World Malaria Day

This Thursday, April 25, is World Malaria Day. It's a time when everyone involved in the fight to end preventable deaths from malaria - churches, NGOs, hospitals, research labs, donors, advocates, government leaders, health care professionals, community educators, public health officials, and others - joins together to help raise awareness of malaria and invite others to join us in saving lives. In case this is your first time to the blog, here are the statistics:

• Malaria is a disease transmitted through the bite of a mosquito. 
• Left untreated, its flu-like symptoms (fever, chills, vomiting, headache) lead to convulsions, organ failure and countless unnecessary deaths.
• One in five children in Africa does not reach their 5th birthday because of malaria. 
• Over 655,000 people die each year because of malaria.
• Malaria is preventable, treatable and beatable: To overcome malaria, we must continue to support the most effective prevention methods. We also must improve education about the disease, continue to establish community-based malaria-control programs, conduct communications and revitalize hospitals and clinics to improve treatment across Africa.
• Imagine No Malaria is an expression of the United Methodist Global Health Initiative to raise $75 million to fight malaria on the African continent. 
• Through Imagine No Malaria, 1.2 million insecticide-treated nets have been distributed, impacting 2.4 million lives. A total of 13 health boards have been created with responsibilities in 16 countries and 5,800 health care workers have been trained.

World Malaria Day is a great opportunity to take the first step in joining the people of The United Methodist Church as we Imagine No Malaria, and then help make that vision a reality. Or, if you've already taken some first steps, it's an opportunity to pray and reflect on whether God might be nudging you to go a step further, whether that's through Advocacy on behalf of those suffering from malaria, Raising Awareness among your church or community, Raising Funds alone or with a group of like-minded friends, Engaging the Community to invite others into this extraordinary effort, or volunteering at the local, district, or conference (regional) level to support this ministry behind the scenes. Check out the Resources to Get Involved page for a complete list of ideas on how you can take part.

Our movement begins and is surrounded by prayer: Join Imagine No Malaria as we pray for all who are affected by this preventable and treatable disease.  As people of faith, we will once again through prayer ask God to bless and protect those who suffer with malaria but to also bless and protect those who  are working toward malaria’s elimination as a disease of poverty. Visit ImagineNoMalaria.org each day this week for a daily prayer, and lend your social media network to our Change the World campaign at Thunderclap to help us get the word out to invite prayers for all affected by malaria.

This year, our program staff at the General Board of Church and Society are particularly encouraging Imagine No Malaria supporters to take part in an advocacy movement to let our elected leaders know how important Global Health funding is to us as people of faith. Please consider writing to your Senators and Representatives to ask for continued support of Global Health Assistance for diseases of poverty like malaria. You can send an electronic letter simply by entering your zip code and contact information at the GBCS page for World Malaria Day Advocacy.

(There are two other petitions you can sign onto at UMPower.org: Moms for Moms, and Stand with Us Against AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria.)

If you're able to make a donation to move us toward our goal of ending deaths from malaria in Africa, you can do that here (2nd box down) or here (be sure to check the box near the bottom of the form for your United Methodist church/district/conference affiliation). We most often use $10, the cost of providing an insecticide-treated bed net, as our reference point for what it takes to save a life, but if you're looking for more detail, here are a few other comparisons:

Bishop Elaine helping hang a bed net in Angola

$5.00    Provides medication to treat someone with malaria
$10.00    Purchases one insecticide-treated mosquito net
$20.00    Pays for the cost of food and treatment of anemia in a pregnant women with malaria
$50.00    Buys 25 Rapid Diagnostic Kits for malaria
$100.00    Covers the expenses for an anti-malaria campaign in a local school
$200.00    Trains Traditional Birth Attendants in malaria prevention and treatment.
$500.00    Provides all the expenses for a one day community leader training for 35-40 people on malaria prevention.

And this is a great time for starting a plan to engage your community, whether through a church-sponsored event, a school-based awareness campaign, or another creative approach to inviting others to join you in saving lives. If you want to be trained to volunteer for Imagine No Malaria, be sure to contact me, kerry (at) rmcumc.com, so I can include you in plans for volunteer trainings this summer.

Whatever action you take for World Malaria Day, please let us know about it through Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/RockyMountainConferenceUMC), Twitter (https://twitter.com/RMCbuzz), or by email (kerry [at] rmcumc.com). Tell us the story of what this means to you, how many lives you plan to save, how you are inviting others to make a difference through this extraordinary, life-saving ministry, so we can continue to build the movement. Thank you for all you are doing, and remember, it is God who is at work in you and through you to bring more abundant life to our sisters and brothers around the world!

Mary & Martha: A story of two moms united to fight malaria

Share an evening with Oscar award-winning actress Hilary Swank!

