UMVIM Team at UMCOR West Begins Work

The United Methodist Volunteers in Mission (UMVIM) team from First United Methodist Church in Portland Oregon, share their experiences with UMCOR as they volunteer at UMCOR West Depot in Salt Lake City, Utah.

In this first of five blogs to appear on the UMCOR Notebook, Erin Riley, a United Methodist Volunteer in Mission, reflects on the church’s week of service at UMCOR West Depot in Salt Lake City, Utah, assembling and preparing relief supplies for shipment.

August 27th, 2013

Our first day at UMCOR West began with an orientation given by director Brian Diggs, a tall, ordained Methodist minister. Diggs served as the pastor of Salt Lake City First United Methodist Church for ten years before he took the UMCOR position. The Reverend has an unusual hobby – pro-wrestling. Known as the “Deacon of Doom,” Diggs plays the bad guy in the ring, but uses the matches as an opportunity to share the message of God’s love.

When Diggs describes UMCOR’s mission, his strong faith and love of being part of the organization that calls itself the “hands and feet of Christ” quickly becomes apparent.

He explains that UMCOR is like a Methodist Red Cross – a non-proselytizing, non-profit, humanitarian aid agency. UMCOR responds to urgent disasters in the US and around the world – tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes. In addition, it helps people cope with long-term disasters such as poverty, hunger, and war.

UMCOR West’s mission is to assemble and ship seven types of relief kits:

•  Birthing kits
•  Layette kits
•  School bags
•  Bedding kits
•  Sewing kits
•  Health kits
•  Cleaning buckets

Hundreds of thousands of relief kits are shipped to US sites and around the world each year. Diggs said the depot shipped cleaning buckets to Colorado in June when the area around Colorado Springs was struck first by fire, and then by floods. Recent overseas shipments have gone to Haiti and to refugees fleeing the upheaval in Syria.

After Digg’s orientation, our five-person, First Church team spent the day removing cardboard packaging from toothpaste and counting band aids to go into health kits, and inventorying baby sweaters and diapers to go into layette kits. We were thrilled to see layette kits our congregation packed during a coffee hour in March. We were equally delighted to see that some of the items sent by FUMC this year had already been shipped!


For lunch we walked to a local landmark, Victor’s Tires and Custom Wheels. Apparently Victor’s wife wanted to open a Mexican restaurant, so he gave her a kitchen and half the counter in the tire shop. The restaurant was a hit, and now both businesses happily carry on together.

Erin Riley
United Methodists Volunteer in Mission

Click here to view First United Methodist Church’s original blog posts.

Learn more about United Methodist Volunteers in Mission.

Philippines: Pray, Fast, Build

At left, UMCOR’s Ciony Eduarte and DAMBANA’s Norma Dollaga prepare to distribute UMCOR school bags to students in the remote Salugpungan community on the island of Mindanao. The students’ school was severely affected by a super typhoon in December 2012. Photo courtesy of Ciony Eduarte.

By Norma Dollaga
 
From July 12 – 16, an International Solidarity Mission traveled to the island of Mindanao in the southern Philippines to visit the site of the Pray Fast Build Project of a Filipino ecumenical organization called DAMBANA. Pray Fast Build began earlier this year in Holy Week, when Christians were encouraged to pray, fast, and raise funds to help rebuild a school in a remote community of Muslim indigenous peoples. The school had been severely damaged by Typhoon Bopha, which claimed the lives of more than 1,000 people in December 2012. Bopha was the strongest typhoon to ever strike the island of Mindanao.

Norma Dollaga, a United Methodist deaconess and leader of DAMBANA, and Ciony Eduarte, head of UMCOR’s Philippines office, were part of the group. DAMBANA and UMCOR partnered to facilitate the rebuilding of the primary school in the remote Salugpungan community. UMCOR also provided school kits for 200 children as well as reference books and other teaching aids and supplies for teachers.

Below is Dollaga’s reflection on the visit.

The path to the heart and life of the Salugpungan community, located in the barangay, or neighborhood district, of Panansalan, in the province of Compostela Valley, on the island of Mindanao, in the Philippines, is not an easy one. Only by truck can you get close. You must drive for more than two hours over rough and winding roads. Then, you must travel on foot for nearly another hour. The trail is rocky, muddy, and sometimes very slippery.

We were all drenched when we reached the place. Heavy rains had come after scorching sun. We marveled at the apparent beauty of the mountains. But a community leader lamented that we could not see the mountains at their best, referring to the splendid days before corporate logging took over the area. In addition, he said, Typhoon Pablo (also known as Bopha) had left the mountains almost bald, practically devoid of vegetation.

