Celebrating UMCOR

Bishop Sudarshana Devadhar.  A photo by Mike Dubose/UMNS.

My Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ:

Greetings in the precious name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

As we continue our journey in the Lenten season, on the fourth Sunday of Lent we celebrate the ministry of the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), through our prayers, gifts, and other support.

In a recent issue of the New World Outlook, Melissa Hinnen, writes, “In the midst of war and destruction UMCOR serves as a “voice of conscience among Methodists to act in the relief of human suffering without distinction of race, color or creed’. So said Bishop Herbert Welch at the General Conference of the Methodist Church on April 26, 1940. With the outbreak of World War II, Bishop Welch called on the General Conference to respond to the needs of human suffering around the world. On June 2, 1940, Methodists observed a day of prayer and sacrifice, with the offering being used to support the newly formed Methodist Committee for Overseas Relief (MCOR)” (Melissa Hinnen, “UMCOR 70 Years of Hope”, New World Outlook, January/February 2010, p.14).

Later, in 1972, the name of the MCOR (Methodist Committee for Overseas Relief) was changed to UMCOR (United Methodist Committee on Relief.) As we reflect on the ministry and mission of UMCOR on the fourth Sunday of Lent the gospel reading for the day challenges us to reflect on the parable of the prodigal son. Luke writes, “But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him” (Luke 15:20).

The American Heritage College Dictionary defines compassion as, “Deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the wish to relieve it.” Elsewhere, in the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand, referring to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Mark writes, “... he had compassion for them” (Mark 6:34).

As we celebrate the ministry of UMCOR, particularly as we journey under the shadow of the Cross of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the larger question we need to ask is “Am I a compassionate Christian?” Christians not only make themselves aware of the suffering of the children of God but also make every effort to relieve it.

The compassionate spirit of Jesus Christ challenged the disciples to respond by feeding thousands of people who came to hear Jesus.

The compassionate spirit of the father in the parable of the prodigal son nudged him to run after the needs of a son who was approaching.

The compassionate spirit of Bishop Welch energized the General Conference of our denomination to respond to the “needs of the human suffering around the world.”

Today, the ministry of UMCOR takes us to places where we cannot go ourselves in times of hurt and suffering. Though many of us were not there in person to relieve the pain and suffering of the victims of the recent earthquake in Haiti, we were there in spirit and resources through the ministry and mission of UMCOR.

Though we take an offering for the ministry and mission of UMCOR through One Great Hour of Sharing on the fourth Sunday during Lent, UMCOR is in ministry on our behalf 24 hours a day, 365 days a year in the United States of America and around the world.

May God enable all of us to call for self-examination and to raise a question, “Do we have the compassionate spirit of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in us?”

May we all experience a blessed and spiritual Lenten season.

In Christ’s love,

Bishop Sudarshana Devadhar,
Greater New Jersey United Methodist Conference

View more of Bishop Devadhar’s messages on The Relay Online

Small Churches Give Big to Haiti

Rev. Madlyn Barry Ruch, RN, Pastor, Oklahoma Conference-Parish Nursing

Several of the local churches collected and assembled health kits for UMCOR Haiti relief, a task that is relatively easy for large congregations with plenty of resources. However, our congregations, Savanna United Methodist Church, Savanna, Oklahoma, and Krebs Grace United Methodist Church, Krebs, Oklahoma, are very small in number and resources. Savanna UMC has a membership of only eight, and Krebs Grace UMC has about 15 members.

Nevertheless, these two sister congregations assembled 95 health kits and four layette kits for UMCOR Haiti, a rather large feat for our small congregations. Special offerings have also been collected, and online donations were made directly to the Volunteers in Mission.


Many of our members are elderly and cannot physically serve in the relief efforts. However, they all give from the bottom of their hearts, freely and lovingly, and have pledged to continue collecting items for the kits, as long as is needed. The relief efforts, as well as all of God's children in Haiti, are prayed for daily by each member.

Our small but mighty churches are committed to serve in any way possible that helps to bring God's love to His children who are in need.

Grace and Peace,
Rev. Madlyn Barry Ruch, RN, Pastor
Oklahoma Conference-Parish Nursing

Lenten journey is more than 'following'

One Great Hour of Sharing is March 14, 2010.

 March 1, 2010

Dear sisters and brothers,

As the season of Lent continues, we are confronted daily with the journey Jesus makes to Jerusalem and the Cross. We read and ponder the text recorded in three of the Gospels: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24, repeated at Mark 8:34 and Luke 9:23) The “following” part we have incorporated into our mission statement, and have encouraged from pulpit to classroom. Unfortunately, we have almost made it sound easy, like a game of follow the leader. The “denying” and “taking up” parts are another matter. We would just as soon skip those, but that is precisely what confronts us as Lent unfolds.

