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Don't Forget Haiti
(Susan Hunt) I remember first hearing about the reports of the Haiti Earthquake through news reports on January 12. At that point I didn’t think much of it because the first reports did not and could not yet express the devastation as it really was. Within just a few hours, however, the magnitude of the destruction was more evident and the story turned tragic. Several hundred thousand people died and many more lost their homes and way of life. Then we learned that even we as United Methodists were directly affected as several top Church leaders were trapped in the rubble, two of whom would not survive. more>>

Agency Spotlight: Dumas Wesley Community Center Increases Services to Families
(Brenda Carlisle) For over 107 years Dumas Wesley Community Center has served the Mobile community, providing services for men, women and children of all ages. As the expressed needs of the community changed, Dumas Wesley has always strived to respond, evolve and do whatever was necessary to meet those needs. Because we have the responsibility to be good stewards of all resources entrusted to us, the Board of Directors of Dumas Wesley has been reviewing and evaluating the demand for and outcomes of all our programs. After months of prayer, extensive deliberation, and a consideration of the consequences, the decision has been made to close our day care center. more>>

ARM: Recap of Summer Ministry
(Lisa Pierce) The First Annual Alabama Rural Ministry (ARM) Cycle of Service was a Blast! Cyclers from Alabama and Georgia embarked on a 168 mile journey encompassing heat, hills, and a few flat tires to raise awareness about poverty housing within Alabama. Our ride from Livingston to Tuskegee took three days. more>>

Children's Home Reaches Agreement with Concordia College
(UMCH) After several months of detailed discussions and negotiations, the United Methodist Children’s Home (UMCH) has reached an agreement with Concordia College on the 35-acre property located on Broad Street. The two entities closed on the deal August 12, and will immediately begin transitioning the property for use by the college.

“We are so excited for the city of Selma, and for the future of our ministry,” said Steve Hubbard, UMCH President & CEO. “To have this deal consummated means that we have a greater ability to continue our expansion of services to children and families, and that Concordia College will be able to make excellent use of the property to serve its growing student body.” more>>

United Methodist Children's Home Receives Accreditation
Full text of letter may be found here.

(UMCH) The Council on Accreditation (COA) is delighted to inform you that United Methodist Children's Home has been accredited. COA’s commitment to maintaining the highest level of standards and quality improvement is designed to identify providers that have set high performance standards for themselves and have made a commitment to their constituents to deliver the highest quality services. COA is proud to recognize United Methodist Children's Home as one of these outstanding providers.

When is White Christmas at Your Church?
(UMCH) The annual White Christmas Offering helps the United Methodist Children's Home provide food, clothing, and shelter as well as counseling, enrichment activities, education, and spiritual development to the children in our care. The support of our United Methodist family is vital to our ministry. If every church member gives $10 each year, our ministry's operational needs would be met annually, securing our tradition of providing loving homes for abused & neglected children. Please work this year to reach this $10/member goal for your church when planning and collecting your White Christmas Offering. If you need speakers for any event or group, or need fundraising ideas to help our children, please call us at 800-239-3575. White Christmas materials will be available online in September at www.umch.net. All materials are free with no charge for shipping.

Catapult - Why Bother?
(Rev. Don Woolley) Inside our communities, people are living and dying without Jesus. All around us there are groups of people different than us and not represented in our congregations. Many in our immediate neighborhoods are oblivious to our presence because our presence has never touched them. Others are hostile because their experience of our presence has been hurtful or discouraging. more>>

Register now for Mission Team Leader Training
(Susan Hunt) Are you or someone in your church leading a mission team this year or considering leading a team in the future? Have you been trained to lead a mission team? Do you have a trained team leader for your church’s mission team? If not (or maybe if so), plan to attend one of two scheduled AWF Conference UMVIM Team Leader Training sessions:

Participants will receive a wealth of information on preparing an UMVIM team for service, such as effective project selection, spiritual development, cultural sensitivity for teams, logistics, and finance. Participating in the training does not obligate you to lead a team, but will help you understand the fundamentals of team leadership and will enrich any future Mission experiences you have.

Even if you have previously led mission teams, this training will benefit your leadership abilities. If you have been trained, but it has been several years, it may be time to “refresh” your skills and share your leadership and mission experiences with new team leaders.

The cost of the Team Leader Training is $35 – you can register online at www.awfumc.org/umvimtraining. Included in the registration fee is the UMVIM Team Leader Handbook and lunch. This training is open to all Alabama-West Florida United Methodists, clergy and lay, and satisfies training requirements for leading an UMVIM team. For more information, contact Glenn Glover at umvim@awfumc.org or 334-703-1115.

Helpful website feature – Mission Volunteer Opportunities
(Susan Hunt) Our conference website now has an exciting new feature – a listing of mission volunteer opportunities! The best part about this new feature is that any church, organization or mission agency within the conference may submit a mission opportunity. And anyone can search these listings to find ways to connect to a mission opportunity. Once a submission is approved through a quick review process, it will appear within the listings.

“Local” opportunities include anything within the bounds of our annual conference. These will typically be opportunities with our own mission agencies and organizations. “National” opportunities are outside of our conference but still within the United States.

The “International” opportunities section is designed to list church mission teams from our conference traveling to destinations outside of the United States which are open to receiving team members from outside of their church.

Each opportunity is also categorized as Disaster Response, Evangelism, Health or Work team. Just click on the title of each opportunity to find more information.

Find this easily on the conference Website by clicking “Ministries” on the top of the page, then “Mission Volunteer Opportunities” on the left-hand-side. Or get there directly through this link: www.awfumc.org/volunteeropportunities.

