 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Mon Sep 6, 2010 |
Recent Events
VOLUNTEER IN HAITI
In order to participate in an upcoming VIM Trip to Haiti, you must complete the Basic Emergency Response Team (ERT) Training. Please register for one of the upcoming Basic Early Response Team training to receive your official UMCOR ID badge. In addition to the Basic ERT training another special orientation will be required for all volunteers to Haiti. This special orientation will be scheduled as soon as we are able to send teams to Haiti. Please apply by calling or emailing the trainers listed below:
February 6 from 8am-4:30 pm
At Mamaroneck UMC 546 East Boston Road
Trainer: Joseph Ewoodzie
jewoodzie@nyac.com or 914-615-2233
February 25 & 26 from 5pm-9pm
At Wethersfield UMC
150 Prospect Street Wethersfield, CT
Trainer: Tom Vencuss
HOUSING JUSTICE AN IMPORTANT CHALLENGE!
The affordable housing crisis in this City is real and it demands constant vigilance on the part of persons of faith, persons of good will, to see that our elected officials are doing all they can to address this crisis and to provide real, effective solutions.
On Sunday, January 31st Park Avenue UMC will hold a “Housing Sabbath” to provide information on the issues of affordable housing and suggest ways for individuals to take action. Learn how East Side Congregations for Housing Justice is working in close cooperation with Habitat for Humanity NYC on this initiative and see ways to advocate on the city, state and federal levels to address the critical need for affordable housing.
Dangerous Housing Provided to the Homeless
On the Wednesday night before Christmas, 3-year-old Kyrah Martin slipped out of her family’s apartment in Crown Heights, Brooklyn late at night. Somehow she made it to the roof and from there she fell to her death. In the stories that followed, very few persons picked up on a sad and curious fact. Kyrah’s family had been placed in the apartment through New York City’s Department of Homeless Services, which leases several apartments in the building and provides them free to poor families. In a petition filed in February 2009 with the Brooklyn housing court, lawyers for the agency contended that conditions in the building “constituted a danger to the life, health or safety of the tenants.” As of January 8, 2010, there were 8,714 families with children in the city’s shelter system which included 11,462 adults and 15,749 children.
Homelessness on the Rise for Immigrant Day Laborers
A growing concern is homelessness among the city’s immigrant population who depended on day-labor jobs to survive. Ever since the construction boom has gone bust and the economy, of course, has downsized, many workers are challenged to find money to afford housing of any kind. Most are afraid to seek help because of their immigration status. The city has been slow to respond to this growing problem. On January 12th, the NY Times reported that an immigrant had been found in an abandoned house on Staten Island where he had evidently frozen to death.
Ways to Help!
Support the National Housing Trust Fund
At the end of last year, the House had passed a jobs bill that included $1,065,000 for the National Housing Trust Fund (NHTF). $1 billion was for capital grants and $65 million was for project-based vouchers to be coupled with NHTF units for extremely low-income households. The bill was to be funded with funds from the Trouble Assets Relief Program (TARP). HUD has published a proposed rule for the formula by which the NHTF funds will be distributed to the individual states. The National Low-Income Housing Coalition has endorsed the formula as proposed. The Senate is now scheduled to consider a jobs bill, but this won’t happen until work on the health care legislation is completed.
We need to work hard to ensure that the NHTF is capitalized in 2010. HUD will be prepared to allocate the funds as soon as Congress can authorize them.
BISHOP JEREMIAH PARK - HAITI
God is our refuge and strength
an ever-present help in trouble (Psalm 46:1)
January 14, 2010
Dear United Methodists:
Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, Prince of Shalom, Healer of our brokenness, and Hope of the world!
I write to solicit your help for the people of Haiti. Every hour the media brings new details of a catastrophe of historic proportion - a magnitude-7.0 earthquake followed by more than 30 aftershock earthquakes averaging 5.0 on the Richter scale. The International Red Cross estimates that over three million people in the impoverished nation have been affected. Major buildings including the Presidential Palace, the UN headquarters, hospitals, schools and prisons have collapsed. Whole neighborhoods have been wiped out. Thousands, maybe more than fifty thousand are dead. More victims will be added because of the lack of medical care, poor sanitation, and shortage of food and safe water. Countless numbers of families are in search of their loved ones, whom they have not heard from. Our prayers are with them.
