Asbury United Methodist Church hosts the Winter Relief Program.  We are one of about 30 churches that host the program for one week at a time from mid-Nov until early April across Anne Arundel.  This mission of Asbury will be located in our fellowship hall with cots, meals and shelter for about 25 men.

Critical Needs:

Evening Shift Monitors (7 pm to 1 am)
Night Shift Monitors (1 am to 7 am)

Transportation from the Salvation Army in Glen Burnie at 5 pm.
Transportation to Glean Burnie at 7 am.

Prepare & Serve Dinner
Prepare and Serve Breakfast

Dishwashers for Dinner.
Dishwashers help for Breakfast

Laundry Help -- Pick up one evening.  Launder and return by the next evening.

Our church is responsible for transporting the men and women from the Salvation Army in Glen Burnie each evening starting at 5:00 PM.  Dinner is then provided in the fellowship hall.  Our guests then have free time with movies, board games and the opportunity for Christen discussion with some of the many church volunteers.  Lights out at 10:00 PM and volunteers double shift the night acting as hosts and monitors.  Breakfast is early, 6:30 AM, and lunch bags provided as our guests are taken to different locations at 7:00 AM, some of the men and women have jobs.  Laundry is done, clean-up completed, a full 24 hours of activity demonstrating Christ’s love of the homeless and Asbury’s commitment to our local community.

 A few years ago, our Church was blessed when one of the men joined the faith and accepted Christ during a baptism in Feb. This vividly demonstrated the power of Christ, through our mission to the men of the Winter Relief Program.

Asbury's Christmas Eve second offering is to the Winter Relief Program.  Funds are then used to provide cots and other essentials that are moved from church to church during the winter.

 The Winter Relief Program is one of the most comprehensive mission undertakings Asbury accomplishes each year, a large group of the active Church membership volunteers during the week including cooks, drivers, and overnight hosts, well over 100 different people.

We are blessed to be able to provide a sanctuary from the cold of the winter and the opportunity to reach out in Christ’s love.

• Operation Food Sharing The Anne Arundel County Food Bank, Inc. (AACFB) distributes food and other resources to more than 80 member agencies throughout our county.
   
• Special Diet Program These clients have special dietary concerns such as heart disease, renal failure, diabetes, cancer and Aids.
   
• AACFB Furniture Program The food bank includes the distribution of furniture, appliances and other household items at no charge to our clients through referrals from Dept. of Social Services and other service oriented agencies.
   
• Wheels for Work Many unemployed families find themselves in that position due to lack of transportation. New and used car donations help the Food Bank get these clients on the road to independence. Vehicles donated are never sold; they are matched to a family in need.
   
• Campus Corp Is a Service Learning Program at Anne Arundel County Community College that works together with non-profits to help students learn the value of volunteering.
   
• Adopt A Pantry Is a program that matches public libraries and various businesses with a pantry in their vicinity.
   
• Soup Kitchen Program Working with the Department of Human Resources, AACFB works to make sure that congregate feeding sites always have a hot meal to offer.

The Baltimore-Washington Conference has followed in these historic footsteps through the ministry of the Board of Child Care. Formed in the 1950s from the Kelso Home for Girls in Towson, the Strawbridge Home for Boys and the Swartzell Home in Washington, D.C, the Board of Child Care today keeps its focus on serving children.  Today, the Board of Child Care serves more than close to 1000 clients with 13 different programs. The budget is now more than $28 million.  It costs approximately $67,000 per year to house a child at the Board of Child Care, not including the $37,000 tuition for the school.

More than 110 children live on the board’s 30-acre Randallstown campus. Approximately 120 additional day students are bused in to use the on-campus school that offers classes in everything from the “three Rs” to cooking, woodworking, art and printing.  A new $14 million residential campus constructed in Falling Waters, W.Va., in the eastern panhandle of the state, opened this year. Serving  50 children in five cottages, has a school and a gym, an administrative building, social workers, psychologists and a chapel that will seat 100.

