help in groundbreaking
MAPUTO, Mozambique (UMNS)—Worshippers at Catembe United Methodist Church know that a church is more than a building: they’ve never had one. That will change in the next year or so. For years, the congregation has worshipped beneath a big cashew tree. With three United Methodist bishops participating in a service on Nov. 5, construction for a building began when the congregation laid the first pressure-formed building blocks into the ground. Split into small groups, nearly 80 United Methodist bishops, accompanied by spouses and others from around the globe, worshipped with 16 Mozambique congregations on Nov. 5. The bishops did not preach the sermon, but took part in worship, offering greetings and prayers. {672}
Historic black Methodist church delegation visits Holy Land
ORLANDO (UMNS) — A delegation of leaders from historic African-American churches who just returned from Jerusalem and the Holy Land reported that conditions for Palestinians in the West Bank painfully echo the injustices suffered by people of color during South Africa’s apartheid era and during the pre-civil rights era in America. Black church leaders in the delegation, which included representatives from three Methodist denominations — the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church — are vowing to work with their communions and congregations, the Jewish, Christian and Islamic faith communities, politicians and Palestinians in the Diaspora to focus attention on the deteriorating situation in the Holy Land. The Oct. 27-Nov. 3 trip was hosted by the global humanitarian agency Church World Service, and the delegation was led by the Rev. John L. McCullough, a United Methodist pastor and CWS executive director. {673}
UMW continues to press for chlorine-free paper
NEW YORK (UMNS) —Despite occasional setbacks, members of United Methodist Women are continuing to press companies to use and stock chlorine-free paper. For the past year and a half, for example, UMW has used a letter-writing campaign to urge Office Depot, Office Max and Corporate Express to sell and use processed chlorine-free paper. Now, “after several hundred letters,” Office Depot has agreed to carry PCF paper, according to Sung-ok Lee, an executive with the Women’s Division, United Methodist Board of Global Ministries. The UMW environmental campaign calls attention to the fact that chlorine bleaching produces dioxin, a toxin that has been linked to breast cancer, miscarriages and birth defects, impaired child development, respiratory diseases and diabetes. Bleaching paper with chlorine also uses 20 times more water than a chlorine-free alternative. {674}
Publishing House to republish book for U.S. troops
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS) — The United Methodist Publishing House will resume its role as the publisher of a 64-year-old book of daily devotions for U.S. military troops. In the days after the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, staff members of the Methodist Publishing House discussed ways in which they could serve the thousands of men and women enlisting in the armed services. Strength for Service to God and Country was completed in 1942; by 1944 the book had been given to 800,000 troops, the largest publishing effort by the Nashville-based agency to that date. In November, after publishing 250,000 copies with the Franklin, Tenn.-based Providence House Publishing Company, the Commission on United Methodist Men returned the publishing role to the original developer and copyright holder, the United Methodist Publishing House. {675}
Fishermen struggle to rebuild boats, lives after Katrina
EMPIRE, La. (UMNS)—Residents of this South Louisiana parish left Vietnam and Cambodia to start new lives in the U.S. They were working hard and making a good living as commercial fishermen when Hurricane Katrina damaged their homes and boats. More than a year after the storm, the refugees are still working to rebuild their boats and their lives with the help of Boat People SOS, a social service organization partially funded by the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR). Boat People SOS is one of a consortium with nine other organizations, called Katrina Aid Today, headed by the United Methodist Committee on Relief. The organization received a $66 million grant through the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Department of Homeland Security. The grant consists of international donations that were received after the hurricane. The goal of Katrina Aid Today is to help 100,000 storm victims rebuild their lives. {676}
Cottage industry rejuvenating lives
TAHLEQUAH, Okla. (UMNS)--A new cottage industry is recycling tires and rejuvenating lives at Cookson Hills Center in Oklahoma. Recycle Rebound adds to the growing number of small-business projects at the United Methodist mission south of Tahlequah, Okla. These projects generate jobs and income for people who are economically at risk. The center this year obtained the equipment and machinery used to convert used tires into new products: doormats. At Recycle Rebound, old tires are cut into strips. After holes are punched into the strips, they are placed on a flat form and wired together in the mat shape. Beads cover the wires between the strips. Rubber doormats in three sizes are created. {677}
The People of The United Methodist Church join launch of global malaria campaign
NEW YORK (UMNS) — The people of The United Methodist Church are participating in the official kickoff of a malaria-prevention campaign that plays on the image of balls flying into nets to encourage donations for malaria nets for African families. The campaign asks for a $10 contribution. The first $7 purchases and distributes the nets, which can cover up to four family members as they sleep. The last $3 pays for community workers to educate families on how to use the insecticide-treated bed nets.
