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Farmington, Michigan |
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At March’s end, we closed our drive to collect toilet paper and paper toweling for Servant Church of St. Alexander’s, helping replenish scanty stock of these items in their pantry. St. Alexander’s on Shiawassee in Farmington has a huge outreach arm that extends to the nearby communities. The church gives out food baskets and food certificates at holiday time and runs this pantry on a daily basis during the week for those truly in need. They are one of the pantries that receive from CROPWALK.
The Outreach bake sale made
$522! The
committee wants to thank the many who baked delicious
goodies and those who bought the goodies for themselves and
their families. A Grateful thanks.
The money will support Outreach activities, especially food projects for the homeless such as the annual Aldersgate dinner coming up April 10th. Our youth will go to Aldersgate Methodist Church in Redford to help serve the dinner and chat with participants at mealtime. Logos children will be baking cookies for dessert. The Aldersgate project allows a lot of church participation and is a rewarding evening for workers and recipients alike. We are looking forward to it.
Last month we spoke of asking for volunteers to help with the Ecumenical Theological Seminary sit-down lunch in Detroit for the homeless in March. We have decided not to enlist volunteers for this until several on the Outreach Committee go there and see what the needs are for this project. We have a date to do this in late April. Perhaps this can be an all-church function next fall if workers are greatly needed.
**If you know of organizations that need volunteers, please advise The Outreach Committee. We will look into it, set it up when feasible, and advertise for volunteers if such are needed.
Happy Springtime! Let those birds start chirping!
Estelle Kalakailo Outreach Committee Social Justice Small Group
A Small Group has formed to focus on Social Justice. We are starting our study of Social Justice by Studying the Social Principles of the United Methodist Church.
We meet the third Wednesday of each month at 7:00pm at the Church in room 200. Our next meeting will be on April 16 with our focus being “The World Community” section of the Social Principles.
For more information please contact Jennie Macy, Rebecca Picard, or Clara Lawrence. We hope that you will join us!
FAIR TRADE PRODUCTS AVAILABLE!
This month, we ask you to take a look at the Social Principles of the United Methodist Church as a starting point. In the Social Principles, we are called upon as United Methodists to support Sustainable Agriculture. From the Social Principles section on Sustainable Agriculture, we read, “A prerequisite for meeting the nutritional needs of the world's population is an agricultural system which uses sustainable methods, respects ecosystems, and promotes a livelihood for people that work the land. . . . World trade of agricultural products needs to be based on fair trade and prices, based on the costs of sustainable production methods, and must consider the real costs of ecological damage.
The purchase of Fair Trade
products provides farmers a fair wage and provides a good
product. We sell Fair Trade
Support Fair Trade and all of the people making your products are paid fairly for their work. The youth group will be selling fair trade chocolate, coffee, hot cocoa, and tea during coffee hour after both services. If there are any other fair trade products you are interested in, please ask Jennie Macy at jmacy@twmi.rr.com or (248) 679-3572
It seems the more personal our outreach involvement is, the more spiritual benefit we seem to derive from the experience. It does not take great powers of observation to see a correlation between involvement in the misfortune of others and reconnection to our spiritual selves. To see the mission trips pictorials - click below
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Speaking
of which, CROPWALK is coming up May 4. We will begin
passing out the envelopes for participants on the last
Sunday of March (the 30th). Let’s make a goal to
walk and find sponsors this year. It’s always a bit awkward
to ask, but everyone knows it supports a wonderful cause.
We have a whole month to find a few financial backers. FUMC
of Farmington is hosting the event again this year with a
10k/6.2mile and a 6k/2mile walk. We will also have a
mini-walk, a 1 k (.6 m) for youngsters who want to walk but
aren’t up for two miles yet or for adults who want to
participate but are not up for the more strenuous ambles.
(See maps of the walks on pages 11 & 12) It should be fun,
and more importantly, this event supports the Relief Wing of
our church, UMCOR. As you probably know, UMCOR
provides emergency relief and food distribution in our own
country and throughout the world as well as long term
agricultural and water access projects. It has a wonderful
and well-deserved reputation as an efficient, speedy, relief
organization, second to none. 
Why
should you buy Fair Trade Coffee and Chocolate? Each month
we try to give you some information about Fair Trade and why
it is important. 
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Copyright © 2006 - First United Methodist Church of Farmington, Michigan
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