Ninety percent of the young clients at the Board of Child Care come there with a mental health diagnosis. Eighty-five to 90 percent of the income for the board’s budget comes from the government. Most of the children at the Board of Child Care are referred from the Maryland Department of Social Services.  The Christmas offering, in which each church in the conference is asked to contribute money to the Board of Child Care, is important to help the Conference meet about 2% of the budget.   Asbury supports this mission with a second offering in December.

The remainder of the income to support the board comes from its endowment, which stood at $103 million as of December 2001. Much of the endowment’s original investment came from individuals and United Methodist churches.

The nine units can hold up to 27 people and recently underwent a $400,000 renovation.

The maximum stay for the average woman at the House is two years. While the Women’s Housing Coalition run the program part of the house, the United Methodist Women are be the landlord. Most residents at Susanna Wesley receive some kind of government assistance. Some are newly employed. All residents are charged 25% of whatever income they receive to stay at the House and this covers the housing food and childcare.

Quality of Life Retreat Statement of Faith and Purpose

• In affirmation of the love of God, this program is offered to all HIV-infected persons, regardless of religion, nationality, race, gender or sexual orientation.
   
• We view the church as a healing instrument which can extend a caring, supportive ministry of prayer, education, advocacy and direct service.
   
• The goal of our effort is to uphold and enhance the quality of individual life by nurturing hope, unconditional love, independence and self-determination.

The off-site retreats have the following objectives:

• To provide a safe, loving environment in which participants can be fully themselves, free of fears and inhibitions, and can deal openly with their deepest concerns.
   
• To offer spiritual, practical, educational and health resources to those whose lives have been, are and will be affected personally by HIV infection.
   
• To listen to what HIV infected persons have to say about their journeys.
   
• To offer and develop a viable model of how the religious community can make a compassionate and effective response to this crisis.

This is the 15^th year that SPAN has been meeting the needs of local people in crisis. Asbury has supported them for a number of years. In 2004 we provided $2350 for their programs from both our second offerings and our tithe account, plus food drives to stock their food pantry. People from our church volunteer with their programs and are referred there when in need, a blessing to have such a resource close by.

SPAN works with other food pantries including both My Brothers Pantry and the Anne Arundel Co. Food Bank (both of these are also supported by Asbury’s mission outreach) to serve the needs of people in our neighborhood. In addition to the food pantry SPAN is able to offer support if utilities are being cut-off

SPAN is located in the former parsonage behind Our Shepherd Lutheran Church at,400 Benfield Road, Severna Park, MD,  21146 Call 410-647-228 for more information They are open Monday through Thursday 10:00am to 2:00pm Monday evening from 5:00pm to 7:00pm
 

In the month following the tsunami, The United Methodist Church raised more than $6 million for relief work in Indonesia and other tsunami-devastated areas. The money will pay for, among other things, aid for the hundreds of thousands of homeless survivors. International relief officials estimate that a quarter of those in dire need are children. One hundred percent of the donations made to UMCOR go directly to the disaster victims. Not many charitable organizations can boast of that record.

That is because, each year on the fourth Sunday of Lent, The United Methodist Church raises money to keep the lights on at UMCOR with a special offering: One Great Hour of Sharing.

The One Great Hour of Sharing offering is absolutely essential to UMCOR, said the Rev. Paul Dirdak, the agency’s chief executive officer. UMCOR receives no World Service funds or any other apportionments. United Methodists gifts to this special offering not only keep UMCOR’s lights on and UMCOR’s delivery system in place at home and around the world they also enable us to respond immediately to disasters.

"A gift to One Great Hour of Sharing enables you to be the hands and the heart of the church wherever people are suffering", Dirdak said.

For more information about the One Great Hour of Sharing offering, call (888) 346-3862 or go online to gbgm-umc.org/umcor/oghs.stm

UMCOR is assisting survivors of tidal waves set off by a powerful 9.0 earthquake. Tens of thousands died. About 5 million people lack basic essentials.  Half a dozen countries in South Asia and Southeastern Asia will receive United Methodist aid. Gifts will help feed and shelter 50,000 families in India alone. In addition to India, United Methodist gifts will be at work in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives.