Just as we have invested ourselves, our time, and some of our resources in an overwhelming response to the earthquake in Haiti, another one strikes. This time it strikes Chile, and this time of even stronger magnitude than the January quake that devastated so much and took the lives of so many in Haiti. One is left wondering how much more we can endure; how much more sacrificing and sharing will be needed; how many more disasters are yet to be. And each time, our desire, our commitment, and our passion for following Jesus is put to the test. Each time we are called upon to share the burden, the pain and suffering of so many, with each picture telling yet another story.

Once again, we United Methodist Christians in the Western North Carolina Conference will, I am confident, respond with generosity and prayers. Once again, United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) will respond with long-term assistance. Already UMCOR is on the scene working side-by-side and hand-in-hand with our partner organizations, Iglesia Metodista de Chile,  

Ministerio Social Metodista, and Equip Metodista de Accio n Humanitaria. Our conference Web site (http://www.wnccumc.org/ will have updated information on our response, as well as information about making donations either through the Conference Treasurer’s Office or directly to The Advance (#3021178).

In the midst of these disasters, we are also approaching the annual Sunday known as One Great Hour of Sharing. On the Fourth Sunday in Lent (March 14), we will once again be invited to share in this special offering that generates support for our on-going work in response to suffering throughout the world. I urge every church across our conference to receive this offering, along with our gifts for the specific crises in Haiti and Chile. As I travel across our area, I am constantly inspired by and grateful for the wonderful way that you are engaged in mission projects locally and around the world. I hope that your generosity and compassion combine for an overflowing offering to assist those who are hurting.

All of which brings me back to where I started, the “denying” and “taking up” Gospel references. To make sacrifices on behalf of others means that we who have been blessed in many ways will have to adjust our own ways of living. Perhaps we will have to deny ourselves that extra purchase or additional meal out; or, perhaps we will have to make a sacrificial gift that stretches us; or, perhaps we will have to trust God deeper. Following Jesus was never intended to be a smooth highway, without challenging moments along the way. But it is the way! 

by Larry M. Goodpaster, Bishop, Western North Carolina Conference

bishop@wnccumc.org

The People of Haiti Cope – Week 6

Many Haitians found it safer to sleep outdoors or in shelters away from solid structures for fear of an aftershock.

An UMCOR photo by Mike Dubose/UMNS

Haitian people continue each day to sort through what are for many just fragments of their pre-earthquake lives in cities most affected. At night many find greater security sleeping outdoors in tents or shelters away from solid structures. Two significant aftershocks (one at 4.7 Richter) jangled our nerves the second night, helping us sense why some Haitians may still be in a state of shock.

During the day, government and non-government organizations “cluster” under United Nations leadership to share information and coordinate efforts. I attended a meeting of the Relief and Agriculture Clusters with Mr. Anthony Jones, UMCOR Emergency Response Specialist, and learned that local Haitian workers are being paid to remove rubble from public places. Canals and ditches essential for water removal and irrigation for farming during the rainy season (April) will soon receive special attention. Surveys reveal that smaller towns and rural areas have absorbed tens of thousands of internally displaced people from the most severely affected Port-au-Prince / Leogane / Petit Goave corridor. This internal displacement has put pressure on farmers to use seeds for food and even to sell equipment and animals to feed and shelter incoming families. Seeds and tools will be distributed among farmers so the farming season begins on time.

The Methodist Church of Haiti’s rescheduled annual conference moved its venue to little-affected Les Cayes. Methodists from Britain, The Caribbean and the U.S. sent representatives to show solidarity and to pledge prayers, material and financial support for Haiti’s recovery. I was privileged to share UMCOR’s newly forged goal statement that commits resources and promises close coordination of efforts among Global Ministries units (UMCOR, Women’s Division, Mission & Evangelism) and between United Methodist Volunteers in Mission and the Methodist Church of Haiti. Our Haitian brothers and sisters are anxious to see United Methodists live fully into this new statement of commitment.

By Rev. Dr. James L Gulley, UMCOR Consultant for Agriculture and Community Development and Haiti earthquake survivor.

Haiti journal: Dreading the rainy season

A girl plays between rows of makeshift homes at a temporary camp in a soccer stadium in Leogane.

UMCOR Photo by Mike Dubose/UMNS

After 10 days in Haiti, I don’t know what to do with my memories. I don’t feel big enough or strong enough or special enough to carry them.

Friday, Feb. 12, marks the one-month anniversary of the earthquake that shook Haiti apart--30-something seconds of terror that left a nation wounded forever. Feb. 12 also will mark the beginning of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. For the next few weeks, the news will be filled with young, beautiful, healthy people performing incredible feats and setting world records.