We have received information from Haiti that Revs. Tom and Wendy Vencuss of the New York Conference are safe and that the Methodist guest house in Port-au-Prince experienced very minor damages with no injuries to the occupants. I would like you to know that United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) has had a strong presence in Haiti, and is making plans to send teams, material resources and funding to Haiti as soon as possible. When it is advisable, the New York Conference will be organizing teams to assist in the rebuilding of Haiti.
In the meantime, I ask you to pray for the people of Haiti and those directly affected by this major natural disaster and to give generously to the relief efforts of UMCOR by connecting to the donation page for UMCOR Haiti: http://new.gbgm-umc.org/umcor/, or you can send your check, made payable to the New York Annual Conference, to 20 Soundview Avenue, White Plains, NY 10606. Please note in the memo line: Advance Special #418325-Haiti Relief. Every dollar we send goes filled with faith in Jesus Christ to make a radical difference in the lives of these our sisters and brothers whose suffering we can barely imagine. We cannot be there just now in person, but with our gifts we can be bearers of the love of Christ bringing healing and hope.
In Christ,
Jeremiah J. Park
HAITI DISASTER
The United Methodist Church is actively involved in providing relief and support to the people of Haiti as we ask what we can do to help. Here is a short list of important ways we can offer our hearts and hands to the people of Haiti:
1. Fervent prayer.
2. Give generously through your local church to UMCOR advance
#418325
3. Prayerfully consider going to Haiti with an emergency response
team in April or May – led by NYAC Missions Coordinator, Joseph
Ewoodzie (jewoodzie@nyac.com or at 914-615-2233)
VOLUNTEER AS A LAY READER IN 2010
Would you like to share your gifts by reading the Scripture Lesson during the 11 AM worship service? Pastor Jessica Anschutz currently scheduling readers for 2010, so please email her at pastorjessica@parkavemethodist.org or call 212-427-5421 and let her know what date(s) you are available to read, so she can schedule you for an upcoming date. Please note that the week before your assigned reading date, you will receive an e-mail from our Administrative Assistant, Gloria Clowes, requesting an updated bio and an additional email including Sunday’s reading.
Available dates through April include: February 14; March 21; April 11, 18, 25 and all dates from May 2 and beyond. Thank you for your willingness to share God’s word!
SUPPORT OUTREACH MINISTRIES
OUTREACH AND MISSION GIVING
SIX SPECIAL SUNDAY OFFERINGS
When we give from the heart, we receive unexpected blessings—especially the joy of making a difference in someone’s life. In The United Methodist Church, we have six annual opportunities to share beyond our regular gifts through church wide Special Sundays with offerings.
• Human Relations Day strengthens United Methodist outreach to communities in the U.S. and Puerto Rico and encourages social justice and work with at-risk youth. (January 17, 2010)
• The One Great Hour of Sharing (OGHS) offering supports the cost of doing business for UMCOR. Because every dollar given to UMCOR goes to the program you designate, the OGHS offering is critical to UMCOR'S administrative work. (March 14, 2010)
• Native American Ministries Sunday nurtures the mission with Native Americans and provides scholarships for United Methodist Native American seminarians. (April 18. 2010)
• Peace with Justice Sunday supports Peace with Justice ministries in the New York Annual Conference, the United States and the world. (May 30, 2010)
• World Communion Sunday provides scholarships for U.S. racial and ethnic-minority students and international students, on both undergraduate and graduate levels.(October 3, 2010)
• United Methodist Student Day promotes education by providing funding for UM scholarships and the UM Student Loan Fund. (November 28, 2010)
For more information visit www.umcgiving.org/specialsundays
SUPPORT THESE OUTREACH MINISTRIES
PAUMC’s Outreach Committee encourages you to make a difference in someone’s life by supporting these ministries of the United Methodist Church and PAUMC. Please make your checks payable to “Park Avenue UMC” and include the appropriate info in the Memo line.
