INM Update and New Resource!

This article was originally posted on RMCUMC.org on October 30, 2015.

At the Rocky Mountain Annual Conference in 2014, we announced that gifts, pledges, and church goals to date had exceeded our conference goal of raising $1.2 million to end preventable deaths from malaria in Africa. I am delighted to share with you that our totals continue to rise.

We have now received commitments of more than $1.5 million from individuals and churches, and nearly 56 percent of that ($848,229, to be precise) was in-hand as of July 31, 2015. One way of understanding that number is that we have already saved more lives in Africa than there are United Methodists in the Rocky Mountain Conference!

We are part of a global coalition that is making a dramatic difference in communities across sub-Saharan Africa. But the need continues. If your church set a God-sized goal to raise funds that you have not yet met, please email Kristi Kinnison at the Rocky Mountain United Methodist Foundation to let her know how you are doing with that goal and whether your efforts are ongoing.

A new resource is available for churches seeking to engage young people in learning about and discussing the issues that Imagine No Malaria seeks to address. Local author (and youth director at Arvada UMC), Marcia Canter, has written and published a novel for older elementary and middle school-aged readers called Mosquito Madness, which tells the story of Becca Williams, a bored fifth-grader who receives a mysterious postcard from her aunt in Africa, requesting nets. Soon Becca learns about malaria’s deadly impact, and becomes determined to help her aunt fight it.

Mosquito Madness is the story of a community coming together to help their neighbors, at home and across the ocean. The lessons of The Good Samaritan and The Golden Rule come into fresh light as the Sunday school class examine the church’s role in their lives and the world. Readers young and old can learn about the Methodist denomination’s efforts to make the world a better place.

Ten percent of the book’s profits go to support Imagine No Malaria and other organizations dedicated to ending childhood diseases in Africa, and Canter is available to speak to youth groups about her book. The book is available at Tattered Cover and through Lulu Publishing. Learn more by going to this link: www.booklanthropy.com/mosquito-madness.html.

Engaging young people around the world

Students in Anya Greenhill's
Year 12 Geography class,
East Doncaster Secondary College

In September, I (Rev. Kerry Greenhill, Field Coordinator) had an opportunity to talk about Imagine No Malaria with the very bright and engaged students of a 12th-grade Geography class in Australia. My cousin's wife, Anya Greenhill, is a teacher at East Doncaster Secondary College, and she decided to spend their final unit of the school year (which runs January to December) on malaria.

The wonders of 21st-century communication technology (Skype) allowed me to give a 15-minute presentation about the challenge of malaria in Africa, and how the people of The United Methodist Church are responding through Imagine No Malaria, and then spend another 30 minutes or so answering questions from students.

It was an excellent experience, in spite of some minor challenges in volume levels, and as I have found to be true in other settings, the young people asked questions that were every bit as insightful and probing as questions asked by adults. They had done their homework in researching both the topic of malaria and some of the background of Imagine No Malaria, and we had what I experienced as a thoughtful conversation across the thousands of miles of Pacific Ocean that separate us. Anya has set a goal to invite them to get involved in the global fight against malaria in one way or another, and it was clear that they are well on their way.

If you are a teacher or otherwise connected with a local school in some way, consider whether it might be possible to invite the students, faculty, and community to join you in learning more about malaria and in taking action to end preventable deaths from this killer disease of poverty. I'd be glad to offer support and resources (as soon as I return from vacation on Oct. 24) - just send me an email or give me a call at the Rocky Mountain Conference office!

Progress Update & Creative Plans

Thanks to the churches and individuals that have given, pledged, or set goals since Annual Conference, we continue to make tremendous progress toward our fundraising goals:

• The overall Imagine No Malaria campaign has raised $53 million in gifts and pledges toward its total goal of $75 million. 
• Rocky Mountain Conference has received gifts, pledges, and church goals totaling $594,121 so far, which puts us at 49.5% of our goal! 
• This includes an individual matching gift of $50,000 from a donor affiliated with a Denver-area church, and another $45,500 committed by members of that church toward the matched amount so far!

Churches are also making plans to Advocate, Raise Funds, and Engage Community in all kinds of creative ways, including:

Cameron UMC volunteers with Kunle Taiwo, Sarah and Kristi
Kinnison, at the (Denver) South Pearl Street Farmer's Market

• Hosting Imagine No Malaria as part of their booth at the weekly farmer's market (Cameron Church, Denver)
• A knit/crochet-a-thon at Platteville UMC
• Donations from an annual Trunk or Treat event, plus a "Whack a Mosquito" activity involving beating up an old car (First UMC, Longmont)
• Benefit concerts featuring church and/or community musicians (Mountain View, Boulder; Good Shepherd, Thornton)
• A Western Slope youth camp-out where participants have to solve real-life problems as family groups based on assigned identities and circumstances faced by families in Africa

I know many other churches are planning creative and exciting activities - please email me at kerry [at] rmcumc.com to share your story, along with any photos or videos you may take!

