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Watch this space for news of ONE Campaign and Lutheran Advocacy efforts.
They may be calling upon you!
Bread for the World Site can be reached HERE
Sample Letter for the 2011 Campaign:
Date ___________
Dear Rep. ___________ or Dear Sen. ____________,
I’m asking you to reform the way the United States delivers
foreign assistance so it will help millions of people in poor countries move out
of hunger and poverty. Streamlined
and more efficient U.S. foreign aid programs will ensure that our tax dollars
are used effectively and that the aid we give is what local people in poor
countries such as Haiti and Liberia really need.
By focusing our aid dollars on moving people out of poverty, we help
foster economic growth and opportunity. Fewer
people struggling with poverty and stronger, growing economies in developing
countries contribute to our own national security as well.
Which is why I am asking you to support reforms in the ways we deliver
and administer U.S. foreign aid. Thank
you.
Sincerely,
Your Name
Your Address
LET'S LEARN MORE:
A JUST RECOVERY? ADVOCACY COUNTS!
As you explore the issues involved in this year’s Offering of Letters, Bread for the World Institute’s Hunger Report is a great resource for small group study. A Just and Sustainable Recovery: Hunger 2010 examines the challenges faced by low-income people here in the United States and the threat to future food supplies posed by global climate change. At the same time, it also examines the opportunities the current financial crisis gives us to change policies that keep people hungry and poor, including tax policy.
The report takes an in-depth look at the issues covered by Bread for the World’s 2010 Offering of Letters: expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and how we can meet the goal of ending childhood hunger in the United States by 2015. It also explores economic recovery from this current recession by increasing the availability of green jobs. Increased access to good jobs would address the poverty and lack of opportunity that are the main causes of hunger in the United States.
A Just and Sustainable Recovery includes a six-session study guide for adult Christian education classes or small group study. This biblically-based guide explores the theme of “right relationship.” Each session includes prayer, Scripture reflection, questions about the topical themes of the Hunger Report, and ideas for personal involvement and action.
Order A Just and Sustainable Recovery. This year, the Hunger Report has its own interactive Web site, www. hungerreport.org/2010. The site includes state-by-state and country-by-country data on hunger. It also allows users to explore the topics by issue. For example, if your interest is specifically in climate change or the recession, you can view all the information in the report on just that topic. The stories of the real people affected by the issues in the report are posted, along with space for viewers to share their own stories. Finally, short video interviews with Bread for the World Institute’s experts and policy analysts help the report come to life.
https://secure3.convio.net/bread/site/Ecommerce?VIEW_PRODUCT=true&product_id=1261&store_id=1101
Here's what's happening with Millenium Development Goals
Visit the World Hunger Appeal: God's Barnyard at your ELCA website
Costa Rican Lutheran Church's First Newsletter!
Last Winter, Stephen Deal, the ELCA's Regional Coordinator for Mission in Central America and a Pastor of the Iglesia Luterano Costaricaniensi (Costa Rica Lutheran Church), came to visit St Andrew's, one of dozens of congregations in partnership sponsoring Stephen's work, to share news of the missionary effort and his unique and important perspective on developments in the whole region.
A graduate of Lenoir-Rhyne, Pastor Deal worked his way into the pastoral ministry through a substantial career with such international helping agencies as Bread for the World and volunteering one day to accompany a group from his Lutheran congregation in Washington, DC on a mission trip to Guatemala. He stayed, working first as a self-sustaining volunteer and then as a member of ELCA mission staff. Following qualifying studies, he was ordained by the Lutheran Church of Guatemala, where he met and married his wife Marta, who works with him in the mission field.
Meetings with church leaders and SCS participants laid out both the details of the ministry of the gospel in DEEDS as well as words, where people are helped to learn skills and organizational means for working together to improve their circumstances. Hosting visitors from America and other countries, the missionaries help to sustain the fundamental concept of mutual ministry, as we learn from those to whom we go and share the fullness of our respective parts in the one church of Christ. He also was able to point out a number of important features of the different view of policy and progress from his vantage on the ground in dangerous and volatile places like Honduras and Guatemala, with insight into the causes of the almost overwhelming poverty in places like El Salvador and Nicaragua.
On the third day of his time in town Pastor Deal led a Convocation at Lenoir-Rhyne sharing a set of developing but incisive pieces of advice for those who undertake 'mission trips' among the countries of Central America. The detail of his presentation, it is hoped, may soon find its way into print.
The Global Missions Committee of St Andrew's was founded with part of its purpose targeted at sharing the global church view of the world in the Hickory area. Stephen's visit most resoundingly met that goal.
News from Madagascar Below
Our Missionaries to Madagascar Send Word of New ELCA Initiative to Support Women in Ministry: teolojiana
Adopt-a-Woman-Teolojiana:
Funding for the Women Teolojiana of the Mahajanga Synod
The Malagasy Lutheran Church, or the Fiangonana Loterana Malagasy (FLM), is an independent church of over 2.5 million members on the island of Madagascar which counts approximately 15 million inhabitants. The FLM currently has 20 synods on the island, one being the Mahajanga Synod located in NW Madagascar where over 30 seminary-trained women and men serve. In the Mahajanga Synod, there are nine women teolojiana, or female seminary graduates: five of the nine women teolojiana currently have active ministries in this synod; three are studying at the graduate seminary in Fianarantsoa and will finish in July 2006; and one does not have work in the synod. Four more women teolojiana of the Mahajanga Synod graduated from the regional seminary at Betela in June 2005. Since women of the FLM are not ordained, they are not guaranteed that upon finishing seminary studies that they will be given work in a parish. In light of this, the women teolojiana in the Mahajanga Synod have organized themselves into FITEMA, Fikambanana Teolojiana eto Mahajanga, or the synod approved ‘Association of Women Teolojiana of the Mahajanga Synod’. FITEMA seeks proactively to address this issue of unemployment, and among other things, to find creative ways to support the women teolojiana.
DEFINITION
: What is a woman teolojiana?A woman teolojiana is a trained seminary graduate
who cannot receive ordination.Two-Step Process for Funding an Intended Study:
This project states that each woman teolojiana would have up to $500 for an intended study:
PHASE I—Each entry level study will be $100.
(See list below for the name of each woman teolojiana
and their intended study.) As funding enters in the project, women teolojiana could start their intended study; For example, with a $500 donation 4-5 women teolojiana could begin their intended study.PHASE II--Once entry level studies are completed
a women teolojiana could petition to continue a certain study, or obtain needed equipment.
(For example, sewing machines, startup fabric, shipping of books and material, cheese making equipment, an oven). Therefore the total project is $6500 (13 women teolojiana x $500).