Watch the Trailer Now

No plans this weekend? Throw a party to save lives! 

Gather your friends to watch the HBO premiere of Mary and Martha, a dramatic story about two courageous women. The movie stars Oscar winner Hilary Swank and Oscar nominee Brenda Blethyn.

The TV drama is about two moms – one in Africa and one in the United States – whose lives become intertwined as they face the same reality: malaria kills both of their sons.

Offer guests a “night on the town” in front of your TV. Not only will it be an entertaining opportunity for friends to sample your best party recipes; you may also open eyes to the human pain and suffering caused by this preventable disease.

Movie watchers can join the cause and donate $10 to Imagine No Malaria by texting ‘MOM’ to 27722. 

If they (or you!) are moved to do more, contact Field Coordinator, Rev. Kerry Greenhill, to learn about upcoming volunteer trainings and other ways to get involved: call 303-733-3736 x152 or email kerry (at) rmcumc.com.

“Mary and Martha” premieres Saturday, April 20, at 8 p.m. EDT on HBO. (It is also scheduled to air Sunday, April 21, at 12:45 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. and Tuesday, April 23, at 10 a.m. Check local listings for your time zone.)

If you have been looking for a fun way to take the next step in being involved with Imagine No Malaria, this is it! Get exclusive content, including a movie-watching party planning kit, costume tips and more, from http://www.imaginenomalaria.org/maryandmartha/.

Honor Your Mother

New Imagine No Malaria Field Coordinators on our tour of
United Methodist Communications during training

This week I'm at Field Coordinator Training in Nashville with colleagues from eight other annual conferences who are just starting their journey with Imagine No Malaria. As we dive deep into the facts and stories of this extraordinary effort to reduce preventable malaria deaths in Africa, we spend a lot of time talking about the impact of this initiative on families. Statistically, 85% of those who die from malaria are children under 5 years old. That's a statistic that is made even more compelling when we see the photos of infants, toddlers, and preschool-age kids in Africa who are actually suffering from, or have survived in spite of, malaria.

But the other demographic group that is vulnerable to malaria is pregnant women.  The CDC identifies the risks:

Adults who have survived repeated malaria infections throughout their lifetimes may become partially immune to severe or fatal malaria. However, because of the changes in women’s immune systems during pregnancy and the presence of a new organ (the placenta) with new places for parasites to bind, pregnant women lose some of their immunity to malaria infection.

Malaria infection during pregnancy can have adverse effects on both mother and fetus, including maternal anemia, fetal loss, premature delivery, intrauterine growth retardation, and delivery of low birth-weight infants (<2500 g or <5.5 pounds), a risk factor for death.

It is a particular problem for women in their first and second pregnancies and for women who are HIV-positive.

And the drugs most commonly used to treat malaria carry the risk of stillbirth.

Jennifer Long is a Field Co-
Coordinator in Missouri

One of the new Field Coordinators here in Nashville with me is a mom and seminary student from Missouri. Jennifer Long contracted malaria unknowingly while on a mission trip to Honduras nearly 8 years ago, and did not get diagnosed until nine months after she returned - when she was four months pregnant with her fourth child. 

Although the diagnosis of malaria was unusual in the midwest, and so took longer than it might in an area where more people experience the disease, Jennifer was fortunate to have access to excellent health care, and her baby was born healthy. But she was devastated by the thought that as she held her beautiful, healthy baby boy, some three thousand mothers were watching their babies die. And all because she was in the U.S., while those other mothers were not. Jennifer has been raising funds through Nothing But Nets throughout her son's life to honor those 3,000 moms, and now is joining the Imagine No Malaria team in the hope that someday, no mother will have to mourn the death of her child due to malaria.

http://www.imaginenomalaria.org/sharethelove/

Today, the number of people who die from malaria has decreased nearly 50% over the statistics from 9 years ago. But approximately fourteen hundred mothers still mourn each day as they watch their children die from malaria. One in five children born in sub-Saharan Africa will die before their fifth birthday, and other families will mourn the loss of a mother.

As Mother's Day approaches next month, we invite you to honor your mother or a maternal figure in your life by making a gift in her honor to Imagine No Malaria. Visit the Share the Love page at the Imagine No Malaria website for Mother's Day resources such as prayers, poems, an inspiring video, and related articles. You can also order Mother's Day cards that let a mother in your life known that you helped save the life of a mother or child in Africa in her name.

Campaign updates and a friendly competition

Photo by Karen Stoffers Pugh

Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed!

I hope that your Easter celebration included some experience of Resurrection and new life, whether that looked like spring flowers blooming, healing of past pain, new personal or professional opportunities, forgiveness and letting go, the joy of children's energy and innocence, or some other miracle, large or small. As we enter the season of Eastertide, I want to let you know how things are going with the Imagine No Malaria campaign in the Rocky Mountain Conference.

