News & Stories / Africa

News & Stories

Africa

A pastor and scholar from the DRC studies peacemaking at Africa University with plans to return to the DRC to contribute to conflict resolution in his home region.

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The first Methodist short-term, young adult missionary program began in 1948, sending young adults to serve 3-year assignments in Asian countries devastated during World War II. Today, Global Mission Fellows come from many different countries and serve in placements around the world.
Liberia is combating COVID-19 through both health and food security: the health board received an early solidarity grant from UMCOR for prevention training and the conference received a more recent UMCOR Sheltering in Love grant to provide food packages to the elderly, the physically challenged and at-risk children and youth undergoing rehabilitation at a facility in Monrovia. UMNS shares the story.
Missionaries Umba and Ngoy Kalangwa send a mission update from Morogoro, Tanzania – a reconstructed dispensary that reopens just as COVID-19 starts to spread, members of a sewing workshop who learn to craft hundreds of masks and the first woman to pastor a UMC church in the Morogoro District.
The United Methodist Committee on Relief and other global United Methodists are intervening in the church’s COVID-19 fight in Liberia.
An interview with Hannah S. Mafunda, Health Coordinator, Zimbabwe Episcopal Area Health Board
Emmanuel and Florence Mefor from Nigeria serve as a doctor and midwife at Mutambara Mission Hospital, providing care for more than 140,000 people in the region.
Through their relationship in mission, the North Texas, West Ohio and North Katanga annual conferences celebrate vital upgrades to Lupandilo Hospital in Kamina, DRC.
Early in March the North Katanga Wings of the Morning pilot, Gaston Ntambo Nkulu, was asked to fly a peace mission to the Tanganyika province to facilitate peace negotiations in Nyunzu. George Howard shares the story.
Global Ministries’ coronavirus response is reaching those in need internationally and in the U.S. In addition to grants from the Sheltering in Love UMCOR COVID-19 Response Fund, 32 solidarity grants have been dispersed from UMCOR, Global Health and other program units, totaling about $346,000.

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Have questions? Send us an inquiry and we’ll get back to you promptly. Please direct all media inquiries to Susan Clark, chief communications officer for Global Ministries and UMCOR.

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Six Years, No Solution: A 500-Gallon Tank Carries Hope to West Virginia’s Forgotten

McDowell County is one of the poorest in the U.S., and the communities of Anawalt, Leckie and Gary are some of the hardest hit by the current six-year water crisis. All have Methodist churches that are part of the Welch Charge.

To ease the burden of residents who have to purchase many gallons of drinking water weekly, the Welch Charge contacted the West Virginia Conference Disaster Response Coordinator, Jim McCune, for help. McCune’s United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) connection put him in touch with Global Ministries’ Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) program. 

A WASH grant allowed them to obtain a 500-gallon “water buffalo.” The conference disaster response team arranged to fill the portable water buffalo from the Welch water system, the county seat of McDowell, and transport it to Gary, where residents have been supplied with refillable containers. Residents of all three towns can come to get water, and volunteers will also continue deliveries for those who need it. Meanwhile, residents, including church members, continue to advocate state and local officials for a permanent solution to their aging, compromised water infrastructure. Full Story