One of the comic strips I always look at in the newspaper is “Get Fuzzy.” For those of you who haven’t seen it, “Get Fuzzy” features a rather clueless dog named Satchel and a bright but mean cat named Bucky who both try the patience of their owner Rob. Much of Bucky’s meanness is directed at the unsuspecting Satchel who falls victim to Bucky’s various ploys. And again and again Bucky ends up assaulting Satchel physically and justifies it by saying, “I had to do something to get his attention!” Pow!
I wonder if the Gospel writer Matthew is out to get our attention with his dramatic last-judgment scenario of the sheep and the goats. I frankly do not find this one of the more comforting passages of scripture because it raises the question, could you or I be a goat rather than a sheep? How will we measure up when the time of final judgment comes? But Matthew does succeed in getting his message across, and it’s a message that sometimes we’d rather not have called to our attention. One of the ultimate measures of our membership in God’s kingdom on earth is how we respond to the needs of others around us--how we give food to the hungry, and shelter to the homeless, and comfort to the sick and troubled. To do good to those in need is the do it to God--for all people are members of God’s family. That’s a core tenet of Basic Christianity 101.
On this Missions Sunday we’re focusing on the ways the church works to bring good news to the needy and suffering in concrete ways. And a lot of what we at FUMC do is hands-on help--food for the hungry in our community, and support of missionaries whom we know, and rebuilding efforts in New Orleans, and supporting a preschool in Nigeria, and all the other particular ways we as individuals find to serve in our community. I want to mention particularly the Food Pantry at Family Place, one of our most recent projects, which our Church and Community Committee co-chaired by Phyllis Johnson and Mira Pak have helped to establish. Today is Phyllis’ last Sunday with us before she moves, and we owe her a vote of thanks for her significant contribution to this part of our mission outreach. But the fact is that some of the people who need concrete forms of help from us are those we don’t have any personal contact with. They’re on the other side of town--or half-way around the world. How can we help them?
Back in 1940, World War II was already causing much suffering in Europe. And the Methodist Church as a denomination recognized that indeed we needed more effective channels for getting help to those who need it most. So in that year--68 years ago now--the Methodist Committee on Overseas Relief, now known as the United Methodist Committee on Relief, or UMCOR for short, was born. And over the years it has become an amazingly effective agency of relief and outreach on behalf of the church. Now if you’ve been a part of this church for any length of time, you’ve been hearing references to UMCOR rather frequently, and especially right after disasters occur. We’re glad to know that UMCOR is out there acting in our stead. Yet I don’t think most of us are really aware of all that UMCOR does and how it is in mission on our behalf. And so for this Missions Sunday our Missions Council asked me to give a more in-depth picture of the work of our United Methodist Committee on Relief so that we might be more aware of what we’re supporting and how we can touch the lives of others through it. This is frankly an educational sermon. We’re not going to take a special offering for UMCOR today, nor pass out any pledge cards. But hopefully we will better understand the vital role that UMCOR plays as part of our effort to be a faithful church in mission.
UMCOR has a simple but inclusive mission statement. Its purpose is to alleviate human suffering--whether caused by war, conflict, or natural disaster--with open minds and hearts to all people. UMCOR is more than a disaster relief agency, though that’s usually what we’re most aware of. Human suffering takes many forms; and UMCOR has a variety of ways of responding to it. Today UMCOR works in 81 countries, many of which are non-Christian. Its work is not tied to any religious viewpoint, but is purely an expression of Christian love.
