{#GivingTuesday 2016} Disaster Response

Since The Advance will not be offering any matching funds for Giving Tuesday this year, the UMVIM, SEJ Staff and Board has come together and pledged $12,000 to be used as matching fund. So, on November 29: #GivingTuesday 2016, donations will be matched, dollar for dollar, up to $12,000. We believe our mission is big, and we also believe that we can't send trained, equipped volunteers into the field to show Christian Love in Action without the support of our community. 

This year, learn more from those who have personally experienced the impact of all UMVIM has to offer. We asked South Carolina Early Response Team Coordinator, Billy Robinson to share about his experience.

How do volunteers help you carry out your mission as the coordinator of Early Response Teams in South Carolina? 

We in South Carolina, like most everywhere, are all volunteers. Without volunteers we would have no Early Response Teams, and we would miss out on so many dire needs and opportunities to allow God's love to flow through us in our actions, care, love and concern for others. Coordinating disaster response is chaotic, especially in the early stages of any disaster such as our October 2015 floods and recent tropical storm Hermine. It is the same in emergency response like my paid profession as a Fire Officer/Paramedic. It is vital to have people who will fill in leadership positions and coordinate responses in regional locations, especially in large scale disasters. Without them and all the other wonderful volunteers and support across UMVIM and the United Methodist Church, it would be impossible. Volunteers are the backbone of all we do: helping with training (we have eight UMCOR Trainers); preparing and maintaining our seven ERT Trailers; providing leadership as team leaders  and regional coordinators and participating on our state ERT Board; Of course, volunteers are the hard working dedicated people who put tarps on roofs, run chainsaws and muck out while always being listeners across South Carolina, the southeast, and the entire United States. A South Carolina ERT team recently came back from Louisiana.

What differences do you see in teams whose leaders have been trained by UMVIM, SEJ? 

We require our leaders to be trained through UMVIM & ERT. This gives them a firm foundation of expectations and quality management that we expect out of them and their teams. It instills in them the true Christian values and attitudes that we expect them and their team members to put forth at all times.

Share a brief story about the impact of volunteers. 

During our South Carolina "1 in 1000-year flood" of October 2015, we quickly became overwhelmed especially across the midlands to the coast. One of the hardest hit areas was the Charleston/Summerville area. I immediately called out to Troy Thomas, who is our Low Country ERT Coordinator (our state is divided in four regions, and we have an ERT Coordinator and two Assistants in each). He already had volunteers out helping people on day one and continued coordinating ERT efforts for three months among various agencies and organizations plus teams coming in to South Carolina from other states. His wife, Renee, was instrumental in helping get teams housed and taken care of. Troy also performed his paid job as an officer with Mount Pleasant Fire Department on the days he was not doing muck outs, and he let his secondary construction business lapse for the three-month period.

Many times we do not see the impact or fruits of our labor, but Troy saw it first hand in a man named Peter. Peter was a big man that was angered that his home was flooded and no one had made it out to help him. He also had very little to do with the church or Christians. He flagged Troy down in the street and told him that he needed help. Troy turned to see Peter's flooded home with water still up to the windows. As soon as the floodwaters subsided Troy was able to send a team of 32 people in to help Peter. Peter began to see the love, care and compassion of Jesus Christ through the ERT volunteers' witness of "Christian Love In Action" including their intensive labor to muck out his home. At the end of the day, they all gathered together in a circle in the street in front of Peter's home to pray. During the prayer, Peter broke down to his knees and with the ERT gathered around him, he gave his life to Jesus Christ!

We even saw volunteers cross state, district and conference lines to help. In the Pee Dee Region (Georgetown to Myrtle Beach) of our state, the ERT Coordinator, Rev. Ken Phelps, was land locked for three days due to roadways and bridges being washed out. So, Rev. George Olive of Surfside Beach helped coordinate ERT efforts and provide assessments along with Ann Huffman and others from North Carolina ERT until Ken could get freed. They continued to assist Ken for months due to the widespread damage. 

On November 29: #GivingTuesday 2016, donations will be matched, dollar for dollar, up to $12,000. Please give generously to Advance #901875.