We stayed at the local school, which is being reconstructed. Classes have started, and the rebuilding has proceeded through bayanihan, or communal work. Parents and community members agree that their participation in the school project helps ensure that their children will get an education. That joint effort inspired PANAGSANDUG, the local people’s organization in Panansalan, also to participate in rebuilding the school.

The Salugpungan community has gathered its strength and risen above the recent tempest and pain that came with Typhoon Pablo. The bare mountains will grow trees again; the children will go to school again; and the farmers will sow again. This they believe. They have never given up the hope that has been their companion since long before the storm unleashed its fury. Through years of official neglect, they have learned to organize, to demand their rights be respected, and to build their dreams.

School for Teachers and Students Alike
“As teachers and volunteers in the community, we did not come here to teach and then leave just like that. Our concern for the community is comprehensive. The people have struggles and aspirations, too. It is not enough to teach children about arithmetic, reading, and writing. When we are with them, we also are thinking of the entire community life. We believe education must not be detached from the everyday reality of the children.” These are the words of Kakai Rosello, head of the High School Department of Salugpungan Ta’tanu Igkanogon Community Learning Center (STICLC) in Panansalan, Compostela, Compostela Valley, and Southern Mindanao Region.

Salugpungan is the word the Talaingod indigenous people use for unity. The Talaingod, Matigsalog, Manobo and other tribes organized themselves as Salugpugan Ta’tanu (People United to Defend the Ancestral Land). The organization has an expressed dream to empower their youth through education. Thus, an educational philosophy was conceptualized and organized to strengthen the unity of the Lumads, or indigenous peoples. This gave birth to STICLC.

The Rural Missionaries of the Philippines, Mindanao Interfaith Services Foundation, Inc., and martyr-priest Fr. Pops Tentorio, PIME, had accompanied the Lumads and helped them shape their aspirations. They developed and continuously improved the curriculum with an overarching educational philosophy that is pro-people, nationalist, and scientific. It complies with the requirements of the Department of Education (DepEd) and integrates subjects and practicum on farming, environmental care, and children’s rights.

The Panansalan STICLC annex is one of the schools being rebuilt after the damage caused by Typhoon Pablo. It has 55 students with seven teachers who are all graduates of Education and come from different places in Mindanao. Teachers stay in the community as they are also volunteer community organizers. By integrating themselves into the lives of the tribe and peasants, they are able to understand their students and learn the most effective methods of teaching and learning. Teachers are also engaged in economic production and in co-discovering the gifts, talents, and abilities of the people. They also take part in training community health workers.

Kakai is an English teacher. In her youth, she was a volunteer of Gabriela, a women’s organization, and AnakBayan, a youth organization. She came to know about the problems of our society by listening to stories of fellow youth who were struggling to survive amid economic woes. She visited communities of farmers, Moro [Muslim] communities, and tried to link the situation of each one to national issues and concerns. For her, it wasn’t enough to know and analyze problems. There is a need to organize people and let their struggles and hopes unite them.

As a teacher, Kakai finds it both fulfilling and challenging to engage in this work. Born with a weak heart, there were times when she would collapse while trekking to school. She experienced difficulties in adjusting to the food, the long hikes, learning the language of the community, and even on the issue of toilet use.

“If we want the learning process to happen, then we have to be ready to become students, too. The answers to all our problems are not in the hands of the teacher. Our role [as teachers] is to blend with the people and be one with them in shaping the kind of community we want to have. Teaching children within the classroom is not enough. We have to be with them in their farming and harvesting activities, learn with them the lessons of collective life, and respect the dignity of the work of farmers. The conversation does not stop when we sing the goodbye song at the end of the class. We have to get to know who they are. And there is no way to know them except to listen to them and speak their language. If the people express the need for a water reservoir near the community, then we have to facilitate a discussion until we collectively design a plan of how to achieve our goal,” says Kakai.

The children naturally embrace their dance and music. They could not forget who they are as Filipinos and as indigenous people, because it is part of their curriculum. Just before dusk, when there is community gathering, children re-enact their history and current life stories through song, storytelling, music, and dance.

Building a school among peasants and indigenous peoples is not just about building physical structures, providing supplies and teachers. It is about building community life—the development of children to embrace a scientific, nationalist, and people-oriented education—and cultivate the capacity of community members, especially women, for basic health care, improved farming and agricultural production, and to nourish a collective community life.

