Let us therefore bear fruit as we should!

Let our fate be not that of the barren fig tree;

let Jesus not come again today

to curse it for its barrenness!

May we all say: "As for me,

like a green olive tree in the house of God."

An olive tree that is not material

but spiritual, a bearer of light.

Phil Harrington,Global Mission Action Team Chair

Peace with Justice Sunday - May 18, 2008

Peace with Justice Sunday was established by the 1988 General Conference as the first Sunday after Pentecost.  Pentecost celebrates the outpouring of the Holy Spirit calling for God's shalom.  Peace with Justice witnesses to God's demand for a faithful, just, disarmed, and secure world.  Half of the this Special Sunday offering is used for Peace with Justice Ministries in our Conference, and the other half is used for Peace with Justice Ministries related to the General Board of Church and Society.

Worship resources are available at www.umcgiving.org/content/sundays/PWJS_nav/peace.asp

"What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God?" -- Micah 6:8b, NRSV

Please give generously.

UMCOR is striving to promote peace in Jerusalem through the Violence Prevention Plan for Schools, operated by the Jerusalem International YMCA. The Violence Prevention Plan helps to strengthen the school environment for children of Christian and Muslim faiths as well as teachers and staff. The students learn how to express their fears or concerns, engage in conflict resolution, and work together in teams. They practice getting along through a variety of interactive group activities that foster positive communication and listening skills. The program increases awareness on issues such as security and interfaith acceptance and teaches non-violent alternatives in handling conflicts.

Your gifts to UMCOR Advance #601740, Middle East Emergency, can help children of all faiths identify with one another and promote healthier and safer school environments.

World Fair Trade Day is celebrated in 70 some countries on and around the second Saturday of May every year. While promoting justice in trade by committing to pay a living wage to marginalized communities, Fair Trade also encourages partner producers to invest in environmentally friendly production.

Equal Exchange is a partner of UMCOR in Fair Trade products and development. It reaches out, for example, to Farmers' Hands in Guatemala, through which seven cooperatives of over 1000 small coffee farmers can sell their coffee at a fair price. In the cover story for the March-April 2007 Cooperative Business Journal, Equal Exchange co-founder Rink Dickinson told the CBJ reporter, "We've grown (our faith-based following) through partnerships with groups like Lutheran World Relief and United Methodist Committee on Relief that are based on shared principals."

What can you do?

§         Support the UMCOR Coffee Project by serving fairly traded coffee and tea at church events and after worship.

§         Offer gift baskets of fairly traded products for new members, as Christmas presents, or on other occasions.

§         Discuss Fair Trade issues in church school and study groups.

§         Make fairly traded products available to members for use at home and work.

§         Provide local businesses with information about offering fairly traded coffee from Equal Exchange.

§         Learn more how Fair Trade impacts the people who grow the products. For more information, visit www.wftday.org and http://new.gbgm-umc.org/umcor/work/hunger/fair-trade.

§         Give to World Hunger and Poverty, which helps build up programs such as Fair Trade: UMCOR Advance #982920.

Under the banner "Embracing Neighbors", Methodists from the US and Mexico gathered in El Paso, TX Feb 8-10 to discuss how to provide assistance and resources to migrants along both sides of the border.

While cooperative work between U.S.-Mexican border conferences is not new, it has taken on new urgency as the United States has slowed the flow of undocumented people moving north from Mexico and Central America into the United States. Those who do cross are often in dire need of human necessities. More and more people are being stranded along the southern border, and increasing numbers are being jailed or deported by the United States with no resources to return to their places of origin.

The Methodist Church of Mexico resolved to establish centers and church networks to provide assistance and resources to migrants along both sides of the border. In addition, the church will develop and distribute educational materials to inform the public about dangers that lie ahead for migrants on their journey into the United States. 

Bill Mefford, director of civil and human rights for the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society, called for UM members to advocate for comprehensive immigration reform at the local, state, and federal levels, as well as "within our churches."

Comprehensive immigration reform, he said, would create a pathway to citizenship for all undocumented migrants; create a legal, orderly way for migrants to work for short periods of time in the United States; and eliminate the backlog of cases in which families are waiting to reunify because of migration, detainment, or deportation.

