Community

Local Church
Once a week, the ShowerUp truck comes to Cookeville First United Methodist Church in Tennessee. The church provides free towels and toiletries so that unhoused guests can clean up and enjoy a free hot lunch during their visit. Photo by Lilla Marigza, UM News.

Church showers unhoused neighbors with love

Hot showers, fresh meals and plenty of helping hands — see how one Tennessee congregation is taking ministry beyond the church doors.
Theology and Education
Hakim Erezenious Kwenyo (standing) helps a student during a session of the Youth Digital Literacy Project at Ariaze United Methodist Church’s women’s training center in the Rhino Camp Settlement of Uganda’s Siripi Zone. The project is supported by The United Methodist Church’s South Sudan Children Ministry and the Holston Foundation. Photo by Mudomo Joseph, UM News.

Computer training empowers South Sudanese refugees

A United Methodist project provides 50 young people in Ugandan refugee settlements with hands-on digital literacy training.
Disaster Relief
Moïse Mwango Numbalanga (center in white shirt), coordinator for the United Methodist Committee on Relief’s Disaster Management Office in the Bukavu District, walks through the field of ruins in the Irambo neighborhood in Bukavu, Congo, to speak with United Methodist disaster survivors. More than 70 households from Ibanda United Methodist Church lost everything in the overnight fire. Photo courtesy of the Disaster Management Office of the East Congo Episcopal Area.

United Methodists lose homes in Congo fire

In a region already hit by insecurity and an Ebola outbreak, The United Methodist Church is scrambling to shelter those left homeless and assessing other needs.
Social Concerns
Graphic by Ben Ward, photo by Mike DuBose, UM News.

Atlanta: Connection across difference

The UM News podcast “Signs of Life” returns with the story of two congregations in Atlanta that embarked on a study of a Howard Thurman book. One congregation predominately black and the other white, participants explore together a story of new understanding and relationship.

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