Team Assembled - FUNdraising begins

I am praising God for calling 12 talented individuals to our team. We have met a couple of times and will meet just 6 more times to discuss our mission. In between our meetings, we will see a lot of each other when we work on our FUNdraising efforts. Our projects have been zeroed in on. In addition to our ministry work, our focus is on water quality. We have asked the health committee in San Jose for recommendations on how we can help them. They have identified issues with the facilities at their community center and asked for some help with other community projects that are in need of repair. A wall securing the school is broken and they desire some painting to be done at the school. We will also be organizing some education on basic hygiene for the school, focusing on ways to prevent contamination of their drinking water and a community clean up. One of the negative effects of our culture on them is the pre-packaged snack foods. There is no waste management for their community, so the introduction to inexpensive unhealthy snacks is having a adverse effect on their health in multiple ways. Trash is a water quality issue, the plastic (baked and broken down by the sun) leaches chemicals into the ground water and effects their watershed. So, we are going to designate one afternoon to collecting and burning the trash that has been left behind by the packaging.

Our FUNdraising is underway to help purchase the much needed supplies. Our overall goal is $5,000 ($1,000/month). December we begin with Singing Christmas Card (like Caroling Telegram), January we will be collecting money to buy bibles in Spanish, February will be an Alternate Gift Giving campaign, March will be a special offering day and April will be Bunko.

Feel free to contact the church at 412-741-9340 for more information on how you can help.

Mission 2009 - Sweet Water for San Jose

I am thrilled to announce that the Sewickley United Methodist Church council just approved our first official UMVIM (United Methodist Volunteers in Mission) mission trip. We will be assembling a team for June 19-28, 2009 to return to San Jose! Our focus will be on water quality. Sweet Water is what the Native Americans named our town - Modern day, Sewickley. Looking forward to more blogs by future team members.