Lynn Magnuson, Conference Coordinator, Immigration & Refugee Ministries

How do you restore peace in a conflict situation?  In the year 2000, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1325 which recognizes the importance of involving women in peacekeeping and peace building.

We know that peace with justice is more than the absence of conflict.  Resolution 1325 calls on the United Nations to increase the participation of women in decision making and peace processes, to ensure the protection of women and girls and to include a gender perspective in the training of peacekeepers. 

Women are not often involved in the decision making process that results in armed conflict.  However, when it does come they not only suffer hardship and displacement, they are also targeted for rape and forced pregnancies as deliberate instruments of war.

Resolution 1325 calls on member countries to develop action plans on women, peace, and security.  The specifics of each plan will be different, but each country needs to look for ways to bring women into decision making regarding reducing gender based violence.  Countries at peace can focus on problems such as domestic violence and human trafficking.  In areas of conflict, the following take priority: management of refugee camps; help for the internally displaced; gender sensitivity; and HIV/AIDS awareness training for peace keepers. 

United Nations Development Fund For Women (UNIFEM) has information on the impact of conflict on women and their role in peace building in over 30 countries at www.WomenWarPeace.org.  There is also information on a campaign underway at www.saynotoviolence.org.  Through our support of the United Nations we can contribute to this work.

Ann Eachus, Board of Church & Society member/UMW Mission Coordinator for Social Action

Once the domain of United Methodist Women (UMW), the annual Cooperative School of Christian Mission (CSOCM) is now sponsored jointly by the Conference and UMW. This means the event is for YOU - lay, clergy, men, women, youth, children! What an outstanding opportunity to take two comprehensive studies out of the following three areas: 

Spiritual Growth - I Believe in Jesus (all School study), led by Dr. Ronald Hines.

Social Issues - Giving Our Hearts Away: Native American Survival (elective), led by

Barry Moffett, JaNet Crouse, and Alicia Coleman-Clark.

Geographic Focus - Israel/Palestine (elective), led by Paul Graves and Mark Wendle.

The following study books and supplemental materials are available from the Mission Resource Center. Place your order now by visiting www.missionresroucecenter.org/wdstore or calling 1-800-305-9857.

I Believe in Jesus - Stock #M3023; $7.00

Creo de Jesus (Spanish) - Stock #M3026; $7.00

I Believe in Jesus (Korean) - Stock #M3027; $7.00

Israel-Palestine - Stock #M3006; $8.50

Giving Our Hearts Away (adult study) - Stock #M3015; $10.00

Walking in These White Man Shoes (youth study) - Stock #M3022; $8.00

Creator Sang a Welcoming Song (children) - Stock #M3021; $8.00

North American Indian Reference Map - Stock #M3024; $12.00

Beyond the learning and inspiration, you'll enjoy: an informal atmosphere; fun and fellowship; browsing the displays; making purchases in the book room; and gleaning creative ideas for your church.

There will be only one school this year, at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, June 11-14. The brochure/registration form has been mailed to pastors and UMW officers, and is also available online at www.pnwumc.org/missions. IF you register before June 20, you will save! 

Scholarships are open to everyone, available through conference, district, and local UMW units. More information is included in the brochure.

CSOCM events are just too good to miss. Come-and invite your youth and others so they can also experience the 2008 Conference School of Christian Mission.

Janet Wolfer, Dean

Eunice Arias & Luis Aramayo need our prayers as they lost their 21-year-old son to a massive aneurism on March 13, 2008. Their visit to Olympia: First UMC, which has a Covenant Relationship with them, had to be postponed. Eunice (a native of Uruguay) and Luis (a native of Bolivia) are working together with the "Iglesia Evangelica Nacional Metodista Primitiva de Guatemala," an autonomous indigenous church serving in poor rural communities, predominantly in the highland area.

Note:  If you'd like to begin a Covenant Relationship with Eunice and Luis, contact Noriko Lao (norikolao@cs.com) so that you can be included in their future itineration schedule.

Larry & Jane Kies are hoping to visit their Covenant churches, Vancouver: First UMC, Bellevue: Aldersgate UMC, and Satsop UMC in mid July. They are assigned to Africa University in Zimbabwe.