This is a useful tool for any size church. Larger churches may have international mission teams that have room for extra team members from other churches. Smaller churches may have a few members looking for a team to join. All churches of any size can find opportunities listed within the conference. This is our connectional system at work!

Hispanic-Latino population information available online
(Martha Rovira, Conference Coordinator of Hispanic/Latino Ministries) Would you like to discover the “Demographics of Hispanic-Latino populations” by states and counties, see the numbers, by percent of population & by growth percentage between 2000-2008?

Check these official numbers. An approximate estimate of “real” numbers can be obtained by multiplying what you find times three.

Update from Liberia
(Rev. G. Bobson Bleh, Supervising Pastor, Guinea Ministry UMC)
In 2008, the Alabama-West Florida Annual Conference took a substantial offering for the Ganta United Methodist Hospital in Liberia. Rev. Bleh regularly sends updates on the clinic our offerings went to support.

For updates, we have plastered the church (wall & floor) in Diecke. We are preparing the doors and benches for seating. Right now folks bring seats from their homes for use in worship. The folks are excited about their first church. Rev. Bruce and his congregation provided $5000 USD for the church and school construction projects.

Our students have completed their exams. The 6th and 10th graders are writing for the government exams next week. Three new classrooms have been added to the facility. We anticipate completing the remaining four classrooms so that the 13 graders can use them in September 2010.

The clinic needed some modifications and we have done that. In a couple of weeks construction work will resume. We will need a little over $33,000 USD to complete the new clinic.

We are organizing camp for our youth. The camp will come up in July this year. The women observed their mother's day. It was wonderful. They raised a little over $100USD. It will go into their mission program.

Our pastors are doing well with their ministries. One pastor will go to seminary in August. Our friend Rev. Bruce Bjork and his congregation provides $10USD each to 14 of our pastors. It is very much helpful for rural ministers like the pastors of Guinea. This commitment is going to last for three years. We thank Rev. Bjork and his folks for lending us their hands.

The government of Guinea has given the United Methodist Church full recognition to operate in Guinea. The Church is called "EGLISE METHODISTE UNIE DE GUINEE (EMU-GUI). Praise the Lord! Do keep us in your prayers as we labor in the Lord's vineyard.

United Methodist Afghan Expert Killed in Massacre
(UMNS) Daniel Terry, who served in Afghanistan for more than 30 years through the General Board of Global Ministries of The United Methodist Church, was among the 10 persons murdered in the northeastern part of the country on August 6. A release is online. Click here to read more. Please pray for the Terry family and the families of all of those killed in the massacre, and pray for the people of Afghanistan.

Navigating a Landscape of Hope in Haiti
Below is an excerpt of a letter from the Rev. Cynthia Harvey on the work of United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) in Haiti. Rev. Harvey, director of the relief agency, takes a comprehensive look at accomplishments, challenges, and possibilities in Haiti in the wake of the January earthquake. The full letter may be found here.

(Cynthia Fierro Harvey) Over the course of our 70-year history in relief and recovery work around the world—from Louisiana to Indonesia—the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) has learned that recovery following a catastrophic event takes time if it is to be effective. This has never been so true as it has been in Haiti since a 7.0-magnitude earthquake rocked the country on January 12, 2010. The destruction the earthquake caused is unprecedented, and our efforts in relief and recovery also must be unprecedented in terms of creativity, patience and perseverance.

Hallelujah Moments
Celebrations of United Methodist Mission from the Mission Communications unit of the General Board of Global Ministries

I GOT TESTED FOR HIV
(By Hannah Hanson) So we all got into a taxi and headed for the clinic in Alberton. After an introduction and some questions, we were asked if we wanted to be tested for HIV. I was actually hoping all of the students regardless of age or material status would get tested.

Some students were tested for the first time. Can you imagine that kind of pressure? Tests always present pressure, and even the things you think you know may not be valid. So I went in the room with the nurse, had my finger pricked, and waited to see the results. more>>.

(UMC.org) 10 projects in 10 days. From October 10th through 19th you will be able to learn about projects around the world supported through The Advance, the designated giving arm of The United Methodist Church, during an online event unlike anything you have experienced before. It’s called 10-Fold. Through live webcasts, streaming video, online chats and other media, you will see and hear about amazing projects that are changing people’s lives. To get more details, visit www.10-fold.org. Take a look at the video, start spreading the word and join us at 10-Fold.org starting on October 10, 2010 for this online global gathering.

Water For The Thirsty
(UMCOR) Some 854 million people in developing countries lack adequate access to water, and more than 2.6 billion people have no access to basic sanitation. The United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) provides clean water for the thirsty by supporting 11 water and sanitation projects throughout Africa and Latin America.

Through the distribution and training in the use of household or community filtration units and the construction and rehabilitation of wells and boreholes, women and children supported by these projects no longer have to walk for hours to reach an often contaminated water source.

UMCOR also empowers communities to create local ownership through community development committees that oversee UMCOR projects and create solutions and strategies for future development and maintenance. Help provide clean water to those in need with your gift to Global Water and Sanitation, UMCOR Advance #3020600. Click HERE to support this ministry.

Beyond These Walls Mission Conference
The Beyond These Walls 2010 mission conference is going to be an incredible gathering of authors, teachers, and mission leaders that will truly bring us the "best of the best" in mission teaching and equipping. Be sure to checkout www.missionconference.org to see the complete offerings of speakers and workshops. Note that conference registration is now open and that a block of rooms has been reserved at a conveniently located hotel until September 1st. We anticipate a full conference so we suggest you make your reservations now - see the website for details.