Two principles guide UMCOR’s work and enable it to be the effective agency that it is. The first of these is that UMCOR aims for integrated solutions to the situations it faces. It considers all the issues that hinder a community from being whole and healthy, and strategizes how to respond to each of them. Take the case of the tsunami that devastated many Asian countries in late 2004. First, there were thousands of injured to be attended to. Homes were lost, water was contaminated, crops and food and savings were gone. People were in shock, their lives totally undermined. Many were grieving the loss of family and friends. In many cases the whole economy was destroyed. And in some places the disaster brought religious conflict to the surface as faith groups fought over getting their own piece of relief aid. So all of these were issues UMCOR tried to address in its relief efforts. Medical care and the provision of food, shelter, and water came first. Close behind that came psychological and spiritual counseling--then case work to help the victims sort out how to get more permanent shelter and food. Then efforts to start rebuilding the economy and the community infrastructure--roads and schools and water systems--had to be dealt with. And in some cases something had to be done about the religious divisions that threatened the recovery effort. So for UMCOR, tsunami disaster relief was much more than setting up feeding stations and temporary shelter. They built or repaired 524 houses, built schools for 750 students, helped rebuild roads, took care of hundreds of displaced families, and offered spiritual support and counseling to many. And in a minute you’ll hear more about their efforts in one particular country. This wholistic approach characterizes how UMCOR comes at any situation it faces; and as you will see different situations call for quite different ways of responding.
The second principle that guides UMCOR’s work is that it partners with other groups whenever possible in doing relief work. At the international level it is part of a worldwide consortium called ACT International (Action by Churches Together), and it partners regularly with Church World Service. In the case of a disaster it strategizes with these other relief agencies, and decisions are made as to who will do what in a coordinated way. At the local level UMCOR looks for established community organizations to partner with, and that often includes churches. UMCOR never tries to duplicate what other agencies are doing, and whenever possible it relies on the guidance of local groups who may know best what is needed.
In Sri Lanka the Methodist Church is well established across the country, so when the tsunami hit, UMCOR asked the Sri Lanka Methodists how UMCOR’s funds might best be used to aid recovery there. The Sri Lankans were up to the challenge and came up with some creative ideas that probably would never have occurred to an outsider. In Sri Lanka the Tamil people are the lowest social caste and have often been a source of conflict within the country. So UMCOR was asked to build houses and drill 40 wells specifically among the Tamils. And the saying around Sri Lanka is that “the Methodist wells have the sweetest water.” In order to get small businesses going again, sewing machines, small engines, and boats were requested and provided. To make a local fishing community viable again, UMCOR helped them generate a plan for increasing their income from fishing and built 100 homes there. And for places where fishing was no longer viable, the local Methodists came up with the idea of training fisherman to become taxi drivers, and that was done. I’ll bet you never guessed your UMCOR gifts could be used for training taxi drivers! A program of reconciliation between Christians and Hindus was also part of the Sri Lanka recovery work.
In any given year UMCOR responds to scores of disasters in the U.S. and abroad; and in each situation the response is tailored to that situation’s particular needs. When wildfires have hit us here in southern California, UMCOR’s response has been primarily financial aid grants to persons in need. When a violent earthquake hit the Kashmir area in 2006, they partnered with Church World Service and International Blue Crescent, the Islamic relief agency, to provide housing for 4000 families in Pakistan, make water system repairs, and provide health programs and counseling support that benefitted thousands. In African famines, in addition to food aid, they have helped organize cereal banks and community granaries, and have provided seeds, fertilizer, and irrigation pumps to make the next crop better.
I want to say a special word about their relief work in response to Hurricane Katrina. As we know this was the largest disaster to hit this country in the memory of most of us, and it required a huge response from all sides. UMCOR was in there with its usual relief efforts, and we in this congregation gave generously, well into five figures. But the most important role that UMCOR played was to be the “brains” behind much of the relief work. As the annual conferences in each of the Gulf states set up storm recovery centers, they were guided and trained and mentored by UMCOR staff. Those of us who have gone to New Orleans on work teams have met UMCOR people on the job as they helped to guide and oversee the recovery operations. And perhaps the greatest vote of confidence in UMCOR’s leadership came from FEMA who gave them a $65 million grant for case management work with survivors. Today UMCOR leads Katrina Aid Today, a consortium of nine social service agencies helping survivors rebuild their lives.
So far I’ve talked mostly about UMCOR’s response to disaster. But equally significant are its longer-term efforts to provide relief from hunger, poverty, poor health, and other forms of suffering. In this country UMCOR is involved in refugee resettlement, and typically helps about 2000 refugees each year find homes. In eleven countries in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean, UMCOR has established field offices which carry out various programs of humanitarian aid and development. One of those is in Afghanistan. There UMCOR has given livestock to farmers to help get them back on their feet. It has organized schools and cllinics, and financed community wells and latrines, while making a point of hiring local people to do the digging so as to provide much needed employment.
