Soaring Unlimited, Haiti
This ministry started a couple decades ago by a Lansing area woman (Dorothy Frederickson) when she retired, initially serving pregnant women and sometimes children orphaned by AIDS. Since then the ministry has expanded to education and other health services, partnering with the MSU College of Medicine to offer medical care at a newly built clinic. Linking our missions work to our celebration of Jesus’s birth, one of our Christmas projects is to furnish supplies for baby boxes, which are designed to provide a safe sleeping place for newborns. Find out about more about this or other projects of this wonderful ministry to people on the northern coast of Haiti, at http://www.soaringunlimited.org/
Missionaries
Central provides financial support to two missionaries at present. Mbwizu Ndjungu, native of Cameroon, works in the United Methodist Church of Belize, a Central American country on the Gulf of Mexico. Her work focuses on empowerment of women and youth.
Erika Fitzgerald, from Houghton Lake, MI and former 5th grade teacher in the Lansing area, is now teaching at a faith-based elementary school in Morelia, Mexico. Kids who don't have access to public schools get the education they need to get out of poverty. And Erika loves them all.
Central actively responds to emergencies locally and around the world. Our denomination runs one of the most effective disaster relief agencies in the world, the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), and we give generously to support UMCOR every year. Whether a cyclone in Bangladesh or a hurricane landing on U.S. soil, UMCOR is on the ground immediately.
Our Valentine project each year raises hundreds of dollars to help Church World Service provide a durable, warm blanket to refugees as well as victims of natural disasters. Hand-made valentines are a gift to donors, who then share the card so that its recipient knows a donation has been made in their name. For more information on this inter-faith project, visit https://church.cwsglobal.org/blankets/
On Noisy Sundays, church members bring the change they have gathered to help replenish the fund used by our pastor to assist local families with emergency expenses. (We take checks and bills, too!)
Our Valentine project each year raises hundreds of dollars to help Church World Service provide a durable, warm blanket to refugees as well as victims of natural disasters. Hand-made valentines are a gift to donors, who then share the card so that its recipient knows a donation has been made in their name. For more information on this inter-faith project, visit https://church.cwsglobal.org/blankets/
On Noisy Sundays, church members bring the change they have gathered to help replenish the fund used by our pastor to assist local families with emergency expenses. (We take checks and bills, too!)
How to support missional efforts
If you are interested in supporting any of these missional efforts, donations are welcome through the church. Just let us know what the donation is for. And if you want to volunteer, contact the church office at 517-485-9477. Just let them know you want to leave a message for the missions committee, give us your name and phone number. We’ll get back to you!