2017 Global Ministries Spring Appeal
April 2017
Dear Friends:
Still other seeds fell on fertile soil, and they produced a crop that was thirty, sixty, and even a hundred times as much as had been planted. Matthew 13:8
Recently a first-time donor to Global Ministries shared that he made his significant gift in support of missionary appointments because he was all about planting seeds. After a childhood of poverty and abuse, and a young adulthood of addiction and violence, he discovered his Christian faith in his mid-twenties, he joined a community of faith, and his life was transformed. Thirteen years later as a professional, he feels a call to plant seeds of hope, of abundance in God’s world through supporting mission personnel who, together with partner churches, are planting seeds of God’s global mission around the world. We in Global Ministries are honored to join him on this faith journey of planting seeds.
The historical churches planted by missionaries of the United Church of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) continue to plant seeds of hope around the world.
During 27 years of civil war, the Evangelical Congregational Church of Angola (IECA) planted seeds of hope and peace through the witness of its many local churches throughout the country in rural and urban areas. Since the war’s end, IECA has manifested a strong presence of reconciliation and rebuilding of communities and relationships, planting seeds of hope through educational, medical, and income-generation programs carried out by its many revitalized worshipping communities.
In 1848 the Disciples of Christ began their mission journey in what today is the Democratic Republic of the Congo, planting seeds of hope as they lived out good news of Jesus Christ with Congolese Christians. Today Congolese leaders guide the Community of Disciples of Christ in Congo (CDCC), the largest Disciple church of any country in the world. The CDCC now plants seeds of hope both through new church starts in the neighboring Republic of Congo, and also through caring action for the spiritual, economic, and social needs of the Congolese people.
During his 30 years of establishing and nurturing the National Spiritual Council of Haitian Churches (CONASPEH), Reverend Dr. Patrick Villier (who died unexpectedly last December 2016) planted seeds of hope as the council grew from modest beginnings to 6,000 member churches. In the last paper on mission which Reverend Villier shared with Global Ministries, he states, Mission for us is deeply a vocation and not an opportunity. Vocation is God’s call to those with the ability to understand the dimension of that call.
YOU plant seeds through your gifts to Global Ministries, walking together in hope with vital, growing churches in Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, and many more church partners in 90 countries around the world! Now is the perfect time to give, planting more seeds, so that all of God’s people and creation share in God’s abundant life. Please join us in planting seeds.
In Christ,
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Reverend Julia Brown Karimu |
Reverend Dr. James A. Moos |
Make a gift for the 2017 Spring Appeal online or by check
