News from the week of July 18th

The Camphor United Methodist Mission is a ministry of the Liberia Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church in an underprivileged village community in Grand Bassa County, Liberia. The Mission is providing education, health care, Christian discipleship and community empowerment etc. for village people and their children. It operates a Junior High school, a clinic, a church an agricultural program aimed at reaching financial sustainability, etc. The leadership plans to move the school Junior High school to full high school by 2012 due to increased in number of village children moving on to high school, whose parents cannot afford the cost of sending their children to big cities for high school. This will require attracting additional qualified teachers to move and settle on the Mission which is a predominantly village setting. Creating incentives such as good housing facilities, salaries, etc will help accomplish this. The housing project is therefore being looked at as a priority.

Partnering Church
Kathy spent a great morning of worship at the Geneva UMC, sharing the stories about Camphor Mission. A good contact was made with people who may want to travel to the Camphor Mission in 2011. News about other UMVIM trips to Russia, Sierra Leone, and Zimbabwe were shared. So many opportunities for mission and ministry in East Ohio Conference.

Strongsville UMC, Christmas in July
Camphor Mission was blessed with Christmas presents of school supplies, backpacks, educational board games, and other goodies as Strongsville UMC hosted a meal and information time to learn more about the Bishop 3C's Initiative. These items will be a part of other donations being sent to Camphor Mission early 2011 on a container. Kathy and Danny Dickriede shared about the ministry that they joined at the Camphor Mission. It was exciting to meet generous members of the congregation, people who were curious about what the UMC is doing around the world, and meet other people who had served on the mission field in the past. Strongsville has been long time supporters of retired GBGM missionary Beth Ferrell. Check out the www.eocumc.com for more information about Missions and UMVIM trips scheduled for the future. See the exciting ways you can be a part of the ministry in these places.