Imagine No Malaria and a Lemonade Stand

For the past 10 years, during the week of East Ohio Annual Conference Molly McNamara and Logan Martens spent their days selling lemonade to the benefit of the Imagine No Malaria (INM) campaign. The INM campaign seeks to minimize and eventually end deaths caused by malaria in Sub Sahara Africa. Molly and Logan began at the age of 6 and by age 16 in 2017 had raised $100,000.

A week after the 2018 East Ohio Annual Conference, Molly and Logan along with their moms, one of their pastors, Rev. Jared Priset, and folks from the INM campaign are traveling to Sierra Leone to see the fruits of their labor.  East Ohio’s own Rev. Gary Henderson and wife Gwen will be among the folks visiting clinics, hospitals, churches and leaders to see the results of education campaigns and the bed net distributions that the INM campaign supported. East Ohio is partnering in mighty ways through the efforts of Molly and Logan, who now 17 and about to enter their senior years in high school and to your financial donations to a glass of lemonade.

Priset, from Church of the Lakes in Canton, seeks to build relationships with the folks in the Bo Region where the Mercy Hospital is located. A UMC hospital and ministry of the Sierra Leone Annual Conference, Mercy Hospital will be a partner for future East Ohio UMVIM teams. Contact Priset at jared@churchofthelakes.org or Kathy Dickriede at  kdickriede@gmail.com to hear more about the transforming work of this ministry.

Please be praying for this group as they travel throughout Sierra Leone until June 29th.

Puerto Rico

What do two Bishops, a bishop’s assistant from Western PA Conference, two Communication directors, two UMVIM coordinators, nurses, spanish speakers, young adults, clergy and laity from two conferences have in common?  They are all traveling to Puerto Rico as a UMVIM United Methodist Volunteer in Mission team June 23-30. Bishop Tracy Smith Malone, East Ohio Area Conference and Bishop Cynthia Moore-Koikoi, Western Pennsylvania Area Conference will be leading a team of forty to the south east region of Puerto Rico for a week long mission of physical work of rebuilding and repairing homes. This diverse team of young and young at heart are eager to see what God has in store for them as they seek to offer hope, restoration and healing.  Please be praying for this group as they travel to and minister with the people in Puerto Rico.

In May other East Ohio UMVIM teams returned from their mission to Puerto Rico.  If you would like to know more about these trips or have a speaker share their stories at your church contact Rick Shoemaker r.shoemaker@carestaffathome.com , Abigail Gerdes asg20@zips.uakron.edu or Kathy Dickriede kdickriede@gmail.com.

Shoemaker is planning to lead a team scheduled for September 22-29. Make plans now to help rebuild and repair the homes and lives of the people of Puerto Rico.