Click on any of the topics below for information about our ongoing outreach efforts. Your involvement is always welcome!

CHRISTIAN CARING
* Helping neighbors one-on-one

EDUCATION
* Morse School (Cambridge, MA)

ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS
* Environmental Task Force

FEEDING THE HUNGRY
* Feed the Hungry On-Line
* Lexington Food Pantry

HEALTH CARE
* Waltham Free Health Center

HOUSING
* Habitat for Humanity (Roxbury, MA)

JUSTICE
* Children and Poverty Task Force
* Jubilee (campaign to forgive the debt of the world's poorest countries)

OUR COVENANT PARTNERS
* In the Middle East
* In Nicaragua
* In Massachusetts

PEACE
* Abolition 2000 (global campaign to eliminate nuclear weapons)
* Peace on the Internet (some interesting links)

SAVING / INVESTING / GIVING RESPONSIBLY
* Saving and Investing Responsibly
* Deciding which charities to support can be confusing. Here are some helpful guidelines.
 
 

CHRISTIAN CARING

Christian Caring Committee Would you like an opportunity to serve the church but don't have a lot of free time? Do you enjoy talking to people one-on-one within our church community? Do you have an hour of free time once a month? Then consider joining the Christian Caring Committee. The committee visits members of the church who are hospital-bound or house-bound. The visits can be as seldom as once a month (whatever time you are willing to donate). We also need people to serve as occasional substitutes and people who are willing to provide meals or transportation when needed. For more information, please speak with Helen Einstein.

EDUCATION

Morse School LUMC volunteers help students and teachers at the Morse School in Cambridge.  We realize that each member in our society has a responsibility for educating our children.  It seemed appropriate that we respond as a church community.  This is the sixth year we have had this partnership with the school. We are working with teachers in the classrooms, assisting the school librarian, performing clerical tasks, making it possible to have an after school choral group, and hosting Appreciation Breakfasts for the teachers, recognizing their professional skills, dedication, and hard work. Volunteers for this academic year are:  Rev. Susan Morrison, Dorothy Hewitt, Betty Hunt, Jane Hogan, Lynda Kramer, and Janet Melcher. Linda Rings, a member of the congregation and a teacher at the school, conducts the after-school chorus and finds the appropriate positions for volunteers according to their interests and the needs of the teachers. For more information, please contact Janet Melcher.

ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS

Environmental Task Force The Outreach Committee is putting together a new task force to do something to help the earth -- taking care of things like the forest, wildlife, atmosphere, etc. We are looking for interested "action takers". If you are one of them, please contact Billy Robinson.

FEEDING THE HUNGRY

Feed The Hungry On-Line Visit the "Hungersite" at www.hungersite.com and send a free quarter-cup of food per sponsor! If there are 8 sponsors, two cups of food will be sent each time you visit, but only once a day. Food is distributed through the UN World Food Programme. -AND/OR- Visit www.clickforfood.org and clicks the site's sponsor banner located at the top of the page (up to once per 6 hour period). clickforfood.org receives 12 cents from that sponsor (at no expense to the visitor). In turn, clickforfood.org donates 100% of this 12 cents to the United Nations World Food Program via the "Friends of the United Nations World Food Program" in the United States.

Lexington Interfaith Outreach - Food Pantry In the fall of 1990, the Churches and Synagogues of Lexington, which included representatives from Lexington United Methodist Church, opened a Food Pantry to help those whose budgets have less than adequate funds for the purchase of food. All individuals or families have been welcomed on a short-term, long-term or an emergency basis. The Lexington Food Pantry currently serves families each Saturday morning of the month in the Great Hall of the Church of Our Redeemer, 6 Miriam Street, Lexington. The Food Pantry is staffed entirely by volunteers (age 16 and up) who set up, distribute and clean up each Saturday morning, 9:00am-11:00am. (We help on the fourth Saturday of each month.) The Lexington Food Pantry works in cooperation with the Boston Food Bank and other suburban food pantries to help fight hunger. Our time, once a month, helps make a difference in the lives of many. For more information, please contact Ione Garing (email: idgaring@gis.net). A sign up sheet is posted on the bulletin board in Martin Hall -- volunteers are always needed!

HEALTH CARE

Waltham Free Health Center Immanuel UMC sponsors The Waltham Free Health Center on Monday nights, 6:00-8:00 pm (currently on the first two Mondays of each month). The program is for those who are under-insured and uninsured. No one is denied. Prescriptions are dispensed from a pharmacy, so that no drugs are kept on the premises. The Deaconess Waltham Hospital provides free x-rays and blood work. Social workers help people become familiar with MassHealth and other community agencies. The members of Immanuel UMC are asking for volunteers to help operate this free health clinic. Who is needed: nurses, social workers, doctors, phlebotomists, chiropractors, persons to make coffee, persons to work the guest book area, persons to hand off files, persons to greet guests, Spanish, French and Italian translators, grant writer, persons to just be present. Please contact Rev. Ezequiel Gonzalez at 781-893-7250 at Immanuel UMC, Waltham, if you are able to volunteer.  You can also learn more about this effort at Immanuel's website, www.gbgm-umc.org/immanuel-waltham/