All I can think about is what will happen when the rainy season starts in March.

Try to imagine thousands of people living outside, too afraid to sleep in any place with real walls and a roof. Babies and old people. Strangers and families. Sheets, tablecloths and towels for their walls. Mattresses and blankets for their floors. Even a gentle rain will bring new misery.

And there is already enough misery.

A mother’s tears

I wonder if tiny Laury is still sick. His 21-year-old mother’s tears stab my heart. Since the day she pulled him from under the rubble of their house, the 1-year-old has been miserable. She worries he will never get well as long as she has no safe, clean place for him to live.

Louis and Madame Felix, 74 and 76, are probably out of rice and beans by now. They were so happy to get their share of the first food distribution made by the United Methodist Committee on Relief. Their faces glowed as they talked about the Methodist church they were baptized in, the one they were married in, the one that is now brown rubble spilling out on the churchyard.

Samuel Loomery, 17, was so close to completing his secondary education when his school crashed down on him. Classmates helped pull him to safety. He wonders about another student who was trapped close by. He's still not sure what happened to him.

Is Winsley Polo, 2, still alive? So frail, so small, lying quietly in a crib sheltered by a blue tarp. She is one of the lost children, babies who were not claimed by parents after the earthquake, who are living with compassionate caregivers at Grace Hospital.

Moments of grace


It makes me smile to remember Sister Paulette Holly, 82. I sat next to her during a Sunday worship service at the destroyed St. Martin Methodist Church. Standing to sing, she pressed the hymnal into my hands. I tried to explain I didn’t understand French. She just shook her head, pointed to the words and said, “It’s easy.”


The kind people who work at the Methodist Guest House care for travelers even though they have all lost everything in the earthquake and are coping with personal grief. Each one has a broken heart over the deaths of United Methodists Sam Dixon and Clint Rabb.

Emile Belorne, a Guest House supervisor, considered my request to hear what happened to her on the day of the earthquake. She pondered the request for two days. When she was ready, she broke our hearts as she told us of her fear and faith in God.

“I say, Lord if I am still alive, it is by your grace. I am no better than the others who died. You made me a favor. If I am here, I have to do something for your glory.”

Kites amid rubble

The new death toll from the earthquake is 230,000. That number does not include the bodies yet to be recovered from collapsed buildings or the many people who were pulled from the rubble and buried privately by families.

That rubble is becoming part of the landscape. People are going on with their lives without any of the things I find most basic—a private place to bathe, a quiet place to read, a safe shelter from the weather, a door to shut out strangers.

Women on the side of the road sit all day waiting to sell their meager supply of vegetables. Men tackle the great mounds of debris one piece at a time. Using handsaws, taking all day to cut through one piece of steel reinforcing bar.

Parents make kites out of plastic bags to delight their children.

And everywhere, they live with the dread of the rainy season.

“We have been lucky so far, no rain yet,” said one man. “But the rain will come.”

By Kathy Gilbert, a United Methodist News Service news writer who was on assignment in Haiti in Jan. 21-31, 2010.

News media contact: Kathy L. Gilbert, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org

Life and Hope Help Haiti Stand

UMCOR executive Melissa Crutchfield passes purified water to Haiti survivors.

UMCOR photo by Mike Dubose, UMNS

Our team of six (three from UMCOR and Global Ministries, and three United Methodist communicators) arrived in Port-au-Prince on Thursday evening, heading straight to the Auberge du Quebec hotel in Carrefour, located in a suburb just west of Port-au-Prince, where dozens of aid workers and reporters are staying. We stayed there one night, then moved closer into town at the Methodist guest house, which remained intact despite the buildings around it that crumbled.

The scene here is quite unimaginable and cannot be put into words. I know everyone has seen the footage and heard the stories, so I'll refrain from repeating the obvious, except to say I see no other way that this country will recover but for practically razing the entire city of Port-au-Prince and many surrounding areas and simply starting over. The destruction is immense. Of the structures left standing, many are precarious. There will be scant few that won't need some kind of repair, reinforcement or replacement. It will take years.

The humanitarian emergency is dire in terms of access to clean water, food, and shelter, but slowly and surely aid is getting out and increasing. The vast majority of the international community (UN, USAID, etc.) are still focused on the city of Port-au-Prince, and it is definitely needed here, but the traffic congestion and closed roads due to debris create additional challenges to simply getting around.

