Fundraising Goal reached!

Our Bunko event was a great success! We raised $900 thanks to many generous donations and lots of players. Fun was had by all and we're ready to roll again next year. Biggest winner of the night was Maggie Wilkinson and biggest loser went to Jack Moffett. Who incidentally rolled the first Bunko of the night - on his first roll! We appreciate your continued prayers over the next two months as we continue to work on our ministry, education and construction projects. I can't believe we only have 7 weeks left to go. I'm so relieved that thanks to many private donations from friends and family members of the team, we filled in the gaps where we were lacking in our monthly goals over the past 6 months. Time has gone so fast. I am so looking forward to seeing my team working together and experiencing life in San Jose. God is good.

Bunko!

Our April FUNdraiser is coming soon! If you are in town - join us for this fast paced dice game. Saturday, April 25th. Doors open at 6:30, Games begin at 7:00 p.m. $15.00 donation with a reservation, $20.00 at the door. If you are interested in donating a prize for the chinese auction or need to get your reservation in, let me know! Alenhardt@hotmail.com

We are just $1,700.00 shy of our $5,000 goal. Please help us, help others. Funds help buy supplies needed for our community projects, bibles, and education materials.

Keep the UPMC medical team in your prayers - they left today. Have a great day!!

March 09

Our special offering was a wonderful surprise. We collected $535.00! With our economy as it is, I was worried about our only fundraiser not bringing in much. I am so thankful. Hurst did a great job putting a video together and Susie, Sandy, Mike, Bo, Hurst and I shared information about our objectives and explained our reasons for choosing water quality as a theme. You can see a copy of it at our tangle.com site. Our next FUNdraiser is Bunko - so we are working on collecting prizes for the chinese auction. Keep praying for the mission, just three months to go!

February FUNdraiser

We have great all-occassion note cards featuring the beauty of San Jose. 3 different sets of 8 each. "San Jose Flora and Fauna", "San Jose Scenes" and "San Jose Neighbors". Make a donation in honor of a loved one and send them a note telling you did with these great cards - great for Mother's Day, Father's Day, Birthdays, Anniversaries, Sympathy, Get Well, Thank Yous, or just to say - I'm thinking of you. They are beautiful and feature photos taken by members of the mission team. Go to www.sewickleyumc.org for the church's contact information. Thanks for checking out our blog! Peace!

January 2009 - I'm energized!

It's a new year, with a new president. I'm feeling encouraged by President Obama's call to service for the nation. It's a great start to his term and I am praying for his success improving our nation and the world it effects.

Our fundraising is well underway. In December, we had a wonderful response to our Singing Christmas Cards (like a Caroling Telegram). Thanks to the leadership of Susie Moffett and the support of our team and congregation, we raised $750 of our $1,000 goal. Our January fundraiser is to purchase bibles and so far we have raised enough for 70 of our 200 goal. It is such an amazing gift to give a bible. Lifechanging. For most, they do not own a single book and if they are going to have just one book in their house, we want it to be a bible. Something that can sustain the entire family for generations to come. I'm also feeling encouraged by the efforts of one of our team members, John, who emailed 170 of his friends about our bibles sales and he's has some response. It's great that this mission reaches beyond the walls of our church.

We got great coverage about our mission in the local paper and are planning for our next Fundraiser in February - an alternate gift giving campaign. We're making note cards out of our photographs from past trips to San Jose. We're asking people to make a donation in honor of a loved one, in leiu of or in addition to, candy and flowers for Valentine's Day.

There is still loads of planning to do and June will be here before we know it. There's snow on the ground here and I'm trying to think of the tropics. Team members have their passports in order and are getting immunized....we're planning our education plans, our bible study, our Sunday School classes and our music. We are also looking forward to some spanish lessons taught by a special friend this Spring. Keep praying for us! Have a great day everyone.

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.