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STORIES OF IMPACT WORLDWIDE

Children and youth from Terra Nova village in Quéssua, Angola, join in an effort to combat malaria by filling in low-lying areas that collect water where mosquitoes can breed. The campaign was led by Ben Jacob, a professor from the University of South Florida, who served with a Volunteers in Mission team from the Florida Conference of The United Methodist Church.

Photo: Mike DuBose, UM News

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No longer having to source water from contaminated rivers, streams and wells, four villages draw clean potable water through newly built water towers with pump and wash stations.
Within 20 years, missionary pastor Juarez Goncalves has coordinated the planting of seven United Methodist churches in the United States, centered in New England where he serves multiethnic communities.
The situation of Palestinians in the Israeli-governed Holy Land is significantly worse today than it was a decade ago, according to an international delegation of Methodist leaders who just completed a five-day visit marking the 10th anniversary of the Jerusalem-based Methodist Liaison Office (MLO).
Watch the highlights from the commissioning service of Amanda Kirkscey, Trisha Manns, Olga Gonzalez Santiago and Arabia Sweet.
27 farm and technical operatives of the Bishop John K. Yambasu Agricultural Initiative (YAI) from Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nigeria and Zimbabwe are learning agricultural entrepreneurship skills at a two-week training at Songhai Center – a research, teaching and production center in sustainable farming in Port Novo, Benin.  

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As the war in Ukraine escalates, UMCOR engages with more partners inside and outside Ukraine to care for war-weary people whose lives have been disrupted and overburdened with loss. Since July, more than $14 million in new grants have been approved to continue United Methodist war relief through UMCOR.
Conference Disaster Response teams from the Florida and North Carolina annual conferences explore the benefits of mobile solar-powered generators while responding in real time to power needs in Florida after Hurricane Ian.
Hurricane Ian, whose maximum sustained winds of 150 mph tied it as the fifth-strongest hurricane on record to strike the United States, made landfall in Florida on Sept. 28, 2022.
Encounter with Christ awards 14 grants to 12 partners in support of mission within marginalized communities.
In 1960, Ruth Johnson Colvin decided to volunteer her time to do something about the high rate of functional illiteracy in Syracuse, where she lived. Sixty-two years later, the nonprofit she founded and the methods she designed to teach literacy have spread across the United States and into 26 developing countries around the world.

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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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Susan Clark, Chief Communications Officer
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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