As of February 28, 2013 (the last month for which donations received at the Nashville campaign headquarters have been tallied), RMCUMC is credited with bringing in $42,127.89 to Imagine No Malaria directly, in addition to the $125,673.32 donated in honor of Bishop and Mrs. Brown that was used to purchase bed nets for distribution in Angola last year. In addition, individual members and leaders have pledged another $16,810.00 over the next year. That brings us to $184,611.21 raised, or about 15.4% of our total goal. (We know that a number of additional contributions are en route.)

So far, at least 45 churches in our conference have either taken an offering or been represented by trackable individual donations. The largest amounts sent in so far come from:

• Grand Junction First: $4,000
• Casper First: $1,335
• Arvada: $1,311
• Newcastle First: $1,025
• Montrose First: $1,016
• Windsor First: $1,000

When the amount sent in is divided by the church's average weekly attendance for 2012, the largest donations per capita so far are from:

• Newcastle First:                      $14.44/attendee          (4.58/member)
• Wheatland:                              $13.11/attendee          ($7.02/member)
• Grand Junction First:             $12.94/attendee           ($4.55/member)
• Johnson Memorial, Dolores:   $9.36/attendee            ($3.38/member)
• Ovid:                                       $9.01/attendee            ($5.54/member)
• Estes Park:                              $8.41/attendee            ($5.43/member)
• Windsor First:                         $7.58/attendee            ($4.98/member)

We are off to a great start! Three churches have already reached the level of saving one life per worship attendee ($10). And First UMC in Casper, Wyoming, is the first RMC church to notify us of their official fundraising goal ($11,000).  

Now is the time to start building even greater momentum; our goal of $1.2 million given or pledged by April 2014 requires an average of $20 per UMC member in our conference, or $40 per worship attendee.

To try to spread their enthusiasm for the life-saving mission of Imagine No Malaria, two pastors in Utah are challenging the other members of their sub-district to a little friendly competition.

Rev. Olga Hard of Mountain Vista UMC in West Jordan, and Rev. Dennis Shaw of Hilltop UMC in Sandy, have proposed that the Utah church that raises the highest dollar amount per capita (based on 2012 average weekly attendance) between April 1 and September 30, 2013, will receive a certificate, will be featured on this blog and in RMC News, and will have "bragging rights" - in addition to the satisfaction of transforming lives and communities in Africa! Rev. Shaw clarifies, "Money has to be sent to the RMC and is for money sent during the period of competition."

If any other (sub-)districts are interested in establishing their own competition, please let me know! We will be announcing campaign results to date at Annual Conference this June, and since the Rocky Mountain Conference campaign continues through spring of 2014, there is still time to make plans for congregational education and awareness-raising efforts, community engagement events, and other creative activities.

Check out the latest news article on ImagineNoMalaria.org about the diverse approaches churches in the Holston Conference are taking, and help us change lives and make history as together we seek to end preventable deaths from malaria in Africa!

Holy Week, Holy Work

This is Holy Week.

Christians around the world are journeying together in a variety of ways, recalling the final days of Jesus' life, from his "triumphal entry" (or anti-empire protest march) into Jerusalem, through the celebration of the Passover meal with his disciples, through his arrest, trial, and crucifixion.

It is a week that many experience as heavy with meaning and remembrance, overshadowed by the betrayal, violence, fear, and grief that Jesus and his followers experienced. In my five years in pastoral leadership in the local church, and twelve years of worship design and leadership, it was always one of the hardest and most sacred times to be a leader of the Christian community. The darkness becomes almost palpable, even two thousand years later, even for those of us living in comfort and affluence, even when the weather is sunny and warm, even when we know how the story ends.

It is the week that changes everything.

Artwork is mixed media collage, created by
Jessica Miller Kelley in 2006, photographs ©2013.
Downloaded from MinistryMatters.com.

Because on Sunday, after all that darkness and sorrow, we rise to the Good News that Christ is alive and goes before us. We remember those long-ago disciples and their experience of Resurrection, and we celebrate the truth that hate and fear do not have the final word; love does. Evil may seem to be all around, but ultimately, good triumphs. Death is still and always a reality in our world, but it is not the deepest reality: Life is what God desires, life abundant and eternal, life transformed by love, life made in the image of our Creator, life expressed by following in the footsteps of our Redeemer, life sustained by the nourishment and guidance of the Holy Spirit, that blows where it will and cannot be stopped or restrained.

This is a Holy Week, and it is right to make time for prayer and worship with the gathered community to recall and proclaim these stories, these experiences, together.

