Spring Appeal Letter from Global Ministries

Click here to learn how to give a gift to the Global Ministries Spring Appeal by check or click below to give online.

Dear Friends:

Do you love me?  Do you love me?  Do you love me, Peter?  That triple question is reminiscent of Peter’s “triple denial” after the arrest of Jesus.  The question comes to us, too.  How do we love Jesus?  What did Jesus say?  Feed my lambs . . . tend my sheep . . . feed my sheep.” 

As the Co-Executives of your Global Ministries, we are privileged to know well the many global church and program partners that embody Jesus’ love through their ministries.  We are honored to walk with the very creative Asian Rural Institute (ARI) in Japan, where people from developing countries all over the world come to live and study for nine months to learn inexpensive, sustainable agricultural practices.  We met a young man there from Indonesia, Gede Suarna, who reported to the other students his plans for teaching people in his community back home what he learned at ARI.  All students, teachers, and staff at ARI take a turn at growing (and cooking) about 98 percent of what they eat during the nine-month school term as a way of learning small scale agriculture and livestock management.  For example, they grow all their own rice in rice paddies which also serve, when flooded, as duck ponds and fish farms.  The fish eat the insects and weeds so that’s good for the rice; and the ducks fertilize the field which makes for more rice. 

Global Ministries relies on resources from its crucial denominational offerings — Our Church’s Wider Mission and One Great Hour of Sharing (UCC), Disciples Mission Fund and Week of Compassion (Disciple), as well as YOUR individual support in the work of Jesus’ love of partners such as those in China who have dug more than 70 wells in rural villages which had no safe, clean drinking water.  Giving a cup of water to someone who is thirsty may be charity, but it also is a life-saving GIFT.  Having a well in a village in China, or in Kenya, or Mozambique, where Global Ministries also has worked on water projects, means not only less illness, but also that more girls are in school and more women have time for other activities since they don’t have to spend so much of their day carrying water long distances.  Moreover, with water becoming a “commodity” for profit, with water rights being denied to people who have for generations used certain streams and other sources of water, justice education and advocacy become crucial in order for people to have access to drinking water and water to irrigate their crops.  Likewise, in Haiti Global Ministries has logically been immersed in the past months in accompanying our partners CONASPEH and House of Hope, not only to provide immediate aid and pastoral care, but also to analyze and advocate with them on the justice issues that have arisen once again since the earthquake.  Global Ministries works energetically with global partners to work on these and other moral and social issues faced around the world.

How do we love Jesus?  Feeding and caring for those whom God loves – that’s how we love Jesus.    We invite you to join with us in support of the Critical Presence of the United Church of Christ and Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) around the world through your special financial gifts to Global Ministries. Thank you, for all that you do to show your love for Jesus!

Blessings, 

Cally Rogers-Witte	David Vargas
Executive Minister, Wider Church Ministries    Co-Executive, Global Ministries	President, Division of Overseas Ministries    Co-Executive, Global Ministries

Click here to give a gift to the Global Ministries Spring Appeal by check or click the box below to give online.  We welcome general gifts that will be used for where they are needed most, or you may designate your gift.  If giving online, you may give a general gift by selecting “Global Ministries Spring Appeal 2010” or by typing the information in the Comments box.  If paying by check, please include your designation with your check. 

We also would like to know what congregation with which you are affiliated.  Please include that information with your check or, if giving online by typing it into the Comments box as well.  If you would like to set up a recurring gift via credit card or electronic funds transfer, please contact gifts@dom.disciples.org – any questions regarding the Global Ministries Spring Appeal may be sent there too.  Thank you!