HOUSING

Roxbury Habitat Project Work has begun on a Habitat for Humanity house in Roxbury, Massachusetts. The Habitat house is a project of the Lexington Clergy Association and will involve members of many congregations in the town of Lexington.  Habitat for Humanity is a non-profit, "love in action" program that depends on volunteers. The organization believes that everyone should have adequate housing and that building relationships is as important as building homes. This is the hope of the Lexington Clergy Association -- uniting neighbors while building houses is a goal to prize. Millard Fuller, founder of Habitat, expressed these thoughts when he wrote about "The Theology of the Hammer": "In Habitat for Humanity we have gathered biblical teachings about the poor into "the theology of the hammer" which simply means that....we will agree on the hammer as an instrument to manifest God's love. We might disagree on all sorts of other things...but we can agree on the imperative...to serve others in God's name." For more information about Habitat for Humanity, visit www.habitat.org.

JUSTICE

Children and Poverty Task Force The Outreach Committee is putting together a new task force focusing on children and poverty. The point of the task force is to help impoverished children to lead better, happier lives. We are looking for interested people to take action. Please contact Ken Kreutziger if you are one of them.

Jubilee In countries with crushing debt, people lose out on life. Simple as that. They lose out on life because a creditor who does not need the money forces them to pay. We, as people with the power to make a difference, need to take a righteous stand and proclaim Jubilee. This proclamation will improve the lives of our brothers and sisters in need. National campaigns to accomplish this goal currently exist in England, Scotland, Canada, the Philippines, Australia, Ireland, Austria, Germany, Sweden, South Africa, and the United States. All call for eliminating the unpayable debt of the world's poorest countries without conditions that will further harm either people living in poverty or the environment. The international scope of this movement means that advocacy efforts can be coordinated throughout the world for maximum effectiveness. The Jubilee movement draws its inspiration from the book of Leviticus, which describes a Year of Jubilee every 50 years. In the Jubilee Year, social inequalities are rectified: slaves are freed, land is returned to original owners, and debts are cancelled. Debt cancellation especially resonates with many groups concerned about greater global fairness; some of the poorest countries in the world have been struggling with an unmanageable debt burden since 1982. While there is plenty of blame to go around -- irresponsible creditors, corrupt borrowers -- the bottom line is that governments of impoverished countries are servicing their debts by diverting limited resources from meeting the basic needs of their people. The Jubilee 2000/USA Campaign was launched in Denver at the "Summit of the Group of 8 Governments" in June 1997. The USA Campaign grew out of a project of the Religious Working Group on the World Bank and the IMF, a coalition composed of some 40 Catholic and Protestant organizations who have been collaborating on debt relief for several years. The Campaign collaborates with the U.S. Catholic Conference and the National Council of Churches, and hopes to have similar working relationships with members of the Muslim and Jewish communities. While the Campaign includes significant participation by religious organizations, it is not limited to institutions and individuals with a religious perspective. The common ground for Jubilee USA participants is a moral commitment to debt cancellation for poor countries. Because of its political and economic roles in the world community, the U.S. government's position on debt relief is critical to the success of the worldwide Jubilee movement. Motivating our government to support a definitive cancellation of the crushing debts of poor nations will require a vital Jubilee USA campaign with active participation by individuals and groups throughout the country. We encourage all who read this to proclaim Jubilee by writing letters to congress, donating to the movement, starting your own grass roots organization, and in any other way you can help. For more information, speak with Billy Robinson at church, or email him at Colecrops@aol.com. Please go to www.jubileeusa.org to visit the Jubilee USA web page. All those in debt thank you for your help!

OUR COVENANT PARTNERS

In the Middle East During these days of uprising and violence, we need to be in constant prayer for all peoples in the Middle East. In particular, we have two covenant relationships which call for our ardent prayers. Last year, through the Christian Peacemaker Teams, we established a relationship with the Abu Maria family in Beit Ummar, a village of about 12,000 people in the northern part of Hebron, not far from Bethlehem. The father, Nasri, and the mother, Rehehia, and their children (ages 6-30) have said, "We want peace. Only this. We want peace." Let us accompany them with our prayers for peace. Most recently, we have established a partner relationship with the Bethlehem Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem. Their pastor, Rev. Mitrai Raheb, and Rev. Susan have been e-mailing one another. The following message describes their hopes for our partnership: "Salaam from Bethlehem, a city still longing for peace and crying for justice. At this special time of suffering we reach out to you. We look forward to establishing long-term relationships, where we can experience a true fellowship in sufferings as well as in joy. Our interest is to learn from each other, to care about each other. And maybe to widen this relationship so that your other partners from Nicaragua and Korea might join in. Our ministry here has three different dimensions: 1. The congregational work itself. We are a small congregation of 220 members. We have invested a lot in Sunday School, Youth Work, Summer School, and Women's Work. We have started here the first Bell Choir in Palestine as a joint venture with First Presbyterian in Evanston. For the next three years I have a deep desire and we fell a call to work on liturgical renewal. 2. The school work. On September 4, we opened a new school with 237 kids, from kindergarten to grade 10. I will send you more information on the school. 3. The International Center of Bethlehem, an outreach program, designed to make Christian Faith relevant to the whole community. You can get more information on the Center through our web page: www.annadwa.org. We look forward very much to seeing you here in 2002. Until then, let us work on putting the seeds for our relationship, praying that it will grow and will bear fruit to the glory of our Lord. Keep us in your prayers. We need them like never before. Yours, in Christ, Mitri Raheb"