{#GivingTuesday 2016} Disaster Response

Since The Advance will not be offering any matching funds for Giving Tuesday this year, the UMVIM, SEJ Staff and Board has come together and pledged $12,000 to be used as matching fund. So, on November 29: #GivingTuesday 2016, donations will be matched, dollar for dollar, up to $12,000. We believe our mission is big, and we also believe that we can't send trained, equipped volunteers into the field to show Christian Love in Action without the support of our community. 

This year, learn more from those who have personally experienced the impact of all UMVIM has to offer. We asked Virginia Long-Term Recovery Manager & UMVIM Coordinator Forrest White to share what UMVIM has meant to him:

How do volunteers help you carry out your mission with Virginia Disaster Recovery?

At the end of my e-mails I often include these words: Our challenge is big. But God is bigger! We’re in this together and, best of all, God is with us. It’s true. We are in this together. There is no small part to play on our team. Since Long-Term Recovery began in the Virginia Conference in June, we have seen Christian love in action (1 John 3:18) from the people who occupy the back row of the local church and those who occupy the highest positions in the Conference and every person in between. Who could forget the high school students from North Carolina who wanted to plant flowers in a survivor's yard, a symbol of hope, a reminder of God's love? Who could forget the children of from a Richmond UMC who traveled an hour one way to provide lunch for two work teams and took leftovers to survivors? Who could forget the young at heart folks from a half dozen James River District churches who say they're too old to climb up on a roof but lovingly prepared a feast to feed 100 on a July afternoon? Who could forget Bishop Cho, so close to retirement, scurrying up a ladder to encourage a roofing team, as those on the ground held our breath?                   

What differences do you see in teams whose leaders have been trained by UMVIM, SEJ?

There simply is no comparison. Simply put, trained team leaders see the big picture. They understand that Christian Love in Action doesn't begin when a team walks on the work site and it doesn't end when a team walks off the work site. They understand that it's always about the people first, the project second. They understand the importance of good communication before, during, and after the actual mission experience. On a personal note, I had led about two dozen mission teams before I had the UMVIM TLT in 2007. I was a far more effective leader on the two dozen mission teams I led after the training.

Share a brief story about the impact of volunteers – we really like the one about Miss Patty.

I wish I’d never met Patty Bryant. I told her so, too. We met only because of her great loss. The tornado that ripped through Evergreen, Virginia, on February 24, somewhere around 3:30 p.m., took her home and her greenhouse. But it took so much more. Her daddy died in the storm. They didn’t find his body until after nightfall, three football fields away from where he sat watching an old TV Western as the storm jumped the railroad tracks and engulfed his home.

I asked Ms. Patty how she was doing, five months after her life changed forever. “I’m tired,” she said. “I’ve been trying to keep it together because of mama.” Her mama survived the storm, only because she wasn’t home. She was turning off of Highway 460, only a couple miles away, when the mighty winds uprooted a tree and slammed it into her car. The impact fractured her back. The rescue team cut her free from the wreckage. As for Ms. Patty? She wonders if she would still be alive if she hadn’t left for work about an hour earlier than usual that dark February day, about an hour before the storm hit.                                                     

Hope is rising on the ground the storm swept clean.                                                                        

In the final days of summer, volunteers from two Virginia United Methodist Churches dug the footers on the land where her house once stood. In the first days of fall, volunteers four Greensboro, N.C., churches put the concrete block foundation on the land where her house once stood. And so it has been, one team at a time, one day at a time, and so it will be until we turn the keys to a new house over to Ms. Patty. That day will come because ordinary people stepped up when our extraordinary God called and said, “Here I am, send me.”

On November 29: #GivingTuesday 2016, donations will be matched, dollar for dollar, up to $12,000. Please give generously to Advance #901875.

Invest in Mission Opportunities

"How can I help?"  It's a question that, as Christians, we ask quite often. At UMVIM, SEJ, the answer comes in the form of Mission Opportunities. Your help can be in the form of time, money, learning, and prayers.  Hopefully, the answers below will answer your questions about UMVIM Mission opportunities:

Q: How do I find out about mission projects? A: UMVIM, SEJ maintains the International Mission Opportunity List for the United Methodist Church. Take a look at this list, and you will quickly see how UMVIM teams can answer needs all over the world. When you donate funds, you are helping UMVIM create and provide training resources so that mission teams can work effectively and safely.

Q: What are medical missions? A: Medical-based mission trips - which make up a large percentage of the UMVIM effort - deliver the expertise of doctors, nurses, dentists, and others from the medical field to underserved areas across the globe. If you are a healthcare provider, we encourage you to volunteer your time. Or, if you are not a medical professional, but are concerned about the health of others, please donate.

