United Methodist Special Sunday Offerings

The United Methodist General Conference years ago created six Special Sundays with offerings to help congregations work with communities, rebuild shattered lives, strengthen self-sufficiency, encourage partnerships, nurture Native American ministries, model peace and justice, provide scholarships and loans for United Methodist students, and much more. This year, SUMC will observe all six Sundays. In March we observed One Great Hour of Sharing which goes to UMCOR’s administrative costs, thus allowing 100% of all special emergency relief offerings to go toward the specific disaster relief.

The remaining five offerings are:

Native American Ministries Sunday: nurtures outreach with persons of all ages and provides scholarships for United Methodist Native American seminarians.

Peace with Justice Sunday: helps United Methodist worldwide work  with people to advocate for human rights, buy fair-trade products, care for the environment, demonstrate for a cause, eradicate poverty, feed hungry people, mediate conflict, provide health care, seek affordable housing and model nonviolence.

World Communion Sunday: provides scholarships for U.S. and international racial- and ethnic-minority students, on both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

United Methodist Student Day: provides scholarships and loans for students attending United Methodist-related and other accredited colleges and universities.

Human Relations Day: This day is usually observed in January, but will be observed at a later date this year. The offering helps church-based community developers work in racial- and ethnic-minority communities in the United States and Puerto Rico.

“Serving Christ through our
United Methodist Connectional Giving”
 

Prayer Request for David and Lori Persons

Missionaries – Republic of the Congo David and Lori Persons, with whom SUMC has a convenant missionary support relationship have been experiencing unimaginable problems over the past year. Recently, armed bandits have come to their school and robbed, beaten and tortured a number of the teachers. The problem is made worse because the bandits come at night. For the past year, the area in which they live has been without electricity due to a broken transformer, which for several reasons has not been replaced or successfully repaired. They have gone through much red tape to get a new transformer and expect one in a few months. The local police chief has been replaced, and they now have more protection. There has been an outbreak of typhoid fever due to bad water, so they pump water twice a week with diesel fuel. Somehow, they keep teaching and, as they say, “answering the hundred needs at the door.” David and Lori thank everyone for your continuing prayers and support and ask: “Keep praying!”