Contributors Make a Difference through Oblation and World Hunger

Community groups in Kalebuka, DR Congo, have established small businesses such as poultry production to address the lack of food and livelihood. Photo by Outreach International.

This young woman and her family in El Barro, Honduras, are active in an agricultural development program offered by World Accord and Partners in Rural Reconstruction. Photo by World Accord.

Meals on Wheels provides nutritious meals to older adults in congregate and homebound setting in Michigan.

An after-school program in Raleigh, North Carolina, meets the needs of local children.

An orphan support program in Ugunja responds to the needs of children whose parents have succumbed to HIV/AIDS.

Community of Christ members and friends are called to respond to the needs of the poor, displaced, mistreated, and diseased of the world. During 2007, we helped provide comfort and hope by generously offering our time and talents to local Tangible Love and World Hunger ministries and contributing money to help provide for more of these ministries around the world. Total contributions to the Oblation and World Hunger Funds were up 7 percent from 2006.

World Hunger Ministries
The mission of World Hunger ministries is to support ministries to hungry people throughout the world by funding agencies and projects seeking to provide relief and release, educating about hunger-related issues, and encouraging individuals to advocate with government representatives on behalf of the hungry.

The Huron County Baby Pantry in Michigan received a grant to help provide for needs of local infants, free of charge, to help reduce instances of child abuse. Laura Gavlinski said, “As a low income Huron County resident, it is very hard sometimes to make it through the month with basic household needs, let alone all the necessities for our baby. The Huron County Baby Pantry helps us with diapers, wipes, clothes, formula, and all the things we need. Without their help since our baby’s birth, we would not have made it.”

Co-manager, secretary, and board member Peggy Pitcher said, “The Baby Pantry is a place filled with love and acceptance.”

Other World Hunger grants included ministries that feed homeless people in Dundalk, Maryland, and Kansas City, Missouri; Meals on Wheels, Oakland County, Michigan; Family Life Outreach in Hot Springs, Arkansas, which provides classes, including nutrition and shopping basics, to develop stronger family units; and an America’s Second Harvest Thanksgiving Fest in Chicago, Illinois.

Participatory Human Development
Approximately 80 percent of World Hunger grants each year are shared with programs administered through human development organizations affiliated with the church: Outreach International (OI) and World Accord.

World Hunger grants helped OI implement and support Participatory Human Development Processes (PHDP) through field programs in Zambia, Congo, Malawi, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and the Philippines. Another grant was aimed at developing the competencies of field staff in Africa.

OI programs in a São Paulo, Brazil, daycare and in schools in several regions sponsored by Haiti Community of Christ received funds to provide nutritious meals for young children. Other OI grants supported its international Oikocredit organization, formed to provide small loans to persons in developing countries and general OI administrative costs.

World Accord also received a core funding grant. Two more grants supported programs to improve food security in Honduras. Asociacion de Desarrollo Cumunal Ambiental y Servicios Multiples de El Salvador received a grant to help develop family self-sufficiency, improve self-determination and self-esteem, and increase the standard of living of people living in extreme poverty. The World Accord program Mujeres en Acción received a grant for capacity building and micro-enterprise support for indigenous, rural women in Guatemala.

Advocacy
A World Hunger grant also supported Bread for the World, a Christian advocacy group that urges policymakers to end hunger. Kathleen O’Toole, of National Church Outreach, said: “We at Bread for the World believe that God is using us—and Christian church leaders like the Community of Christ World Hunger Committee—to free millions of people from hunger, poverty, and disease in our world.… We look forward to continuing in a strong leadership role, providing guidance, opportunities, and resources for your local leaders and elders to engage in anti-hunger advocacy.”

Visit www.CofChrist.org/hunger for more information about World Hunger ministries and how to apply for funds for your local efforts. You can also access helpful congregational resources such as worship bulletins, brochures, hunger assessment forms, a community-pantry guide, an Offering of Letters kit for use in the United States, and a free Hunger Meditation DVD for use in worship.

Oblation and Tangible Love Ministries
Oblation dollars lend a hand in providing short-term relief to individuals and families. This fund also supports long-term programs through Tangible Love grants for peace, justice, and compassionate ministries sponsored by congregations and jurisdictions in collaboration with their communities. Tangible Love ministries recognize the worth of individuals, families, congregations, and communities, and facilitate reconciliation and healing of the spirit. Thirteen Tangible Love projects in five countries received grants in 2007.

Friends United, a teacher education program in Honduras, received a grant to help support a Rotary shoe distribution program to protect children from hookworm infestations. Shoes were getting to the kids, but were not being worn consistently. Friends United, which collaborates with four mission centers, created an educational coloring book to be given to the children to increase the program’s effectiveness.

FolkTime, an adult socialization program in Portland, Oregon, enhances the lives of people facing the daily challenges of mental illness. Executive director Terry Boyer said, “FolkTime has a long partnership with the Community of Christ congregation in Portland to serve a very vulnerable population.” The Portland congregation has offered a drop-in socialization center for 21 years.

In partnership with The Groves congregation, Independence, Missouri, Community Senior Care Services assists congregations in creating faith- and health-based ministry programs that will serve seniors in their congregations and communities. Director Stacie Stickney Williams has helped train Compassionate Care teams at area congregations.

Kathy Godfrey leads East Alton congregation’s team with her husband, Russ. They help meet pastoral care needs of senior members at The Groves as well as members of their own congregation. Kathy said the team’s “small kind acts are letting our church family know that they are loved, cared about, thought of, and remembered.”

The Puttulam, Sri Lanka, congregation received a Tangible Love grant to start a new outreach for children. In 2006 they began a tutoring program, which quickly grew to serve about 60 children each Saturday. More children kept coming, and the congregation decided to answer the need to grow by offering further social and compassionate ministry two evenings a week through a Peacemakers Club.

Other Tangible Love ministries that received grants included a victim-offender mediation program, Independence, Missouri; orphan support, Ugunja (Kenya); outreach to homeless people, Kansas City, Missouri; jail ministry, Grove City, Oklahoma; an after school program, Raleigh, North Carolina; support for establishing the Participatory Human Development Process, two Sri Lanka villages; life skills and crafts training, Monrovia (Liberia); a discipleship program addressing substance abuse among disadvantaged and homeless people, Partales, New Mexico; and a program to reduce school violence, St. Louis, Missouri.

Visit www.CofChrist.org/tlove for more examples of Tangible Love ministries and how to apply.

Thank You
Paul Davis, member of the World Hunger-Tangible Love Funding Team and the Presiding Bishopric, said, “I take great joy in discovering how people want to use the contributions given by our members to feed and care for the world. Every World Hunger and Tangible Love proposal we receive is born in the kind of compassion Jesus teaches us. What could be more fun than to receive proposals for real action by real people to make the world a better place, beginning with their own neighborhoods?”

Weekly mission tithes offering envelopes include provision for designating Oblation and World Hunger offerings. You may also contribute online at www.CofChrist.org/worldministries/. Learn how to start a Tangible Love or World Hunger ministry at www.CofChrist.org/tlove/ and www.CofChrist.org/hunger/.

—Kendra Friend reporting