Q: What about disaster response?  A: Flooding, earthquakes, drought, fires, hurricanes. There will, unfortunately, always be a next disaster. UMVIM, SEJ works with the United Methodist Committee on Relief and Annual Conferences to send volunteer teams to disaster-affected areas. We now have a Disaster Response Liaison on our staff to help communicate the need for volunteers and to connect them to the appropriate response. Contact our Disaster Response Liaison, Gray Miller, to discuss how to best use your resources in disaster response.

Q: What's available for youth and young adults?  A: We have opportunities just for you! Those on our Young People Mission Opportunity List have expertise and experience in providing age-appropriate mission opportunities. UMVIM, SEJ also offers a Summer Internship Programfor a college-aged student. They serve in both domestic and international placements in hopes of discerning a call to mission or ministry. Consider giving to the Internship Program.

Please give generously to Advance #901875 at www.umcmission.org/give, or mail a check to: UMVIM, SEJ, 100 Centerview Drive, Suite 210, Birmingham, AL 35216 We hope that you are moved to give this summer.  Thank you for your continued prayers and generosity! Grace and peace, Paulette S. West Executive Director

A Summertime Stretch for Your UMVIM Dollar

For many of us, midsummer is a time for relaxation, travel, and reflection. Will you take a few minutes to travel with us in your imagination to just two places, and, in these minutes, reflect on your contribution to UMVIM?  First Stop: Belize Belize, on the eastern coast of Central America, is bordered on the north by Mexico, on the south and west by Guatemala, and on the east by the Caribbean Sea. Lisa Williams, who was first engaged in mission work while living in the Kentucky Conference - is now the UMVIM coordinator for Belize. Would you believe that, with your contribution, Lisa - an amazing "mission multi-tasker" - does all of the following? - Gets to know the needs of local communities.These needs are ever-changing. Belize has the lowest population density in Central America, but the country's population growth rate is the second highest in the region. - Places volunteer teams into the types of jobs that best utilize their skills. - Meets with local village children to have Sunday School on Saturday mornings. - Facilitates a weekly women's Bible Study. Lisa's husband, Jamie, is the presbyter of the Corozal Methodist Circuit. He has three churches, and serves as chaplain for two primary schools with more than 700 children in attendance. Before we leave Belize, take a moment to reflect on how many lives there will be touched by your contribution. Second Stop: Florida, USA A popular U.S. vacation state with theme parks and beautiful beaches, Florida is also in the throes of flood recovery. Did you know that 15,000 families in the state registered for federal assistance when floods struck in spring 2014?  "These communities have a good roster of volunteers for the fall, but often struggle during the summer", said Amelia Fletcher, Disaster Response Coordinator for the United Methodist Alabama-West Florida Conference. Part of the reason is the high cost of staying on site, she said. "Unless people stay in a church setting, hotels are very high during the peak vacation season. Even campgrounds charge the most during the summer." Your contribution to UMVIM helps people learn about the “less visible” disaster recoveries happening in Florida and around the world, as well as the need for long- and short-term volunteer teams to assist in disaster response.

UMVIM stretches your dollar by placing teams in local church settings - and training both teams and church leaders to accommodate each other's needs. Take a moment to reflect on the less visible disasters around you. Then consider a contribution to UMVIM to help keep people informed about the needs. You can help keep our teams going, no matter the location or the time of year. Please prayerfully consider a generous donation to Advance #901875, or mail your check to: UMVIM, SEJ, 100 Centerview Drive, Suite 210, Birmingham, AL 35216. Grace and peace, Paulette West UMVIM, SEJ Executive Director

Why We Train Short-Term Mission Team Leaders

Every day, UMVIM helps to expand the work of missionaries across the world. Have you considered being part of a trained UMVIM team, or have you been praying about how to empower our ministry that exists to empower you? Read on to learn more about why we connect and equip the dozens of short-term volunteers who depart each week to serve with UMC missionaries and their vital ministries across the country and the world.

