Global Ministries

China Outreach Ministries

http://www.chinaoutreach.org

Today some 80,000 Mainland Chinese graduate students and scholars study or do research in the United States and Canada. They are China's future leaders and will greatly affect China's culture and future. China Outreach Ministries is a Christian mission organization based at universities and colleges across the country which offers Christ to these future leaders by:

• Showing them the love of Christ in practical ways---helping them find housing, assisting with transportation, teaching them English...
  
• Leading them to faith in Christ.
  
• Discipling, training and mentoring them in Christian faith.
  
• Equipping them to minister creatively to other Chinese people

When they return to China, the way they run their businesses will be impacted by their faith in Christ. Professors and heads of departments will return to China as Christians, and what they teach and the way they lead will be impacted by their faith in Christ. Sharing the love and truth of Christ with top people from China - medical researchers, professors, government leaders, deans of universities, future CEOs--- is highly strategic and significant.

Liberty Grove supports the China Outreach Ministries in a number of ways:

• We provide financial support through an annual pledge that helps support the ministry at the University of Maryland.
  
• We have sponsored picnics and other social events for the Chinese students at the University.
  
• We provided financial support for missionaries to travel to China last year to teach theology at a Chinese University.
  
• We host Chinese students from Univ of West Virginia every year during Spring Break as they explore Washington DC.

For more information on COM, contact Susan Brunsell.

Compassion International

http://www.compassion.com/default.htm

Compassion International offers numerous ways for you to sponsor a child in need. Your financial donation connects you with a child in a loving relationship that will change his or her life -- and yours! A Compassion sponsor is someone like you who has made the decision to personally invest in the life of a child in need. As a Compassion sponsor, you enable your sponsored child to participate in a church-based program that offers life-changing benefits including help with education, health care, social skills development, and Christian training.

Currently Compassion works in four areas, including Africa, Central America and the Caribbean, South America, and Asia.

As a Compassion sponsor, you'll discover Compassion's distinctive values. Their focus is on child development, targeting the needs of individual children first. They work exclusively through local churches and Christian fellowships. They want sponsored children to view the benefits of Compassion sponsorship as an expression of God's love for them. They also want to equip the Body of Christ in the countries where they work with effective child development ministries so that church leaders and members around the world can become effective child advocates in their communities. One of the goals of Compassion Intl is child discipleship. They believe the most loving thing they can do for children is to introduce them to Jesus Christ. Their goal, then, is to take a child from the brink of survival to abundant life as a disciple of Jesus Christ. 82% of all donations goes directly into child-funded programs.

The Liberty Grove UMC UMYF has sponsored Diego Antonio Lopez, a child from El Salvador, since 1999.  Diego, who was born in 1995, continues to correspond with members of our youth group several times each year, updating us on his activities, his schooling, and his family – just as we share pictures and stories from Burtonsville with him! Liberty Grove UMC has held ‘Compassion Sunday’ annually for the past 3 years, and individuals and families have stepped forward to sponsor more than 70 children from around the world.

Contact David Lewis for more information on how you can become a sponsor to a child who is waiting for your love.

Haiti and Heartline Ministries

http://heartlineministries.com

Heartline Ministries is a non-profit Chrisitian organization that has worked in Haiti since 1989. Upon arrival in Haiti, John and Beth McHoul, Heartline’s founders established a children’s home they named Maranatha that has helped place over 250 children into new families via adoption. The McHouls consider it their honor and responsibility to treat the people of Haiti as God would have them treated. Thus instead of keeping dozens of children at the home, they take in only the number they can fully and completely care for. Each baby or toddler is teamed with a nanny at a ratio of one nanny to every 2 children, and is parented by that nanny for as long as the child is in the home. Her job is to bond with the child, give them what they need to grow and prosper, and to prepare them for a family. The nannies, who are all Haitian women, are treated as professionals and given vocational training in subjects such as CPR, nutrition, child development, and general health care, in addition to their salaries.

Heartline is expanding their ministry in several directions. They have launched a Women’s Program which targets single mothers, focusing on giving them the spiritual, life, and vocational skills necessary to be independent and to support their children. They have also started an “English Camp” which is a weekly summer camp experience for Haitian children which has a biblically based curriculum but also teaches English. In addition they are looking in to purchasing an additional home where visitors, volunteers, missionaries and adoptive families can stay while in Haiti.

Liberty Grove has sent mission teams and volunteers to Haiti for the past 2 years, and continues to seek interested volunteers.

For more information on Haiti missions or Heartline Ministries, contact Susan Brunsell.

Honduras Mission

Liberty Grove has sent mission teams to Colonial La Ceibita, Honduras, since 2003, sending medical, Vacation Bible School, and construction teams. The town has been rebuilt after the devastating Hurricane Mitch in 1998. The children of the town receive one meal a day, chosen by the Ministry of Health as the most malnourished. Over 200 children are fed per day, and Liberty Grove provides several months of support to the nutrition program annually. Children attend school but must purchase their own uniforms, and Liberty Grove provides funds for some of those uniforms. For more information on this year’s mission trip, contact Tom Ulrich.