We visited the community and were blessed by their radical hospitality and stories of enduring strength and perseverance despite the natural tempests and structural injustice that they wrestle with and that test their courage. The collective joy we shared with them through our material contribution from the Pray Fast Build Project has reached them. But, indeed, we received back the blessings we shared through their inspiring call to us to never give up hope.

We thank the people who made this experience of sharing and giving an even stronger testimony of loving communion.

United Methodists Embrace OK Tornado Survivors

This tee-shirt is from a team of volunteers from North Carolina, who came to support

relief and recovery efforts in Moore, Oklahoma, following the tornado there.

Photo Courtesy of Holly McCray

By Holly McCray*

Today I went to the UMCOR office that is set up at First UMC, Moore. David Nichols told me a great story: Several streets in Moore have become unofficially named "Methodist Row." By word of mouth, residents in some of the devastated blocks have shared with their neighbors that the volunteers who are helping them clear debris are United Methodists. Thus others have turned to us to ask for assistance. David explained that the volunteer work to clear a slab saves $12,000-$15,000 for a family.

T-shirts and posters hang on the walls inside the UMCOR office.... Here's a photo of a shirt from a North Carolina team.... It feels like United Methodists around the nation are wrapping their arms around the people who are helping on the ground as well as the people who lost so much...

Rob Harris, First UMC's new senior pastor, said the homes of 12 families in that church were destroyed and they lost everything...

So many stories of people serving in the name of Christ...

*Holly McCray is the editor of Contact, a publication of the Oklahoma Annual Conference.

Walking in Faith

By Nyamah Dunbar*

Global Ministries staff, family, and friends get ready to walk more than six miles for HIV/AIDS awareness and care in the annual AIDS Walk NY in Central Park,
New York City.
Photo: J Savilon

You can tell a lot about a person when you look them squarely in the eye and make an explicit ask of engagement.  No, not the on-bended-knee kind of engagement, the other kind; the one that says there is something out there greater than you and me that requires us uniting in faith to accomplish.  Would you care to join me?  People normally split into three categories:  the fully engaged group (THEY SAID YES!); the willing-in-spirit group (I’ll think about it), and the I-must-tend-to-other duties group.
 

This past Sunday, which coincidentally was Pentecost, AIDS Walk New York was held in Central Park.  The idea to participate in this year’s walk, thanks to a straphanger on the New York Subway who shared the details, sprang from a personal interest to engage with a larger group for a common cause.  However, it did not take long for me to realize that linking me to a universal cause is good, but bringing others along would be greater.  So in my typical take-charge manner (blame it on my mother!), I decided that it would be great to sign up colleagues and friends!  

The three-week sign-up process ranged from the comical in excuses: “My Sunday school class is having finals, so I can’t come” to shock: “Wow!  You’re actually getting people to sign up?!”  There was also the reprimanding excuse: “It’s Pentecost!  You’re supposed to be in church, not the park!”  To the latter statement, I asked how many times in the Bible was Jesus in a church (structure).  Church, for HIM, was wherever HE was.  And he prioritized HIS time not on being in a place, but on being in a state of mind, in body, spirit, and presence where HE could be of most service to the least among HIS children.

Where would Jesus have attended Pentecost Sunday service?  The answer depends on both the individual and collective perspectives. 

HIV/AIDS, as a disease and a cause, has polarized the faith community.  We have made significant strides to overcome prejudices and stigma surrounding the disease, but we still have the hardest portion of the journey to overcome.  I overheard quite a few walkers commenting that they were walking in hope for an imminent cure.  Some were walking with photos draped around their necks of lost loved ones.  Others simply thought this would be a cool event to partake in; and besides, they try to participate in any sporty activity freely offered in the City. 

So if you had walked, what would you have walked for?   I walked for a cure of the human heart; that we as faith communities and general society may realize that we must walk together in order to make a difference in this world. As Christians, we aim to always stay focused on the goal, which, no matter what the cause, is always rooted in Jesus Christ.  In this vain, our differences do not matter.  It is the achievement of HIS will for our lives that matters.

So one day (doesn’t have to be a Sunday), go out and have “church” in a park, at a lake, or on a mountain (if you can climb it!).  You will see the glory of the LORD shining there just as brightly as it does through the chapel’s stain glass windows.

THANK YOU to all who participated in the Holy Ghost-inspiring walk of 10km/6.3 miles on Sunday!

