Conference Offering

 Bishop Joe E. Pennel Jr. has announced the following project designations for the 2004 Virginia Annual Conference offering. The goal is to raise $300,000 for global and Virginia projects. Please begin to interpret these needs to members of your church.

GLOBAL PROJECTS

Mozambique: Women's Training Center ($100,000)

In Mozambique, Africa, the women of the Bungani District near Xai Xai are jobless, live in extreme poverty, are unskilled, illiterate, and in poor health due to a lack of basic nutrition and health information. These women are also devalued in their culture.Two United Methodist conferences are determined to introduce hope into such a hopeless situation. Following the mandate of the gospel and turning an abstract concept like hope into a tangible reality, the Virginia Conference is in partnership with the Mozambique Conference to build a women's center on the Bungani District. This center will be a place where women and children can receive basic health and nutritional care, receive training in basic life skills, obtain educational assistance, and learn marketable job skills. Through Initiatives of Hope, we will build a women's training center adjacent to the recently completed Janene and Joe E. Pennel Primary School, near the Tinga Tinga United Methodist Church. Your generous financial support will bring hope to the women and children of the Bungani District.

Russia: Ministry to Orphans ($50,000)

A child who has no family, no future and no place to go is a child without hope. Such is the plight of over a million orphans in Russia who are sent to live in over-crowded and under-funded state orphanages, shelters and boarding schools. Only 10% of these children are orphans in the sense of having no living parents. The majority are considered "social orphans" because they have handicapping conditions, have been abused, or abandoned by families unable to provide for their care due to poverty, crime, drug abuse or alcoholism. These orphans face a bleak future. When released from the orphanage at age 18 or younger, most are not prepared for adult life. They return to life on the street, with a great many committing suicide. Russia's orphaned population is a seriously neglected social problem with dire consequences for the next generation. The Annual Conference offering will provide funds to empower the church of Pyatigorsk and Stavropol to offer a ministry of hope to orphans in the institutions in their respective communities. These funds will assist the orphanages to upgrade their nutritional program, provide medical supplies and purchase much needed equipment. This ministry will interface with other Virginia United Methodist mission work in orphanages and boarding schools. A director at one of the orphanages has a vision "to make the students feel less that they are a state government institution but more like a family." These orphaned children, for whom family does not exist, will be blessed by your friendship, caring and concern offered in Christian love. 

Uganda: Medical Clinic ($50,000)

Uganda is an African nation where over half of the population is under 15 years of age. There, nearly half the people have no access to clean water, adequate food or health care services. HIV/AIDS and malaria are the leading causes of death. Uganda is a country with a literacy rate of 60 percent and an average income of less than one dollar per day. Over 800,000 people have died from AIDS, contributing to an orphan population of 1.4 million. These children are living in large extended families, heading households of their younger siblings, or living on the streets. In response to this crisis, HUMBLE (Helping Uganda Mwana [kids] By Loving Example) Place, in the village of Lukojjo, Uganda, is a truly Wesleyan witness to the love and grace of Jesus Christ in the world. Modeled after the holistic ministry of Jesus, HUMBLE Place now ministers to the minds of the children as Phase 1 of the school opened on February 3, 2004. The souls of the children and adults of the Lukojjo community are nourished through Loving Example UMC, birthed on HUMBLE Place site. The remaining challenge is to now minister to the whole community through the HUMBLE Place Medical Clinic. An amount of $50,000 is needed to build the clinic so that when enrollment is full, 300 Humble Place children and thousands from the larger community will receive both education and much needed medical care. When fully operational, the clinic will provide many services now so desperately lacking: awareness training for HIV/AIDS prevention, reatment for common injuries and ailments such as malaria, diarrhea, and dysentery, immunizations against childhood diseases, prenatal and antenatal care to women and infants who rarely see a doctor more than twice before giving birth, usually in their home, and nutritional counseling. Through your support this great need can be addressed. Your generosity to HUMBLE Place Clinic can provide basic medical care, but more importantly, hope for the people of Uganda. 

VIRGINIA PROJECTS $100,000

How exciting it is that we are answering God's call to be in ministry with all God's children! A portion of the Annual Conference offering will continue to offer children whose mothers are incarcerated the opportunity to attend camp this summer. These United Methodist camps provided through the Children's Initiative have reached hundreds of children within our conference.

But this year's offering will also allow us to reach out to be in ministry with Hispanic children and their families in a new and intentional way. It is easy to ignore populations of persons who are not like us. But the following demographics remind us of a changing culture all around us: According to the Census Bureau, persons of Hispanic heritage made up 13.3 percent of the US population. In Virginia, the Hispanic population in 2002 was 5 percent of the Commonwealth's population. The Hispanic/Latino population in Virginia grew 105.6 percent from 1990 to 2000 with an estimated 330,000 persons of Hispanic heritage living in the Commonwealth. By 2002, Latinos numbered 336,000 in Virginia, some 5 percent of the population. It is projected that by 2007, the percentage will be 5.6 percent with Latinos numbering over 400,000. Thirty five percent of Hispanics/Latinos were under age 18 in 2002. Thirty three percent were between the ages of 25 and 44. Two-thirds of the Hispanic/Latino population is under age 45. A report in USA Today stated, "...although Latinos are leaving their traditional Catholicism and joining other churches, the fastest growing religion of a large portion of this population is 'no religion at all'." According to United Methodist News Service 40 percent of Latinos are non-churched or have no affiliation. A portion of your offering will be used to assist in the development of ministries and faith communities with the Hispanic population. Currently there are more than 24 ministries within local congregations and districts which are reaching out to the Latino population. Your gift will make many more ministries possible. It will provide opportunities for Latino children and youth to participate in conference and district youth events and camps. It will provide leadership development for Latino church members and outreach opportunities to reach the unchurched.

The 2004 Annual Conference will witness the ordination of three Hispanic clergy persons who are serving Spanish speaking congregations. This is a first! Your contributions can enable more such celebrations in the future.