KiDsNMission

KiDs is the student-led Kids in Dicipleship program at LGUMC.  We are mission partners and serve God by serving His children around the World.  Each year KiDs select a mission site to work with.  Then we send money and participate in service projects that help the children at that mission.  KiDs can participate with their time, their talents, their money, their support and their prayers.  The KiDs have recently supported Paul Dematatis in his mission to India, and also the children of Haiti by buying and filling backpacks for students at the school there.  For more information, contact Ann Dudley or Janet Shaw.

Ministries in Missionary Support

LGUMC supports Suzanne Porter who is in Liberia, revitalizing the Ganta Medical Complex in Ganta.

The hospital currently lies in ruins, shot up and looted by government and rebel forces. It is part of a larger mission facility that includes primary and secondary schools, a demonstration farm, vocational training facilities, and a leprosy and tuberculosis rehabilitation unit. Most of the buildings were badly damaged in July 2003. The hospital had been treating casualties of the war without charge.

Find out about Suzanne Porter.

Find more about this and other missions supported by the Baltimore-Washington Conference.

Opportunity International

www.opportunityinternational.org

Liberty Grove United Methodist Church continues to support Opportunity International, a microfinance organization dedicated to serving the poor and spreading the word of Jesus Christ our Savior. Since 2004, LGUMC has been providing resources to assist Opportunity International change lives of those living in poverty.

Who is Opportunity International?

• The Opportunity Mission is to provide opportunities for people in chronic poverty to improve their lives.

• The Opportunity Strategy is to create jobs, stimulate small businesses and strengthen communities among the poor.

• The Opportunity Method is to work through our indigenous partners to provide microfinance services, training and counsel.

• The Opportunity Motivation is the call of Jesus to serve the poor.

• The Opportunity Core Values are respect, commitment to the poor, integrity, stewardship and transformation.

• The Opportunity Commitment is to serve men and women of all faiths and no faith.

Why is Opportunity International different?

• With more than 35 years of experience in the microfinance sector, Opportunity International provides secure and affordable access to financial services to the entrepreneurial poor in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America.

• Opportunity International is motivated by Jesus Christ's call to serve the poor.

• Opportunity International is known within the industry

• Opportunity International has adopted a triple bottom-line approach, measuring success on three levels: transformation, outreach and sustainability.

With regard to transformation, Opportunity International seeks holistic change and aim to address the economic, social and spiritual aspects of our clients’ lives. Therefore, in addition to microfinancial services, Opportunity International provides business and life skills training to support our clients as individuals, not just as loan recipients. Opportunity International are able to sustain this integrated approach on a large scale (Opportunity International have over 1.1 million clients) and in a cost effective method (our operational sustainability is 105%).

Opportunity International offers a “hand-up” through banking services, not just a “handout.” Opportunity has created 18 banks that Opportunity International comes poor clients who have more than 305,586 savings accounts. To make these savings accounts accessible to the poor, Opportunity International offers low minimum balance requirements, secure digital fingerprint readers, and remotely-accessible mobile banks.

Opportunity International created the Micro Insurance Agency to provide low-income families with access to affordable insurance products. As the world’s first and largest insurance broker exclusively serving the global poor, the Micro Insurance Agency works with a range of organizations including World Vision, Habitat for Humanity, and Feed the Hungry to provide clients with access to life, property and health insurance. The agency currently covers over 3.5 million lives with average premiums as low as $1.50 a month for a family of five.

For more information on Opportunity International, visit www.opportunityinternational.org.

Russia Ministries

• LGUMC supports Oksana Petrova, pastor of Holy Trinity UMC in St. Petersburg, Russia. Pastor Petrova was one of the first Methodist pastors in St Petersburg and one of the first to become an ordained Elder Minister. She is the EurAsian Conference expert on drugs and alcohol issues.

• There is tremendous spiritual renewal going on in Russia; the growing churches and seminary represent a major change from what was possible in the former Soviet Union

• LGUMC supports the Russian United Methodist Theological Seminary, training new pastors. The first and second floors include classrooms, library, offices, kitchen and dining area and a chapel. A building project is ongoing to add a third floor to provide housing for 18 students and 2 visiting professors.

Find out more about this mission. This site:

• Summarizes the history of the seminary.

• Explains the program.

• Offers comments by visiting professors.

• Shows photos of students in their church settings.

• Clarifies the needs of the Capital Campaign.

• LGUMC has sent mission teams to Russia for the past several years, working to refurbish a youth camp and establishing relationships with fellow Christians in Russia. We are planning to return to Russia this year as well. For more information, or if you’d like to serve on a team, contact Richard Bontz.