NOTE:  Participation in the AIDS Walk New York was made possible through donations from ReThink Church, United Methodist Global AIDS Fund (ADVANCE # 982345), and private donations.  

*Nyamah Dunbar is senior program manager of the Malaria Initiative of the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR).

Be Alert! United Methodist Disaster Response

By Thomas Kemper*

Photo courtesy Oklahoma Conference

The devastating tornadoes that wiped out much of Moore, Oklahoma, as well as the dozens of tornadoes in several states early this week call Christians to put into practice our best theology of compassion and action.

Concern for those in distress after calamities is rooted in both Old and New Testaments. Rabbi Myrna Matsa reminds us that being a holy people means caring for people and the earth, and leaving the world a better place. Jesus, who was steeped in Jewish wisdom, spells out in Matthew 25 the duty disciples have to those who are in need.  Assisting communities and people affected by disaster is one way we follow Jesus Christ.

As with the bridesmaids who needed to bring extra oil in Matthew’s parable of the wedding guests, we must be ready when God calls us to respond to human need.  The message is: “Be alert.”

The United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), along with other public and private agencies, is constantly on alert. We were already in touch with the Oklahoma Conference leadership following Monday’s tornado in Shawnee and continued to connect with them on Tuesday following the tornado in Moore.

In the name of Jesus, when disaster strikes, we provide emergency food, water, shelter, and medical care, and begin the harrowing process of clean up. In Oklahoma we have:

Photo courtesy Oklahoma Conference

     •    Offered the conference all available UMCOR resources, including emergency funds, relief supplies,

and training in early response and spiritual and emotional care.

     •    Worked with the conference’s Office of Mission to begin to determine the resources that will be needed for recovery.

     •    Shipped relief supplies including cleaning buckets and bedding kits from UMCOR Sager Brown in Baldwin, Louisiana. The UMCOR depot stands ready to send additional relief kits as requested.

Additional needs are likely to surface following the emergency phase. We will remain in contact with the conference’s Office of Mission to sort out the resources that will be needed for long-term recovery. These are likely to include training and expertise in long-term disaster case management—UMCOR is a recognized leader in providing this crucial training—as well as encouraging volunteers for rebuilding through UMVIM .

Photo courtesy Oklahoma Conference

As Methodists go about the work of disaster relief and rebuilding, we are guided by strong theological themes from our Wesleyan heritage. Here are a few:
     •    The disaster response of the church and its members is an expression of faith, a confirmation of discipleship, and a witness to love for neighbors worldwide. But we do not distribute cleaning buckets and rebuild homes with the intention of converting others; rather, we do so as the practice of a theology of presence that requires few words.
     •    All people need God’s grace. Helpers in disaster are not superior to those being helped. Responders act with humility and not for the sake of feeling good about helping others.
     •    We work in collaboration with other religious groups and public and private sectors in response, partnerships that recognize the fullness and wholeness of God’s creation; we work with others to restore and preserve.
     •    We allow God to work through us, serving others in both humility and confidence. We realize that everyone needs and has access to God’s grace.

Every annual conference in the United States has trained disaster response teams, and this network is primed for its work in Oklahoma. Equipping these teams is a matter of both practical and theological importance in being alert.

Read more about the theology of disaster relief and rehabilitation, and use this church bulletin insert to support US Disaster Response.

* Thomas Kemper is the General Secretary of the United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries. UMCOR is part of Global Ministries. Compelled by Christ to be a voice of conscience on behalf of the people called Methodist, UMCOR works globally to alleviate human suffering and advance hope and healing. Gifts to support US Disaster Response to the devastating tornadoes can be made online.

Photos:
Top: Students and church members work together to unload UMCOR relief supplies at Moore First United Methodist Church in Moore, Oklahoma, in the days following a devastating tornado.  Courtesy Oklahoma Conference.

Middle: Bedding kits and other supplies will be distributed among families and individuals living in temporary shelters. Courtesy Oklahoma Conference.

Below: Some of the 400 shovels that were shipped from UMCOR Sager Brown Depot. The shipment also included bedding kits, nine generators, hundreds of push-brooms, and other much-needed relief supplies. Courtesy Oklahoma Conference.

A Tapestry of Shared Ministry

Hazelwood surveys damage wrought by Hurricane Sandy last October in
Belmar, New Jersey.

Photo: Chris Heckert

By Tom Hazelwood

After 15 years at the helm of UMCOR’s US Disaster Response program, the Rev. Tom Hazelwood leaves his position on April 30 to assume a new post, director of Connectional Ministries with the Memphis Annual Conference. He offered this reflection as part of his final address to UMCOR’s board of directors during their semiannual meeting on April 12, 2013, at the headquarters of the General Board of Global Ministries in New York City.