UMVIM Prays and Surrounds Missionaries With God's Love

Before the devastation of the Ebola crisis, missionaries Nancy and Kip Robinson were serving the people of Sierra Leone. Nancy trained pastors, evangelists and lay leaders, while Kip oversaw the numerous building efforts of the Sierra Leone Annual Conference, including wells, schools, and hospitals. Though stateside for the time being, the Robinsons will return to Sierra Leone, where people will need medical professionals, teachers will need salaries, and the children orphaned by Ebola will need families. Can you provide funds to help train team leaders to serve alongside the Robinsons?

UMVIM Teams Help Missionaries With Crucial Repairs and Rebuilds 

In Chile, missionary John Elmore works at the El Vergel Agricultural School, a Methodist boarding school that teaches horticulture and animal husbandry to the local youth. Thanks to UMVIM teams, John will be able to install new heating systems and accomplish general upkeep. Additionally, John is in charge of rebuilding Angol Methodist Church, which was badly damaged in a 2010 earthquake that devastated this beautiful country. Can your church send a team to help repair the school and the church?

UMVIM Helps Missionaries Reach More People 

In Panama, with the assistance of two nurses who shared their knowledge of community-based health, missionary Rhett Thompson was able to implement a curriculum that has trained more than two dozen indigenous Ngabe about key public health practices such as first aid, sanitation, disease prevention and sexual and reproductive health. Many of the graduates from this program, in turn, teach these essential skills in their own communities. What can you share to help keep public health education in Panama moving forward? 

These are just four missionaries who have dedicated their lives to UMC ministries across the world, and we are proud to have UMVIM teams serving alongside them. Want one more suggestion for contributing? Sign up for UMVIM Team Leader Training so that you are ready to go. The needs are there. Please help the ministry of UMVIM and the communities we serve.
  

With your gift to support UMVIM, SEJ, you empower thousands of volunteers and help to transform lives through God's love and grace.   

Please consider generously giving to Advance #901875 by clicking here, or mailing a check to 100 Centerview Drive, Suite 210, Birmingham, AL 35216.

Thank you for the continued prayers and support that keep our ministry strong.

Grace and peace,

Paulette West

Executive Director

Drumroll please....

If you've been following along here on this blog on our social media channels, you know that we mounted a huge year-end giving campaign called #GivingTuesday. We shared the story of our ministry through the words of our volunteers. It was an effort to raise the resources we need to keep our organization going strong, but also to let people know what we do here at UMVIM, SEJ. It was a lot of fun for us, and you responded in a big way...

On #GivingTuesday and all throughout this month, UMVIM, SEJ has received $21,539.94 in gifts, plus $10,150 in matching funds through The Advance.  Other gifts received directly to our office include: $1,870 from local churches. $1,083 from annual conferences. $1,900 from individuals. The total for #GivingTuesday was $31,419.11 (including the matching funds), and that brings the total giving in December to $36,272.11! To all of you who have given to UMVIM SEJ, we are extremely grateful for your support. Thank you for sharing so generously to our ministry as we work to "transform the world through Christian Love in Action." 2015 has a lot of incredible things in store. Our updated and revised Team Leader Handbook will be here in January, the SEJ Disaster Academy is always a wonderful time of learning and fellowship, and Young People in Mission is sure to be the best yet. As always, we look forward to being part of your mission journey; never hesitate to reach out to let us know how we can serve you. Wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas and blessings in the new year, Paulette, Landon, Gray, Leslie, Mandy, and Malinda The Staff of UMVIM, SEJ

{Invest} Volunteers: The Backbone of Vital Ministries

A group of a dozen volunteers had spent four days painting a house in an urban area of Birmingham, Alabama. At the end of their stay, they realized they were not quite finished.
 

"It wasn't necessary that they finish," explained Danny Jones, Director for Volunteer Recruitment at Urban Ministry. "It's not like it wasn't going to get done."

Typically, volunteers on a mission trip work for several days or a week, then the next crew of volunteers takes over the job. But this particular group took extra joy in seeing their project from start to finish. "They got up at 6:30 in the morning on day they were supposed to leave in order to finish that house," said Jones.
 

Volunteering not only helps someone else, it also deepens that person's relationship with God. "I think when folks come and put their hands and feet, and sweat and labor, into their faith, that it just takes on a new meaning and a new perspective," added Jones.

Answering the Call

Volunteer training is an integral part of UMVIM because it is a key way to prepare yourself to answer the call when others are in need. In April of this year, tornadoes struck throughout North Carolina, killing one person and injuring 27 others. More than 327 homes were damaged or destroyed across four counties.
 