LOCAL
• Children’s Home (Memo: Children’s Home) enhances the safety, stability, and well-being of our children, families and their communities. We do this by providing comprehensive professional services which include residential, educational, preventive and therapeutic care. Many young people feel unsafe, unwelcome and unloved. The Children's Home partners with other agencies to offer a sanctuary of grace and hope to young people and their families. http://www.chowc.org/index.cfm
• Habitat for Humanity – New York City (Memo: Habitat) builds homes for home ownership with families in need in the five boroughs of NYC and also is a leading advocate for affordable housing. www.habitatnyc.org
• Saturday Community Lunch Program (Memo: SCLP) help feed our neighbors in need by contributing to the weekly meal served each Saturday at Park Avenue Christian Church, and prepared by PAUMC on the first Saturday of each month.
• Yorkville Common Pantry (Memo: YCP) is the largest community-based food pantry in NYC. Help support their efforts to reduce hunger while promoting dignity and self-sufficiency through food pantry and meal distribution programs, nutrition education, basic hygiene services, homeless support and related services. www.ycp.org.
NATIONAL
• Dulac, LA (Memo: Advance #982149 Dulac Community Center, Dulac, LA).
Support the Ministry of the UMC at the Dulac Community Center as it works to provide Hurricane relief.
INTERNATIONAL
• La Obra Rural in Chile
• http://www.obrarural.sage.cl/index.asp?strMENU=1
• Help improve the spiritual and physical health and harmony of the Mapuche people, and promote economic enterprises, education and training. (Memo: Advance #12349A)
• Support Rural Education for the Mapuche Village (Memo: Advance #3020551)
• Help provide pastoral and spiritual care to the Mapuche families (Memo: Advance #09762A)
• Haiti Disaster Relief (Memo: Advance #418325 Haiti)
• Help UMCOR provide relief and support to the people of Haiti as they recover from the earthquake
ADULT BIBLE STUDY
In our Bible Study, we are currently exploring the following topics on Human Sexuality: A Brief History of Sex from the Christian Tradition, Statements of the UMC on Sexuality, Sex in the Bible, and Ethics and Values in Sexuality.
“As Irons sharpen iron, so one person sharpens the wits of another”, please come join us in our lively discussion and fellowship as we seek to disciple and transform one another through the scripture, tradition, reason, experience and prayer.
Join us for lively discussion and fellowship! The group is led by Prescott Benson.
GREAT FICTION BOOK CLUB
The next meeting of our Book Club will be on Thursday, April 15, 2010 at 6:30 PM in Clarke Hall. The book to be discussed is All The King's Men by Robert Penn Warren. Set in the 1930s, this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel traces the rise and fall of Willie Stark, who resembles the real-life Huey "Kingfish" Long of Louisiana. Stark begins his political career as an idealistic man of the people but soon becomes corrupted by success. Generally considered the finest novel ever written on American politics, All the King's Men is a literary classic.
Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989) was born in Guthrie, Kentucky. In his lifetime he won three Pulitzer Prizes, a National Book Award, a National Medal for Literature, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, a MacArthur Prize, and was named the country’s first Poet Laureate in 1986.
PLUGGED IN - Youth Ministry for 6th - 12th Graders
All youth 6th-12th grade are welcome to participate in the following ministry opportunities. Parents/guardians must complete a permission slip for each child for the 2009-2010 school years. Each activity away from PAUMC will have its own permission slip.
Sign Up Today for the March Lock-In
Youth Lock In at Saint Paul & Saint Andrew (SP&SA) UMC from 7PM March 13 – 9AM March 14
Completed Permission Slips are required and must be turned in by Sunday, March 7th. Youth will meet at 7 PM on Saturday, March 13th at SP&SA and parents should pick-up their youth at 9AM on Sunday!
PARK AVENUE METHODIST DAY SCHOOL
Park Avenue Methodist Day School offers half-day programs five days a week for children ages 3 to 6. If you would like more information about our school or summer camp, please call Pam Melasky at 212-289-6997.