As I give my last report here, I thought I would, like any preacher, read a passage of Scripture and then reflect on its meaning.

The passage is from I Chronicles, chapter 2, beginning at verse 13: “Jesse was the father of Eliab, his first born. The second was Abinadab. The third was Shimea. The fourth was Nethanel; the fifth Raddai; the sixth Ozem; the seventh David. Their sisters were Zeruriah and Abigail. Zeruriah’s three sons were Abishai, Joab, and Asahel. Abigail was the mother of Amasa, whose father was Jether, an Ishmaelite.” And, this, my friends, is the word of God for the people of God.

How many of you have ever preached on this passage? How many of you have ever heard a sermon on this passage? I love Chronicles and the listing of all these names! Anybody who’s ever tried to read through the Bible gets to Chronicles, and that’s when you throw up your hands and surrender! When I was in elementary school, we called them “The Begats”: So-and-so begat So-and-so…. Do you ever wonder why all these names are found in the Scripture?

Why are they in there? You know, you look, and they’re just names, they don’t mean anything to us. It’s much like if I took a single thread, which you can hardly even see, and it’s meaningless. It’s a scrap that I can drop, and it can be swept up and thrown away.

But you take that single thread and you weave it into other fabric, and it can become a part of this beautiful tapestry—have you seen tapestries? How those threads get woven together and create these beautiful scenes—just like any great painting, but all done with thread. So, you take any single thread and it means nothing, but when it gets woven together by the Master Weaver it becomes this beautiful thing.

This is the way the people of the Bible felt about their larger family: that apart from it, any one of them was scarcely more valuable than a snip of thread lying unnoticed on the floor, but within the family, every one of them took on the dignity and beauty of their part in the human tapestry into which they had been woven, thread by thread, begat by begat. "And Attai begat Nathan, and Nathan begat Zabad, and Zabad begat Ephal, and Ephal begat Obed...."

At the close of the Global Ministries board of directors meeting in April,
Hazelwood, right, greeted Greg Forrester, who assumes leadership of UMCOR’s
US Disaster Response program on May 1. After the meeting, Hazelwood led the
directors in a day of service with Hurricane Sandy survivors.
Photo: Cassandra Zampini

So, the Hebrews sprinkled their Bible with genealogies, having concluded that all that is profound does not have to be poetry and all that sings does not have to be music. That genealogy is as much the Word of the Lord as the Twenty-third Psalm.

I believe that these biblical family lists are a reminder to us that we are all connected. The scripture says, “Out of the stump of Jesse…”—and you see that out of the stump of Jesse there was another name that should have been familiar to you: David. The names, the chronologies of all these families, are tied together in what God is putting together, the history of God’s creation.

As I look at my 15 years at UMCOR and with Global Ministries, and as I look at each of you and recall your names, I consider how each one is a unique thread in the tapestry of what has been and is my ministry. You may think you have nothing to do with me; you may think your thread is meaningless when it comes to me and my life. But consider, as I do, how our threads have been woven together over these past 15 years. I appreciate each one of you as significant, part of a thing of beauty, woven into the tapestry of my ministry. And at the same time, that thread that is Tom Hazelwood is a part of the fabric, the tapestry, that is UMCOR, and part of the fabric of Global Ministries.

Any single strand of thread representing any one of us alone may seem meaningless, but they are all woven together in what God is doing in the ministry of The United Methodist Church. They all fit together.

As I have sojourned through this ministry for the past decade and a half, it has been a tremendous privilege and honor for me to serve the church in this way.

I’m looking forward to the ministry that lies ahead of me, and it’ll be different. I know it will be very, very different, but also, it will be meaningful, and it will be a part of that tapestry God is weaving together that is my life's ministry. And where our threads have intertwined is to me a beautiful piece of my life, and I hope that the thread that is mine is a beautiful piece of your life and ministry as well.

The ministry of UMCOR will continue. That tapestry will continue to be woven as you make decisions each time the board meets and as we continue to serve the least, the last, and the lost. That tapestry continues to be woven. In some places the threads go one direction, and in other places the threads go in the other direction, but it’s all a piece of the whole.