For many years, Ann Huffman has coordinated disaster response volunteers for the North Carolina Conference. In the wake of the tornadoes, she marveled at how quickly trained volunteer teams were able to help tornado survivors. "We had an Early Response Team that had just received training about two or three weeks before the tornadoes," she said. "They were responding within their own communities. The timing was absolutely perfect."

From City to Country
Whether volunteers are in the city, at a disaster site, or in a rural setting, they have a tremendous impact on the lives of others.
 

Rebecca Dean, who helps coordinate volunteers for Alabama Rural Ministry, says young people in particular are personally impacted by their own experience as volunteers. "I can honestly say that our ministry would not be possible without the vigor, love or joy that volunteers, especially youth, bring to rural Alabama," she said. "These young people come with such an eagerness to serve and love on families and children whom they have never met."

Did you know December 2nd is this year's National Day of Giving? Click here to learn more about #GivingTuesday, and follow us across our social media channels and blogall month long for our ongoing #GivingTuesday campaign, where we are sharing the story of our ministry through our volunteers. 

Beginning at midnight on December 2, 2014, GBGM is matching the first $1 million in donations made through the Advance, up to $2,500 per donor. Your generous donation will help support our ministry of empowering and equipping volunteers for the short-term mission field.

Words: Susan Kim | Photos: UMVIM, SEJ and ARM

Summer of Service

As the fall season begins, many volunteers are taking time to reflect on their summer of service.

Bill Seib, a resident of Virginia Beach, traveled to the small Alaskan village of Galena with an UMVIM team. He lived in a military-style tent for two weeks while he helped residents rebuild their homes, which were damaged when the Yukon River spilled over its banks last year. Accessible only by airplane, the remoteness of Galena made Seib and the other volunteers – many of them retired construction contractors – think about how sometimes, making do with “less” can result in more time to build one's relationship with God. “The hardest part is being away from your family for two weeks,” said Seib. 

Seib has been on many UMVIM mission trips, and each one has brought vastly different experiences and reflections. “Whatever my summer holds, UMVIM gives me a chance to go out and be a blessing.”

With your gift to support United Methodist Volunteers in Mission, you empower thousands of volunteers and help to transform lives through God’s love and grace.

While some volunteers can reflect on many different mission trips, some young people are just beginning their foray into a world of service with UMVIM. This past summer, mission trips changed the views of many young people – their stance on God, their career path and their philosophy of life.

Glenn Miller, youth pastor at Northside United Methodist Church in Jackson, Mississippi, traveled with a group of 16 youth and young adults to work at the Bahamas Methodist Habitat, a non-profit outreach ministry of the Bahamas Conference of the Methodist Church that focuses on being a catalyst through disaster response and the promotion of community within the Bahamas. Miller strongly encourages the young people around him to take a mission trip before the age of 20, either internationally or to a place within the U.S. that is vastly different from where they live. “Over the years, I have taken kids on mission trips, and many of them now have interesting careers, or they live abroad and they have served other people in great ways. It's cool when they call and thank me for taking them on their first mission trip.”

The voices of youth are full of passion when they reflect on what their UMVIM-related summer activities mean to them. Laura Kigweba was 19 when she first heard about UMVIM. “I sensed then I was seeing an organization that is committed to making change in the world.”

Another young person, Kylie Foley, plans to be doing some kind of mission service for the rest of her life. Yet her mission trips also made her think about her daily life as a Christian. “...I also found out what I want to do for each day, which is to be a Christian. This is perhaps the most overwhelming and simplest realization I’ve ever had in my life, and has overhauled my limited view on what it meant to be involved with missions.”

Photos courtesy of ODIM, Genna Mansperger, Harold Powers, and Susan Kim

For thousands of volunteers, the summer offered an experience that was life-changing, spirit-changing and God-driven. Help even more volunteers embark on that journey of life and spirit by considering a donation to the United Methodist Volunteers in Mission, Southeast Jurisdiction. 

 A donation can be made online through the Advance to #901875 at umcmission.org/give, or by mailing a check to UMVIM, SEJ, 100 Centerview Drive, Suite 210, Birmingham, AL 35216.

We are so grateful for your continued prayers and support, without which this ministry simply wouldn’t be possible.


Grace and peace,

Paulette West
Executive Director
UMVIM, SEJ