In Nicaragua LUMC participates in a covenant relationship with la Iglesia de Cristo in La Borgoña, Nicaragua, a community about 15 miles southeast of Managua. Over the last four years we have provided material aid, financial contributions, and manpower to help with the following projects: bringing water to every home in La Borgoña; creating a 5-room building which currently provides rental income; promoting the completion of another large multi-purpose room which provides a center for feeding children and another rental space; expanding the school program to provide education for 150 children; supplementing salaries of the teachers; providing scholarships for secondary school students; providing scholarships for college students; helping create, supply and maintain a sewing program; equipping a room and training a computer teacher to instruct students and adults; providing a loan to establish a Copy Shop (providing employment, loan payback, and a profit to be used for other community programs); and providing a loan to purchase a bus (to bring children from another community to our school; their bus fares and tuition will provide funds for other community programs). For more information, please contact with Bob or Linda Miner (email boblindaminer@juno.com) Pictures and reports from our January 2002 trip to La Borgoña can be found here.

In Massachusetts We celebrate our partnership with Grace United Methodist Church, 56 Magazine Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, Telephone (617) 864-1123, www.gbgm-umc.org/cambridgegrace. We also celebrate our partnership with St. John's Korean United Methodist Church, 2600 Massachusetts Avenue, Lexington, Massachusetts 02421, Telephone: 781-275-2524, www.sjkumc.org.

PEACE

Abolition 2000 Abolition 2000 is a global campaign to eliminate nuclear weapons, and is supported by citizens groups, individuals, political and religious leaders, professional associations, colleges and universities, Nobel Laureates, retired military leaders, and municipalities. For further information about how you can help, speak with Bill Santelmann.

Peace on the Internet In the summer of 1999, our volunteers prepared a collection of interesting links to various Peace and Disarmament sites around the Internet.  That list was last updated September 2001. Click here for the Peace Link List.  A similar, but newer, list was prepared in February 2002 as part of the LUMC-ACT project (Click here).

SAVING / INVESTING / GIVING

Saving and Investing Responsibly Many of us save a portion of our resources and some of that savings is placed into bank or money market accounts. The South Shore Bank of Chicago has teamed up with the Domini Socially Responsible Investing organization to offer a money market account where the deposited funds are used to finance loans to inner city, minority, or immigrant populations (which are often the same folks). Access to startup cash is a bane of the poor throughout the world, but here we have an organization which has moved into that void and for several years has been successfully making loans to folks who thought no one would respond to their needs. We all know that money market accounts are not FDIC insured, but we also know that they work and often provide a better rate of return. Bob Miner reports that he has invested some of his personal "fortune" in this money market -- he's delighted with the work they do and also with the interest rate of return (which currently is just a tiny fraction over 5%). Access to the South Shore Bank is through Domini. They will send you an account application if you call 1-800-582-6757. (Also see Domini's web site at www.domini.com for more information about this and other socially-responsible investment options). Here's a way to do some good for others while doing good for yourself.

Things to Think About In Connection With Charitable Giving One measure you may wish to apply is "What percentage of the money raised is actually used for the intended purpose?" For example, the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center spends 95% of the money raised for care and research, which the Cancer Fund of America spends only 9% of their money raised for treatment and research. Another measure may be the cost of raising funds which the charity incurs. The Sloan group spends $14 to raise $100, while the Cancer Fund spends $64 to raise $100. Consider "transparency" also. Are the financial records and audits easily accessible to public scrutiny? Do they monitor themselves and do they do a good job of it? Salaries paid to top officials is a conundrum. They should be high enough so that the mission, not the salary, is the reason folks work there. The amount of money a charity has in reserve may be factor in determining where you direct your contributions. Shriners Hospital for Children is evaluated by virtually every rating agency as truly outstanding agency. They spend only $1 to raise $100, and 95% of all money raised goes into the treatment of children. Yet, their available resources would allow them to continue providing services at their present level for 17, with no future contributions. So . . . as each of us creates our own individual yardstick based on our interests and values, what is arguably most important is that we have a reasonable understanding of how well agencies we intend to support actually carry out the mission. In 1998, charitable giving in the U.S. reached nearly $175 billion, an 11% increase over 1997. 77% of all charitable donations come from individual citizens. $76 billion (44%) is given to religious organizations. The $134.5 billion which individuals give to charities represents 2% of our gross income.