Missions and Service Activities
Here is a brief look at a few of the mission and service activities and projects we are involved in here at New Hope.
United Methodist Women (UMW) is a longstanding women's group within the United Methodist Church. From the beginning, UMW's main focus is on missions. At New Hope, the UMW group raises funds for many different kinds of missions, both far away and near. They are instrumental in funding the sending of New Hope kids to Methodist camps, and in scholarship activities.
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Help prepare and serve meals at the Community Kitchen in Moberly.
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Box food at food pantries in Sturgeon and Moberly, and assist with food distribution to those in need.
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Imagine No Malaria. According to the World Health Organization most of the approximately 1 million deaths from malaria reported worldwide in 2006 were African children, most of them younger than 5.
Raising funds to fight malaria in Africa, called the Imagine No Malaria campaign, is a major undertaking of the United Methodist Church, with the monies raised going to purchase mosquito nets for beds, improve access to medicine and treatment, improve sanitation (drain shallow bodies of standing water where mosquitoes breed), and provide education and training in measures that will reduce the rate of malaria infection and improve access to treatments. New Hope children's Sunday School classes have made a direct contribution to the over 7 million bed nets sent to Africa as part of this effort. In 2013 they made cups to collect donations for the Imagine No Malaria campaign, and raised $319 in a few weeks. The church added our Christmas Eve offering to the total as well, and the church board voted to increase the total even more. Altogether we sent $1,000 to Imagine No Malaria - Missouri from this one, church-wide fundraising effort. |
The PET project. PET stands for personal energy transportation. The PET project, based in Columbia, MO, builds tricycle-like vehicles powered by hands instead of legs/feet, and ships them to areas of need. PETs give mobility--and often a way to make a living--to people who have lost legs or feet due to war, accidents, or disease, in countries where good medical care and prosthetic limbs may not be an option.
We make contributions to the PET project from time to time, and our youth group has visited the PET project facility in Columbia. |
Heifer International. Children and adults bring quarters to New Hope each Sunday and drop them in a plexiglass tube during worship. The tube holds the number of quarters required to cover the cost of animals--sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, rabbits, honey bees, a milk cow, etc.--to be sent to a family in a developing country, where they add meat, milk, eggs, or honey to the family's diet and help them to be more self sufficient.
Animals donated in this way are "seed" animals, because the recipients agree to give the first female offspring to another family. first some of the offspring must by the Heifer International organization. When the tube gets full, the children's Sunday School classes vote on what kind of animals they want to send, and that preference is sent along with the funds to the Heifer International organization. |