• Coordinated response is most effective. UMCOR will work through its international faith-based partners to provide food, clean water, and shelter. Its partners Action by Churches Together and Churches Auxiliary for Social Action already have relief workers at hard hit locations.
   
• Sanitation and fresh water have been compromised. So aid workers will restore sanitation facilities and provide fresh water to families.
   
• Food supplies have been cut off. Disaster workers are distributing food to the most vulnerable.

Here are some ways you can continue to be there.

• $12.00 Provide a health kit for a child.

• $100.00 Underwrite relief items such as cooking utensils, sleeping mats, blankets, and tarps for a family.

• $1,000.00 Invest in long-term reconstruction—buy roofing, shingles, and other building materials to restore a family’s house.

There is a Nicaragua Mission Letter from Nam McCurdy and Miguel Mairena with a December 2004 update on our Missions Notice Board by Fellowship Hall

Miguel Mairena is a missionary of the General Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church serving in Nicaragua since 1997. Along with his wife, Nan McCurdy also a GBGM missionary Miguel works with the Women and Community Association in San Francisco Libre, a county in the northwestern section of Nicaragua that was especially devastated by Hurricane Mitch.

Some of the key programs they are working on include

• Integral Health Promotion and Education- a program in natural medicine, nutrition and reproductive health. Let them take their own health into their own hands.
   
• Scholarships – 92 students from 5^th grade to university or technical college. Priority to young women from the poorest villages.
   
• Rotating Cow Loan Funds – Working with 5 women’s cooperatives so they can buy cows so kids can drink milk etc..
   
• Popular Defenders – Education for women and children on their rights in Nicaragua.
   
• The Little Snails School and The "Force" – A headstart-type program for impoverished children.

One of six special Sundays with offering in The United Methodist Church, Human Relations Day supports more than 30 church-based community developers who work in low-income, racial-ethnic minority communities, along with a network of multiracial grass-roots social justice organizations.

For example in December 2002, shepherding a vibrant, growing, 400-member congregation with expanding ministries left Pastor Daniels little time for such community-building activities at his Emory UMC in Washington DC.. That’s why he relies on the help and constant presence of the church’s community developer, Sherwin Benjamin. Clearly, this program was made to order for Emory UMC, which has sought for six years to redevelop its section of the Georgia Avenue corridor, working through its affiliated, non-profit community development corporation, Emory Beacon of Light, Inc. The CDC offers temporary housing to homeless families in the Lighthouse, the church’s former parsonage, located next door.

Established by the General Board of Global Ministries in 1968, the program supports innovative outreach efforts of churches in disadvantaged and neglected racial-ethnic minority communities. Its goal is to help those churches partner with local residents, leaders, businesses and institutions to help bring justice, wholeness, economic opportunity and self-determination to their neighborhoods through systemic change and community development.

For more information on Human Relations Day call toll-free (888) UMC-3242

Our Church sometimes gets visitors or members that are in need of some financial support. A heating bill that needs to be paid before it gets shut off or a gift card to a grocery store for some food.

We want to help if possible. The Good Samaritan fund provides the Pastor with some resources to use at his discretion when someone knocks at his office door. In 2004 the Pastor used the funds four times and provided about $450 of support. He checks that other resources have been tried and exhausted including food pantries like SPAN. Funds are used to pay a bill or for a food gift card and never given as cash.

The Pastor uses a criteria of "Would I give my own money for this need?" as a guide when evaluating the request.  This second offering will be used for this important local mission.

Your offering on Peace with Justice Sunday helps the children of God everywhere to live lovingly and peacefully. Half of the offering supports peace with justice ministries globally through the General Board of Church and Society, and half assists annual conference-related work such as Faith Communities Uniting for Peace in West Ohio. "Live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you," wrote the apostle Paul to the church in Corinth. Help to bring peace and justice to a hurting world. Please give generously on Peace with Justice Sunday, the first Sunday after Pentecost. Your gift makes a world of difference!

Asbury has supported this conference mission recently with a $240 second offering in 2003 and $155 in 2004. The Conference collected about $250,000 in 2003 for this important mission.