But even in the midst of this holy time, there is work to be done: reports to write, children to pick up from school, data to analyze, buildings to construct, food to prepare, seeds to plant, burst pipes to repair... bed nets to hang, rapid diagnostic kits to distribute, community health workers to train, school children to educate, medications to administer, radio programs to broadcast, funds to raise, communities to engage, voices to lift up on behalf of the voiceless, to speak out for those who are poor and vulnerable, to cry out for justice and proclaim the good news of God's love, of God's desire for abundant life for all people.

In the midst of this Holy Week, may your work - paid or volunteer, professional or personal - become part of the ongoing ministry of Jesus, to proclaim the good news and to build the kin'dom of heaven, the reign of God's love and justice in our midst, here and now, making Resurrection and abundant life possible for all people and all creation.

And if you'd like to join us in partnering with the people of Africa to make abundant life more accessible for millions of God's children by eliminating preventable deaths from malaria, call 303-733-3736 x152 or email kerry [at] rmcumc [dot] com. Death will not have the final word, this week or for generations to come.

Do all the good you can

John Wesley, by William Hamilton

When United Methodists want to check whether we're on a path that is consistent with our theological heritage, we often turn to the writings and accounts of John Wesley, the 18th-century English priest who, together with his brother Charles, is considered the founder of the Methodist movement.

John Wesley was a famous preacher and prolific writer who often sought to make abstract doctrine or obscure Scripture relevant to the everyday lives of the people with whom he ministered. Although a number of sayings attributed to him today are disputed or can be shown to be false, many of them may still be considered true to his teachings. One of those that rings true because it is linked with the General Rules of the United Societies, is this "rule of life":

Do all the good you can,
by all the means you can,
in all the ways you can,
in all the places you can,
at all the times you can,
to all the people you can,
as long as ever you can.

Wesley believed in making the best use of every moment and resource available to us: "Never be triflingly employed" was one of the maxims of his moral code, reflecting his desire to serve God faithfully in every endeavor. In case it's not clear what kind of "good" you're supposed to do, Wesley preached repeatedly on love as the central Christian virtue. In "The Character of a Methodist," as Steve Manskar explains, Wesley describes that

[t]he mark of a Methodist is his or her love for God. Their devotion to God is complete. Methodists center their lives upon God who became one of us in Jesus of Nazareth. His life and teachings provide the way Methodists live their love for God in all aspects of life. No part of life is untouched by their devotion to God and the things of God. This means that the Methodist’s love for God compels him or her to love those whom God loves. Their daily life is shaped by obedience to the teachings of Jesus.

Manskar, who serves as the Director of Wesleyan Leadership for the General Board of Discipleship, continues,

Methodism is designed to equip people to receive the gift of faith by practicing the discipline of love given in the person and teaching of Jesus Christ. The discipline of love sets them free to become fully the human beings God created them to be, in the image of Christ. The aim of Jesus’ life and teaching is equipping his disciples to participate in his mission in the world.

Love God, love those whom God loves (that is, everyone), do all the good you can. Sounds like a pretty good summation of the way of Jesus to me. And a compelling case for taking part in campaigns to end suffering, provide healing, and offer abundant life as we are doing through Imagine No Malaria.

I especially like Manskar's focus that the discipline of love is as much for our own benefit as it is for the benefit of those who receive our loving acts. By loving others, by giving of ourselves, our gifts, our time, our energy, we are set free to become fully who God has created us to be, set free to be transformed more into the image of Christ. Jesus' mission in the world is not just for the sake of those who have less, those who are suffering, but it is liberating and transformative for all who participate in it, both as givers and as receivers - and if we do it well, I think we experience both sides of that equation in the same action.

So have you done all the good you can today? Consider joining us in doing good in Africa as we seek to end malaria deaths and bring healing in Jesus' name. You might find yourself set free in the process.


P.S. You can read more about John Wesley at the Wesley Center Online, the Wikipedia article, or you might try Wesley and the People Called Methodists, by Richard P. Heitzenrater, for a fuller account.

Looking for resources?

If you want to take part in Imagine No Malaria in the Rocky Mountain Conference, we want you to have access to the resources you need as quickly as possible! With that in mind, there is a new page here on the blog about how you can get involved, either as an individual or as a church leader.

You can also check out the latest Malaria Fact Sheet and Imagine No Malaria Ministry Overview.

In the coming weeks, we will be posting even more resources for you to view and download, but in the meantime, please feel free to contact Rev. Kerry Greenhill, Field Coordinator, at 303-733-3736 (Tues - Thurs) or by email at kerry [at] rmcumc [dot] com with any questions.

Rev. Mike Dent, Senior Pastor of Trinity UMC, Denver, helps
distribute bed nets in Angola in October 2012.

We are making a difference, offering health and healing to millions of people in Africa in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ, the Savior who came to show that God wants all people to be able to live life to the fullest - but we need your help to reach our goal of ending malaria deaths in this generation! Won't you join us?