And if you want to learn more about how to get involved, consider joining us for one of the following training/information sessions (see full list here):

August 29	Thursday	6:30pm	Hope UMC, Greenwood Village, CO
September 12	Thursday	6:00pm	First UMC, Durango, CO
September 13	Friday	6:30pm	Hotchkiss UMC, Hotchkiss, CO
September 18	Wednesday	6:30pm	First UMC, Greeley, CO

Together, we are transforming and saving lives!

Abundant life, abundant generosity

Fantastic pre-conference volunteers

This is "Annual Conference Recovery Week" for several staff and other conference leaders, so we'll get back into the swing of things next week, but I did want to highlight a few of the wonderful developments last weekend. To sum up, God is good - all the time!

First of all, I could not have finished preparing all of our packets of materials in time if it weren't for the help of four fantastic volunteers on Tuesday before conference. Thanks to Hamu, Darcy,  Michael, and LeAnn for your great - and fast - work!

Becky Buxton, our scientific
expert on malaria

Dozens of people stopped by the Imagine No Malaria resource table in the display area to ask questions, collect materials, and sign up to volunteer or get more information. My thanks go out to our Steering Committee members, especially Robin Ball and Becky Buxton, who helped staff the table so I could eat and take a break occasionally!

CCYM selling cute & colorful mosquitoes (the fashion
accessory of the year, according to Bishop Elaine)

The Conference Council on Youth Ministries made pipe cleaner mosquitoes that they then sold for $5 each, raising $638 for Imagine No Malaria! Also, the Conference Board of Higher Education and Campus Ministry invited participants to vote for their favorite campus ministry by making donations, and they raised another $175.18 for our work in malaria prevention, treatment, education, and communication! (The Wesley Foundation at UW in Laramie won, in case you were wondering!)

Robin Ball, Steering Committee
Co-Chair, with the banquet centerpieces

About 65 people volunteered as Table Captains (or Co-Captains) for the all-conference Missions Banquet on Friday night, making it possible to set up centerpieces, programs, "prayer nets" and bookmarks, handouts, and pledge forms in a very short time period, also making sure that anyone who entered the room could see where there was still room at a table. Thank you for helping us practice gracious hospitality and keep things running smoothly and on schedule!

Rev. Gary Henderson, Executive Director
of the UMC's Global Health Initiative

 Rev. Gary Henderson gave a powerful and inspiring keynote presentation about the success of Imagine No Malaria so far, both on the ground in Africa, and among United Methodist churches in the United States. We hope to have video of that presentation available in a couple weeks - stay tuned!

The all-conference Mission Banquet on Friday night

Somewhere around 700 attendees at the banquet engaged in conversation about how to carry the energy and passion for Imagine No Malaria back to their churches and communities, and made pledges of prayers, presence, gifts, service and witness. It'll take some time for us (Kerry and the Steering Committee) to follow up with everyone, but we are thrilled by the support and commitment of the lay and clergy members of the Rocky Mountain Conference.

That support and commitment was made concrete in the abundance of gifts and pledges collected in the banquet, which totaled $40,188.61! In addition, Imagine No Malaria will receive half of the Bridge of Love offering from Saturday morning, which means that our total raised for Imagine No Malaria during annual conference is nearly $50,000, or 5,000 lives saved in just three days!

Rev. Kerry Greenhill
(Field Coordinator)
with a human-size mosquito!

I am so thankful and awed by the movement of the Spirit during our time together, and by the This is not just second-mile giving, but third- or fourth-mile giving for many who already give tremendous amounts of time and energy to the work of the kin'dom of God through the church.
outpouring of generosity from conference participants. Clergy and lay members to annual conference are asked to give to several offerings from Thursday to Sunday, usually from their own wallets and checkbooks (unless a church has been organized enough to plan ahead and send funds with their delegates).

I believe that this work, to prevent unnecessary deaths and suffering from malaria, particularly among children and pregnant women, is truly what God desires from the Body of Christ. All who have received the gift of abundant life have an opportunity to receive blessing in the act of offering a blessing to others through their generosity. Thank you to all who recognized this opportunity and are joining in this extraordinary effort with the people called United Methodist around the world!

Launching into Lent

Did you miss the official campaign launch for Imagine No Malaria in the Rocky Mountain Conference?  For the thousands of United Methodists in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming who were not able to be present at the Youth Leadership Conference on January 25, we have a video snapshot to give you a taste of the presentation (our thanks to Myranda Hoffman, RMC Communications Specialist, who did the video editing!):



This is just a glimpse of the information and stories shared that night by Becca Fenton, Rev. Mike Dent, Becky Buxton, and Bishop Elaine Stanovsky. The Rocky Mountain Conference has committed to raising $1.2 million toward the denomination's overall goal of $75 million. This represents 120,000 lives saved, but the truth is that our impact will last longer and stretch further than this fraction of the 655,000 people who die from malaria each year.

