Training Community Health Workers in Texas
Gloria* did not want to leave her bedroom. She was depressed. Her diabetes was getting worse. She didn't understand English. A family member suggested she go to Pharr Literacy Project, a Global Ministries and UMCOR-supported program in Pharr, Texas. After some hesitation, Gloria signed up for an ESL (English as a Second Language) class at Pharr Literacy, where she was also referred for care and evaluation to a health care worker and a psychologist. She began to find her place in society and within the Pharr Literacy community. She is now training to become a community health worker.
When someone like Gloria comes to Pharr Literacy to learn English, he or she is given more than nouns and verbs. They are given resources to help turn their lives around. "We don't do everything; we can't," Ms. Kelly Michal, CEO, said. "But we can give opportunities to build people's self-esteem so they transform their lives."
The care is individualized because "every person has their own places where they're broken." Big life choices are offered, like the choice "to love yourself and to learn it's okay not to succeed at everything you do," Michal said.
Gloria is one of 20 workers enrolled in a 10-week Pharr training to become a health promoter through a community-based health care program, based on a similar Global Ministries project in Panama. The training is divided into four modules: spiritual health, mental health, alternative ways of healing, and physical health.
"We are teaching local people who are some of the most impoverished in the US to take control of their own health, their own bodies, their own emotions."
Pharr Literacy, located in South Texas, six miles from the US-Mexico border, is a faith-based organization supported by The United Methodist Church through Global Ministries, UMCOR, Communities of Shalom, the Community Developers program, and 17 partnering United Methodist churches. To learn more about this ministry, link to pharrliteracyproject.org or umvim4health.blogspot.com.
*Not her real name.
Photos: Top: Community-based primary health trainers at the Pharr Literacy Project teach one another about healthy lifestyles and healthy eating. Center: Patricia Magyar UMCOR, executive for health ministries (far right), visits the community-health trainers at the Pharr Literacy Project in Parr, Texas.
Photo Credit: courtesy of Leticia Gutierrez, Pharr Literacy Project
Advance for Christ helps a young lady learn English and a ecumenical partnership build a church. Advance supports communities programs and mission projects. Missionaries head to the beautiful city of Quito, Ecuador to start a new U.S. reports ‘serious problem’ with trafficking. Missionaries, Sara and Dakin head to Ecuador
Encounter with Christ
"Maria, the baby lamb, makes an appearance most every day to do her fair share in boosting team morale, as well as little Henry who helps as much as his little arms can. There's plenty of work that still needs to be done, but we're making lots of headway, and the amount of laughter and joy around the worksite grows and grows as the week presses on," reported the youth group from Evangelical United Methodist Church in Middletown, Pennsylvania, and Pleasant Valley United Methodist Church in Pleasant Valley, Connecticut, which joined the Encounter with Christ community as they built Luz de Vida (Light of Life) church in Cochabamba, Bolivia.
As a missionary in Bolivia, seminary professor, and pastor, Rev. Dr. Wilson Boots had seen it all, but he's never seen anything like "the sharing of mission" through Encounter with Christ, a network he calls "unique" because it is "a true partnership." The Bolivian church growth is one fruit of the union between Methodists and United Methodists in North, South, and Central America.
All decisions for where and how to disburse funds through Encounter with Christ are shared between the advisory staff of the General Board of Global Ministries, the Council of Evangelical Methodist Churches of Latin America and the Caribbean (CIEMAL), and the Methodist Church of the Caribbean and the Americas (MCCA).
The priorities for funding projects are three-fold: evangelism and new church development; women, children, and youth; and comprehensive community-based health care.
With a permanent fund of $1.7 million, only the interest is used to uplift, undergird, and fund, so far, 48 local projects in 21 countries, totaling more than $400,000 since its inception in 1992. Thanks to a $600,000 bequest from John L. Carl, a maintenance worker from Philippi, West Virginia, who never fulfilled his dream of becoming a missionary but gave to create Encounter with Christ. Many individuals have given during their lifetimes or through their wills or deferred giving.
Like the baby lamb who visits the teens as they help build a new church in Bolivia, Encounter with Christ is an uplifting presence for United Methodist mission engagement throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Give to Encounter with Christ, Advance #14729A.
Photo: Top: Broghan, Brynne and Kara (left to right) present, on behalf of Piedra Viva Methodist church, candles to three youth who have attained the age of 15. The candles symbolize the charge to carry the light of God into the world. Center: Evan Bailey, Bob Stevenson and Carl Franson (left to right) lay rocks in the stone jigsaw puzzle to make sure the Sanctuary Floor at the new Luz de Vida is solid.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Encounter with Christ Bolivia Mission Project
Advocate of the Month
Greater New Jersey
The Greater New Jersey Annual Conference raised $195,109 for a unique ministry, Wings of the Morning. Saving lives by transporting people, medicine, and supplies through small planes in Africa helps with safety, security, and operation excellence. Even though United Methodist airplanes have been flying for 50 years in the region, everyone runs outside to watch the plane descend in the remote areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Whether they run to the landing strip to meet Aunt Susan coming back from the hospital, a new supply of medicines, or a new seminary teacher,"the biggest and best thing to come out of every plane these days is not what is found in the cargo pod or in the passenger compartment, it's what's found in the front left seat, because out of every United Methodist airplane found in the Congo is a Congolese pilot. And that is a heritage well worth celebrating," said missionary Stephen Quigg at the Greater New Jersey Annual Conference.
Gaston Ntambo is one such pilot who has risked it all to save lives and pilot the small, ecologically-sound planes of the Wings of Morning in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Learn more about aviation missionaries:
• Gail Quigg (Advance #07995Z)
• Stephen Quigg (Advance #07994Z)
Gaston Nkulu Ntambo (Advance #14177Z)
Photos: Top: Steve & Gail Quigg are missionaries with the General Board of Global Ministries of The United Methodist Church, assigned to church aviation ministries. Center: (left to right) Rosa Williams, Gail Quigg, Steve Quigg, Bishop Sudarshana Devadhar, at the Greater New Jersey Annual Conference.
Photo Credit: Sushil Bhujbal
Featured Resource
Nationals in Mission (NiM)
Nationals in Mission are local leaders who serve in innovative ministries, loving their neighbors and proclaiming through word and deed the gospel of Jesus Christ through the worldwide Methodist movement.
The NiM program promotes a diverse missionary population through the emergence of local leadership in a variety of world countries.
NiMs are staffed by skilled workers from 54 nations. In 2011, 217 NiM projects bring about ministry with people in the four focus areas: leadership development, congregational development, global health, and ministry with the poor.
NiM projects receive support from congregations and individuals. Global Ministries offers a downloadable brochure (PDF, 3 pp., 61KB) as a resource to explain this cutting-edge ministry.
Photos: Rev. Kephas Oloo, National in Mission
Photo Credit: Matt Morgan
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