UMVIM Team: Our Day at Deseret Industries

  

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

In part three of a five-part blog series from First United Methodist Church  (FUMC) in Portland, Oregon, Shirley, a UM Volunteer in Mission, shares about her volunteer work outside of UMCOR West at Deseret Industries, a vocational rehabilitation facility, which cares for the poor and the local community. 

August 28th, 2013

No work at the West Depot today. We met Maika, FUMC Salt Lake City lay leader, at the depot and he took us to Deseret Industries for two hours of volunteer work and a tour of the facility. Deseret Industries purpose is to care for poor and needy, foster self-reliance, and encourage service to others. This large welfare square consisted of a cannery, bakery, thrift store, storehouse, and job training.

 

Our two hours of service was very rewarding because we work alongside employees and many volunteers. Apple, oranges, and potatoes were put in five-pound bags. Time was spent on grooming the onion for their market shelves. Also, work was done in the recycling center.

What I saw during the two hours of volunteer in service:

• Service – Our volunteer hours with LDS church is towards the larger humanitarian aid.
• Hope – A young man from Romania with both arms off at the elbows driving a fork lift and carrying 50-pound bags of onion with a cheerful smile on his face.
• Transition – A homeless man working for food and clothing.
• Job Training – A disabled young man working at the center.
• Partnership – Deseret Industries partners with UMCOR West Depot when purchasing supplies for our seven relief kits.
• Humor – A man asked the women if we were single because he was looking for a good Mormon wife. Someone said we were Methodist. His reply was “What are you doing here?”

 

Tonight we are having a dinner party. Originally, we had planned on some UMW women from the local church. Now the party is up to 19, because our fearless leader has included other house guests at the Episcopal Retreat Center. The dinner party will be fun. We are having stir fry. Better close for now, almost time to start chopping for the dinner party.

Blessings, Shirley

United Methodist Volunteer in Mission

 

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Today We Count

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

In part two of a five-part blog series from First United Methodist Church in Portland, Oregon, Volunteer in Mission Kay Ward shares the value in performing the oftentimes mundane tasks in preparing relief supplies for those most in need. 

By Kay Ward

August 28th, 2013

Day 3

What a rewarding, expanding experience this is. Last night after dinner we shared some of the things that impressed us most. For one it was the loving extras knitted, crocheted or sewn into the handmade layette garments. For another the realization that the mundane task of taking tubes of toothpaste out of their box and bagging them in groups of 12 was important work that needed to be done. Two others were impressed with the size of the undertaking, the thousands of items that pass through the UMCOR Depot on to the needs of the world.

Rev. Brian is currently working on staging the next big shipment that will go out in October. With funds low he didn’t want to overbuy for the health kits or the layette kits. Though thousands of items are donated it all has to come out even with each kit fully supplied so Brian must use budget to cover the expense. We were asked to inventory what was on hand. The numbers are impressive. The layette kit inventory was 102 complete kits, 221 diapers, 496 shirts/onesies, 3,136 washcloths, 2,611 gowns/sleepers, 4,920 diaper pins, 1250 sweaters, and 169 receiving blankets.

The health kit inventory was 3,120 hand towels, 2,719 washcloths, 3,600 combs, 3,405 toothbrushes, 3,600 nail clippers, 2,880 soaps, and 7,345 bandages.

YES, we counted it all! No wonder we are impressed with the volume.

During the day a man from Southern Arizona came by to drop off some materials from his church. He was up this way on vacation. We thought of all the effort we had made this year at FUMC Portland to complete 82 layette kits and enough sweaters and gowns to complete one pallet. All over the nation churches are doing the same thing.

Kay Ward
United Methodist Volunteer in Mission

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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

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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.