Partners in Nothing But Nets include The people of The United Methodist Church, the United Nations Foundation, Sports Illustrated, the National Basketball Association’s foundation NBA Cares, Millennium Promise and the Measles Initiative. The United Methodist Board of Global Ministries and United Methodist Communications are coordinating participation in the campaign. A special Web site, www.NothingButNets.net, was launched Nov. 14 and online donations can be made through that site. {678}
Four-legged tutors make reading fun for children
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (UMNS) -- Two four-legged reading coaches bring something special to an after-school tutoring program at First Centenary United Methodist Church in Chattanooga. Sixty children read out loud to two trained therapy dogs as part of a partnership between the church and Read Aloud Chattanooga, an effort to engage children in a life-long love of reading. All the children in the after-school program are considered “at-risk” either because of low test scores or home situations. But the church sees these children as future bookworms, and the dogs are part of that transformation. {679}
Katrina Aid Today doubles assistance to families
WASHINGTON (UMNS) — Case managers for Katrina Aid Today assisted nearly 28,800 families – roughly 75,000 people – by the end of October and continue to open about 1,000 new cases each week. According to a recent fourth quarter report from Katrina Aid Today, affiliates working on long-term recovery with survivors of Hurricane Katrina virtually doubled the number of families helped since its last report in July. Katrina Aid Today is funded through a $66 million grant to the United Methodist Committee on Relief and monitored by Federal Emergency Management Agency. The consortium consists of 25 agencies with years of disaster recovery case management experience serving either as national partners or as local service providers under the Katrina Aid Today umbrella. Although it has been more than a year since Hurricane Katrina swept through the Gulf Coast, the figures confirm that many people across the nation are desperate for aid. The consortium plans to assist about 70,000 more Katrina-affected families over the next 11 months. {680}
WCC leader, delegation visit China
SHANGHAI (ENI) -- The Rev. Samuel Kobia, a Methodist pastor from Kenya and chief executive of the World Council of Churches, is visiting China Nov. 15-22, with a delegation of church leaders. Kobia will preach and make speeches on how the movement for Christian unity is shaping in the 21st century as people who follow the teachings of Jesus Christ deal with their expanding diversity and growing global secularism, as well as with other faiths. The church delegation will meet with the leadership of the Beijing-government approved China Christian Council, a WCC member, and the Three-Self Patriotic Movement of the Protestant Churches in China. They will also meet government officials, staff of the State Administration of Religious Affairs, and members of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. This is Kobia’s first official visit to China. His predecessor, the Rev. Konrad Raiser, paid an official visit in 1994.
News in Brief
Wayne J. Riley, vice president and vice dean for health affairs and governmental relations at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, has been named 10th president of United Methodist-related Meharry Medical College, Nashville, Tenn., effective Jan. 1. He succeeds Anna Cherrie Epps, who has been interim president since June 2006. She becomes senior advisor to the president on Dec. 31.
Irina Efremova has been named director of the United Methodist Camp and Retreat Center outside Voronezh, Russia, according to an announcement from Bishop Hans Vaxby of Moscow. Efremova left her position as a leading technologist at Heavy Metal Press Company in Voronezh and became the director on Nov. 1. She is a graduate from the United Methodist Theological Seminary in Moscow, chairperson of United Methodist Women in Eurasia and a member of the seminary’s board of trustees.
The Rev. Kent Svendsen, a Northern Illinois Conference pastor and U.S. Army Reserve chaplain, is participating in a humanitarian project in Panama with the 961st Engineers. Svendsen will be going with the first shift in February and has received permission to pack aid items – such as school kits, hygiene kits, sports equipment, shoes and tropical-weight clothing – in the containers transporting equipment to the site. The deadline for donations is Dec. 8. For more information contact Svendsen at (815) 238-7550 or (815) 938-2380.
Upper Room Ministries, a ministry of the United Methodist Board of Discipleship, will observe World AIDS Day with a special worship service Nov. 29 in the Upper Room Chapel. The Rev. Beth Richardson is the speaker. Richardson is an ordained deacon in the Tennessee Conference of the United Methodist Church. She serves as director of electronic publishing at Upper Room Ministries and as deacon at Edgehill United Methodist Church. Three dedicated prayer times also will be held in the Upper Room Chapel on Dec. 1. December 1 is the official day the United Methodist Church has set aside for the World AIDS Day observance.
The Society of St. Andrew opened its Mississippi regional office last January with a first-year goal of saving and distributing one million pounds of fresh produce to the hungry. With the August completion of a sweet corn gleaning project, the office had already gone over that goal by 135,000 pounds. Bob Fritchey, director of the office, reports they are pushing for 1.5 million pounds by year-end. The Society of St. Andrew is a nationwide nonprofit hunger-relief ministry (Advance #801600) that gleans America's fields and feeds America's hungry. To find out how you can help, contact Bob Fritchey or Jessica Burks at SoSA’s Mississippi office: 662-263-8648, email sosams@endhunger.org. To learn more about the Society of St. Andrew go online to www.endhunger.org
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