Jeff & Ellen Hoover, serving in the Democratic Republic of Congo, have a tentative plan to visit our Conference at the beginning of August.

Devi Bhujel, serving in Nepal, is beginning to make his itineration plan. He may visit us this summer or fall. Stay tuned!

Note: Let your District Mission Secretary know if you are interested in inviting either Jeff & Ellen or Devi.

David Persons celebrated his birthday on March 22^nd.  His reflection on this special day is posted at the Conference Mission Website (see Quick Links). David and his wife Lorene, assigned to the Democratic Republic of Congo, visited our Conference this January and are still itinerating around the U.S.

Carol Ann Seckel was installed on January 6, 2008 as Coordinator of International Ministries in Germany.  Most of the 20 international congregations in Germany are English-speaking, but she will be also working with some migrant congregations that speak African or Asian languages. Her husband, Kevin Seckel is working to establish an English-speaking congregation in Frankfurt area. The Seckel's Lenten letter is also posted at the Conference Mission Website.

The BackPack program starts with hungry children, and there is no shortage of kids who could use a helping hand, here in Klickitat County. In Goldendale alone, 22% of families live below poverty level.  That is 14 percentage points over the state average. Of that percentage, 32% are under the age of 18; another 39% are under the age of five. Many of these children, for various reasons, are not getting the nutrition they need when not at school.

This is how the Backpack Program works: The program director gets a call from the school each Wednesday telling how many kids need a backpack. That information is relayed to the Goldendale UMC, in charge of purchasing, storing, packaging and delivering the food. The bags, with the kids' names on them, are divided up for each teacher before taking to the school. They are then directly transferred into each child's own backpack-one which has been previously given.

Feedback from teachers indicate the children "are thrilled to have a bag full of nutritious snacks and meals. It takes some stress out of their lives." One teacher stated that although she can't verify the effect of better nutrition in grade point averages, there is another telling number that suggests that the program is working. She has noticed that attendance is better, especially on those days.

Because some of the children live in homes without electricity, and for a variety of other reasons, we focus on food items that take little or no preparation, are nutritious, and provide a balance of food requirements.

Hopefully, this program will be implemented in the other school districts within Klickitat County in the 2008-2009 school year.

Linda Hay, Goldendale UMC

Tying the story of the widow's mite (Mark 12:41-44) to Nothing But Nets in a Sunday sermon and seeing the abundant offering nearly knocked my socks off. The sermon reminded people that small gifts like the widow's mite can do far more than their original intent. In the story of the widow's mite, Jesus is casting a figurative net over us -- a net protecting us from the deaths of worry, selfishness, and hoarding. Through Nothing But Nets we have an opportunity to give, if even only $10, and in doing so we can participate with God in casting another net which will literally save others' lives. Ten dollars provides an insecticide-treated mosquito bed net, its delivery to Africa, education as to its proper use, and follow-up evaluation! The widow's mite saves us. Our $10 saves another. To date $2,650 for Nothing But Nets has come in response to this sermon alone!  United Methodists are most generous when a need is shared.

Roger Barr, Pastor, Kennewick First UMC

(Editor's Note:  April 25 is Africa Malaria Day -- a day to remember the one million people who are killed each year by this preventable disease. Send your gifts, earmarked for Nothing But Nets, Advance #982015, or Community-Based Malaria Control, Advance #982009 through the Conference Treasurer.)

How are you engaging in mission?  Have you had an invaluable UMVIM or NOMAD experience lately?  Do you have openings on your UMVIM team that other church members can join?  How do you get youth and children involved in mission?  Does your church have a great community outreach program -- a food bank, after-school program, etc.?  What joys does the Covenant Relationship with a missionary bring to your congregation?  Do you have exciting and enjoyable ways to raise funds for mission?

Please share your mission stories with the readers of H.A.I.L.  Send your article of about 250 words in length to the editor at norikolao@cs.com.  Send the picture (in JPEG format) separately.  H.A.I.L. is published as needed, that is, whenever there is enough news.  So, there is no specific deadline, except for timed materials.  To keep the H.A.I.L. going, please send in your article.