Another UMCOR field office is in Sudan. There one of its most creative projects has been to establish schools in south Darfur which serve 15,000 children. The children and teachers have been recruited from all sides of the conflict in Darfur, which helps to protect the schools from partisan attack. In addition to teaching the usual subjects, the school program is designed to help the children shield themselves from early marriages, kidnapping, recruitment as child soldiers, or other forms of exploitation.
In light of today’s world food shortage, one of UMCOR’s most timely ongoing projects is its Sustainable Agriculture and Development program which operates mainly in Africa. The core of this program is what are called Farmer Field Schools, which of course are held “in the field” where farmers can attend. Here farmers learn about the best crops for their area, the use of fertilizer and agricultural methods, the best ways to market their crops, environmental considerations, and even financial management. The farmers are then organized into learning groups in which they share with one another what they learn in their own experience.
As a sidebar to this project, I want to mention the Fair Trade Coffee Project which UMCOR has organized to allow coffee farmers to get a fair price for their product. Many of you know that the coffee served here at this church is Fair Trade Certified. You’ll be glad to know that UMCOR has helped to make this program possible for the benefit of Third World farmers.
There’s much more I could say about UMCOR’s humanitarian outreach. For example, I’ve hardly touched on its health-related work--its community health care programs, HIV/AIDS programs, and health education scholarships. But I think I’ve probably given you as much as you can absorb for today. And by accessing UMCOR’s web site, you can learn more for yourselves. The address is simply UMCOR.org. That’s where you can learn about UMCOR’s response to disasters as they occur. But to save you some effort, let me give you a quick update on Myanmar and China.
In Myanmar, UMCOR is functioning as part of the ACT International consortium and is providing financial support. Despite the resistance of the military government, ACT has succeeded in getting food, tarps, and water baskets to a substantial number of survivors, including in the Irrawaddy Delta region. ACT and the UN World Food Program have provided food packets (with one- to six-months supply in each) to more than 60,000 people. Getting food in is crucial; it is known that a third of the population were malnourished even before the cyclone.
UMCOR’s lead partner in China is the Amity Foundation, a Chinese Christian volunteer organization that UMCOR has partnered with for a number of years. Here as in Myanmar, ACT is coordinating the overall response by non-governmental organizations. As of the last report, UMCOR had granted the Amity group $50,000 which has been used for emergency supplies such as oil, rice, quilts, and shelter material. Also our Board of Global Ministries has made a $10,000 grant for the assistance of children orphaned by the earthquake. Amity’s work in China has concentrated on rural areas which otherwise have not had priority in recovery efforts.
Well, friends, that’s the story of how we, through UMCOR, are working to relieve human suffering in the world family. So how does all this great work get financed? The answer is simply, we finance it, by our specific gifts to UMCOR. UMCOR is financed entirely by voluntary giving. It does not receive any funding from our apportionment giving--so no one gives to UMCOR without knowing it! UMCOR’s overhead expense is all funded by the annual One Great Hour of Sharing offering which comes along on the fourth Sunday in Lent. And its relief and recovery work is paid for by our special gifts. If you designate a gift specifically for some project, such as China earthquake recovery or the schools in Darfur, 100% of your gift will go to that project. Perhaps today you may wish to consider a gift in support of UMCOR’s relief efforts after the recent massive flooding in the Midwest--certainly one of UMCOR’s most urgent needs right now. Today’s order of worship insert tells you how to do that. If you choose to make a general gift, UMCOR will use it for whatever project most needs it. You can always give by writing a check to the church with the notation “UMCOR” and any project you want to designate. It is also possible to give directly on the UMCOR web site.
As Matthew tells us so clearly, living as a member of God’s kingdom on this earth means feeding the hungry and clothing the naked and doing whatever we can to relieve the suffering of our fellow humans. We are all called to this mission. Thankfully the church provides us some channels and opportunities for carrying it out--channels we can trust. May God give each of us and all of us the grace to live as the members of God’s kingdom we’re called to be!
© Larry Young, 2008. Permission is given for brief quotation with attribution.
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"Agents of Relief"