1 of 4
Photo by Phileas Jusu, UMNS
SL Mudslide Ethel Sandy Volunteers
Ethel Sandy (center) leads a group of United Methodist volunteers who handed out food to people affected by the mudslide and floods. Sandy is the Sierra Leone Conference's women's coordinator.
2 of 4
Photo by Miguel de Guzman, courtesy of The Philippine Star
Teen's Death Protested
Aminah A. Lucena, a United Methodist youth, holds a photo of Kian delos Santos during a candle-lighting protest in front of the Philippine National Police headquarters in Quezon City on Aug. 23. Kian, a 17-year-old student, was a victim of extrajudicial killings under the Operation Galugad of the War on Drugs campaign of President Rodrigo Duterte.
3 of 4
Elder's Blessing
The Immanuel Bible School (IBS) staff and students welcome board members and staff from the General Commission on Religion and Race during a day of immersive learning in the Philippines. Here a young student holds GCORR staff member Amy Stapleton's hand to his forehead in a ritual of receiving blessings from an elder. IBS trains indigenous young people who desire to serve the church in local communities. (GCORR Photo)
4 of 4
Photo by Erik Alsgaard, UMNS
Bishop Trimble Ministers March
Indiana Area Bishop Julius Trimble with the Rev. Stacey Cole Wilson, director of Congregational Excellence and Strategic Partnerships for the Baltimore-Washington Conference. Both took part in the “Ministers March for Justice on Aug. 28 in Washington.
August 2017 has been a tumultuous month, and United Methodists around the world have been in the thick of happenings. Consider these events:
- Violence broke out between white supremacist and anti-fascist demonstrators in Charlottesville, Va. Aug. 11-12, resulting in injuries and the death of one woman. United Methodist clergy were among peaceful anti-racist demonstrators in Charlottesville and as part of a Ministers March for Justice on Aug. 28.
- A massive flood and mudslide wiped out a large portion of Freetown, Sierra Leone, burying hundreds of people, including entire families, under an onslaught of red muck. Thousands of people have been displaced from their homes.
- Hurricane Harvey came ashore Aug. 25 at Port Aransas, Texas, as a Category 3 storm, and then chugged slowly up to Houston, where it sat for four days dumping some 50 inches of rain on the nation's fourth-largest city and its environs. Some 40 people are reported dead, with the death toll expected to spike as receding waters reveal more bodies.
- In the Philippines, United Methodists continued their months-long protests of extrajudicial killings occurring under President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs. Board members and staff of the General Commission on Religion and Race held the agency's fall meeting in the Philippines and visited outlying regions in an immersion into the realities of intercultural conflicts outside the United States.
These major events were accompanied by dozens of happenings lesser-known but no less significant to their communities. United Methodists were present at all of these. This knowledge ought to make United Methodists everywhere proud, humble, and concerned all at once.
We can be proud because the United Methodist connection works for the benefit of those of us who are church members and the people beyond our church doors. Virtually all annual conferences around the world have disaster response coordinators, trained with assistance of the United Methodist Committee on Relief, who can mobilize those in local churches to respond in catastrophes.
We should be humble because ours aren't the only "boots on the ground," as UMCOR's video says. Our efforts combine with those of other faith communities and civic organizations to help our neighbors in need. We are one pillar upholding caring communities; we do our part as others do theirs.
We should be concerned because there are many pressures on the United Methodist denomination to "loosen the connection." While there are valid arguments for adapting our organization to be more responsive to local contexts, we mustn't lose sight of the danger in such adaptation, namely the risk to a chain of caring that we have forged through our shared commitment to service.
Being a human institution, The United Methodist Church bears all of our human flaws. Yet we still can celebrate that United Methodists across the world are rising to the challenge of their communities' needs, to ease physical suffering and bring God's hope to wounded souls. We are at our best in service to others, and through these past few weeks, we have been at our best.
Cynthia B. Astle serves as Editor of United Methodist Insight, which she founded in 2011.