Because Imagine No Malaria takes a comprehensive approach, including prevention, treatment, education, and communication, our gifts and efforts become part of sustainable, empowering, locally-led work to eradicate malaria as a source of suffering and death in Africa. This is long-term, life-saving, kingdom-building work that we do in the name of Jesus Christ, who came that all people might have abundant life.

Tomorrow, we enter into the season of Lent, a time of examining our spiritual lives, identifying what separates us from God, and seeking to follow the footsteps of Jesus more closely and intentionally. If you are taking on a spiritual discipline such as prayer or fasting, I invite you to consider connecting it with an action that has tangible impact on the lives of our sisters and brothers in God's family. That could be as simple as setting aside $10 a week to donate to Imagine No Malaria instead of eating out; or telling one new person each week about The United Methodist Church's extraordinary work to bring healing to families and communities in Africa. For more ideas, check out the Imagine No Malaria Lenten Devotional.

If you want to learn more, and especially if you have experience with malaria or if you have a heart for the people of Africa and are eager to get involved, call 303-733-3736 x152 or email kerry@rmcumc.com to find out how you can join the campaign as a volunteer. 

Watch this space in the coming days for details on the different volunteer roles available and what it means become an Ambassador, district organizer, or local church leader!

Mosquitoes kill no more

Mosquitoes, they fly high;
Mosquitoes, they fly low.
Mosquitoes, they fly everywhere -- [clap]
Mosquitoes fly no more!

Bishop Elaine Stanovsky has been teaching conference leaders, clergy and laity this camp song about mosquitoes each time she talks about the life-saving work of Imagine No Malaria. On Friday evening, the participants in the Youth Leadership Conference (YLC), held at St Andrew UMC in Highlands Ranch, learned all about the mosquitoes that spread malaria. And, more importantly, they heard from Bishop Elaine and three other speakers how The United Methodist Church, together with global funding and health partners, is taking the lead in an extraordinary effort to end preventable deaths and suffering from malaria in Africa.

Rev. Dr. Mike Dent, Senior Pastor of Trinity UMC, Denver, introduced the youth to Imagine No Malaria, an expansion of the tremendous work accomplished through Nothing But Nets. Imagine No Malaria adds to the prevention work of providing bed nets the essential components of treatment, education, communication, and advocacy, which are being carried out in African communities by United Methodist health workers and partners like Africare, Nets for Life, and the Alliance for Malaria Prevention. Rev. Dent also welcomed the other members of the Steering Committee who were present at the event: Dr. Becky Buxton, Bishop Elaine, Kunle Taiwo, Kristi Kinnison, and Rev. Dr. Youngsook Kang. Co-Chair, Robin Ball, and Field Coordinator, Rev. Kerry Greenhill, were unable to attend.

Becca Fenton, a youth leader in the conference and member of the Conference Board of Global Ministries, led an exercise that demonstrated the prevalence of malaria in sub-Saharan Africa -- in many areas, approximately 75% of the population experiences malaria at some point in their lives, most as children when they are most vulnerable to the disease.

Dr. Becky Buxton, who teaches medical laboratory sciences at the University of Utah, shared her professional passion for malaria research and her personal experience visiting Ghana and seeing firsthand how diagnosis and treatment have improved in the last eight years.
 
And Bishop Elaine closed out the presentation with the mosquito song, a description of her experience distributing bed nets as part of the Mountain Sky Area mission team to Angola last year, and a call to action for the youth: Get involved as leaders in your church and community, and help us save lives! 

One of the images from the Angola trip is of a village gathered around the base of a baobab tree to sign up to receive insecticide-treated bed nets, one of the most important and cost-effective prevention tools available. Reflecting on what those nets mean to families, many of whom have already lost children to malaria, Bishop Elaine identified this as a powerful symbol: the Tree of Life.

For most Americans, the challenges of malaria may seem too far away to get involved or too overwhelming to make a difference. But Imagine No Malaria offers individuals, families, churches, and communities the opportunity to be part of a bigger movement; to take small steps that can offer physical and spiritual healing to families and communities in Africa. It only costs $10 to send a net that can save a life; imagine how many lives you can save if you join together with others in your Sunday school class, youth group, UMW, UMM, book club, congregation, school, or town!

For those unsure of their capacity to have an impact, consider the African proverb:

"If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping in a closed room with a mosquito."

Youth at YLC had a chance to sign up to get involved as volunteers, and also to take packets of information back to share with their churches. Video of the presentation will be available soon. Meanwhile, to learn more or to get involved, please contact Field Coordinator, Kerry Greenhill, at kerry [at] rmcumc [dot] com or 303-733-3736 x152. Together, we can sing a new song:

Mosquitoes, they fly high;
Mosquitoes, they fly low.
Mosquitoes, they fly everywhere -- [clap]
Mosquitoes kill no more!