More than 700,000 people are displaced from their homes, either because their homes collapsed, or because they are afraid to sleep inside. Almost no one sleeps indoors right now. Spontaneous informal settlements have cropped up in the public parks, church yards, school yards, along the streets, parking lots, soccer fields, or anywhere with open space. The situation outside Port-au-Prince is the same in terms of the destruction, but slightly less congested. For now, we are focusing our relief efforts in these areas which are receiving less attention and aid.

Aftershocks are pretty common at this point. We felt three aftershocks on Friday and have heard there is a solid chance of more of them occurring. They were pretty unsettling, although the biggest one was only a 4.4 magnitude, and I can see why the folks who experienced the actual earthquake are jumpy about sleeping indoors. (But don't worry, mom, we're staying safe, have a quick exit strategy everywhere we go, and have tents to sleep in as a back-up plan!)

On Friday we visited several sites about 40 miles outside of Port-au-Prince with the l'Eglise Méthodiste d'Haiti and Petit Goâve and Mellier, where we saw churches, schools and countless homes completely destroyed. The road on the way there was fraught with rock slides and fissures. The scope of the destruction is staggering.

On Saturday we spent the day with our partner GlobalMedic, delivering clean water to several spontaneous settlements in Léogâne and Gressier.

Our team attended several cluster meetings on Sunday morning with the UN and international aid community, which was interesting but still reinforced the fact that (a) everyone is struggling with logistics and coordination at this stage and (b) the outlying regions are still underserved. UMCOR is actually doing a pretty good job getting into action at this stage.

Tomorrow we head back to Mellier, accompanied by l'Eglise Méthodiste d'Haiti, to do a needs assessment, and plan a distribution of relief supplies for later in the week.


In terms of security issues, the stories you see on the news are pretty sensationalized and there isn't much concern just getting around the city. Civil society has begun to resume and people are out in the streets selling fruit, water and an impressive variety of other goods. It seems that a lot of things are still available for purchase, but the prices have gone up. The banks have also been down, causing a breakdown in the ability of people to access goods. But the banks and money transfer places (like Western Union) opened on Friday, allowing people to access money. So things should improve somewhat on that front.

There has been a curfew imposed at night for international aid workers, so we are usually back to the guest house by 6:00 p.m. When we do the distribution later this week we will be prudent and plan ahead to avoid any mob scenes. We will have access to security from the local UN if needed. But generally, folks respect things done with and through the church, so we have that on our side.

The resilience of the Haitian people is impressive and humbling. Life really is going on, despite the huge loss that EVERYONE has felt, and the difficulties that seem to mount for them each day. The recovery will be long and slow, but most are also seeing an opportunity to strengthen Haiti in the process. I feel humbled, anxious, honored, and excited to have the opportunity and responsibility of coordinating UMCOR's work on the ground at this stage. I honestly think we'll do some good and make a positive impact, despite all of the hurdles we already have and inevitably will encounter.

Keep checking the UMCOR website for updates. The UMC website is posting additional stories and pictures from the communications team with us here.

By Melissa Crutchfield, Assistant General Secretary, International Disaster Response, UMCOR

Haiti journal: Home is a field, but families remain families

A father helps his son with basic hygiene at the camp where they are staying in Leogane, Haiti.

UMNS photos by Mike DuBose

January 24, 2010


LEOGANE, Haiti (UMNS)—A soccer field has become home to more than 5,000 traumatized Haitians here. It is one of many makeshift communities tucked in every corner of the cities and in open fields in the outlying areas.

A massive earthquake Jan. 12 shook more than 400,000 people from the safety of their homes.
Home doesn't mean safe anymore.

The communities can't really be called tent cities because most of the people don't have any kind of shelter. Wooden poles covered by sheets provide a little respite from the hot sun during the day.

Families hang their laundry to dry on the bleachers and on top of chain-link fences. Women wash clothes in large tin pots, cook on open flames, and watch as children run and play in the narrow spaces between the shelters.

Some comforts from home have made their way here. A young couple walks into the camp carrying a wooden door. An old, worn chair looks oddly out of place.

The people have designated a place between two cars as the public shower. An elderly man stands wrapped in an orange towel, using the side mirrors of one of the cars to shave.

A group of Haitian medical doctors and nurses operates a clinic, set up in a corner of the field. A pharmacist says he took all of the drugs from his store and brought them to the field for the medical team to use. Today, the Angel Medical Center from Western North Carolina is lending a hand. The Haitians say occasionally a team will stop and help for a few hours or a few days.

Being homeless doesn't stop families from being families.

A father leads his young son to the "shower." Gently he brushes his child's teeth, washes his body and softly talks to him. For a moment, he is able to block out all the noise and upheaval.

It is the sweetest moment of my day.

 *By Kathy Gilbert, a news writer for United Methodist News Service on assignment in Haiti.

News media contact: Kathy Gilbert, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.