What an honor it has been for me to be a part of this ministry. Over the years, I have had the privilege of growing professionally through the learning and the trials of working in disaster response, a very different kind of ministry than parish ministry. Probably most important for me are the personal relationships I’ve had with many if not all of you, in this room. Our relationships shape who we are, how we do ministry together, and how we serve those who are dependent upon the grace of God working in our midst. There are so many who depend upon the grace of God to touch the hearts of others so that UMCOR can have resources to help put lives back together once they’ve been broken by disaster or by whatever calamity comes along.

Thank God the church, The United Methodist Church, has Global Ministries. Thank God The United Methodist Church has the United Methodist Committee on Relief to address people’s specific needs through this ministry that is ours together.

So, what a privilege it is for me to have been a part of what God has been doing through UMCOR over the course of these past 15 years. And what a privilege it is for me to know that as I step away, my friend Greg Forrester steps into this role, to lead the US Disaster Response program going forward.

Newtown's Teddy Bears: How Many is Too Many?

Teddy bears seem nearly synonymous with solace.

Photo: Susan Kim

By Susan Kim

When a distressed child hugs a teddy bear, there is a moment of innocent comfort that not only soothes the child but the grownups around her, too.

No wonder, then, in the wake of the Dec. 14, 2012, mass shooting in Newtown, CT, the donation of choice for many people was a teddy bear. The bears—huge, tiny, handmade, store-bought, rainbow-colored, traditional brown—began arriving within 24 hours of the tragedy. They came from churches, children's groups, Facebook campaigns, car dealerships, and individuals across the globe.

Undeniably, for some of the children in Newtown—and adults, for that matter—a new stuffed animal was just the right gift at the right time.

But then a hundred bears arrived. Then a thousand. Then tens of thousands. Along with prayer shawls. Flowers. Rubber bracelets. What callously might be referred to as “stuff” if it didn't so fiercely represent a burning collective desire to reassure the people of Newtown that the world is not, in fact, an evil place.

A lot of “stuff” landed at the Newtown United Methodist Church, which has been a pillar for the town's ongoing recovery. The pastor, Rev. Mel Kawakami, has been featured on national television and in dozens of print and web news reports. The town's role in Newtown's recovery is finely documented by C. Jeffrey MacDonald in The Christian Science Monitor.

Now, three months after the tragedy, Kawakami quietly worries that he has perhaps offended some gift givers because he hasn't yet responded to them. His “sister churches,” he says, have already helped write more than 300 thank-you notes. But there are thousands more to go.

“You don't want to sound ungracious,” he says, “and you don't want to be ungracious. Because we became a witness for how deeply people were touched.”

Just what is the best response to a horrendous act of public violence? There's no right answer, Kawakami says. “One strategy might be to do something in your own community that honors the victims and also honors those who survived.”

Also, he says, don't underestimate the power of prayer. “We wouldn't have made it if we didn't know there were untold numbers of people praying for us.”

What about our own need to send “stuff?” Mary Hughes Gaudreau, a U.S. disaster-response consultant for the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), believes it's important to recognize the hearts of people involved in giving.

“I really do think when people give gifts after acts of public violence that, in some ways, they're trying to deal with their own pain,” says Gaudreau, who has supported Kawakami and the Newtown church during the ongoing recovery. “We don't want to have suffering be the last word. We need to touch something or do something tangible to make that real.”

UMCOR is a nonprofit ministry of The United Methodist Church dedicated to alleviating human suffering across the globe. Within UMCOR's broad range of response to disasters, a vital component is emotional and spiritual care.

Sometimes when you're trying to offer emotional and spiritual care, it's important to examine yourself as a giver, Gaudreau says. “There are times when we find people who get very angry when their desire to do something good is rejected. They desperately want to help and they feel frustrated when their help is not needed.”

That doesn't mean the teddy bears were rejected. Some of them went to local parents who had lost newborn babies. Some were given to church visitors and parishioners. Some were transformed into compost destined for a memorial garden. And some did make it into the arms of kids.

“The truth is, they needed those teddy bears,” says Gaudreau.

But thousands of them? “Then it gets complicated,” she adds, “and we need to consider those six key words: It's about the people we serve.”

What would Kawakami say is the best response? He would like people to keep praying for Newtown. “But if I could attach a tag to that,” he says, hesitating. “If you can freely send out the prayer—without expecting something in return.”

In normal times, he says, when someone sends a gift, you respond. “But multiply that by ten-thousandfold and there isn't a way to respond. My fear is that someone has taken offense because they've heard nothing.”

Susan Kim is a journalist who frequently writes on appropriate donations, disaster response, and social justice. She is a regular contributor to www.umcor.org.