11 Feb No Longer Meeting Under a Tree

A building for the Buen Samaritano church in Honduras is well underway, thanks to the 2009 Thank Offering.

A year ago, the Buen Samaritano (Good Samaritan) church in Honduras was meeting under a tree on the property they had purchased. They were able to take the next step using funds from the 2009 Self-Denial Offering.

Today, Buen Samaritano has constructed a building consisting of walls and a roof. Although work remains, the congregation is encouraged and moving forward using their own resources. Pastor Mariano Mondragon told me that the most exciting thing has been seeing people continue to come to Christ over the past year.

08 Feb First UB Mission Trip to Germany This Summer

J. R. and Cathy Reich

This summer, Global Ministries will sponsor the first UB mission trip to Germany. The team leaders will be J. R. and Cathy Reich, from The Well UB church in Huntington, Ind. Cathy is administrative assistant to Bishop Phil Whipple.

The team will participate in two five-day English Camps at a school in an area south of the Black Forest. They will use conversational English to build relationships and share their faith.

Date: July 31–August 14.
Cost: $1800 per person.

While in Germany, team members will live with German families from the school where Galen and Maritta Fiedler teach. The Fiedlers are the Global Ministries missionary family with whom the team will work and who will host the team.

The $1800 cost includes airfare, in-country transportation, food, travel insurance, and ministry materials.

There are still a few positions available for this trip. If you are interested in joining this team, it is important to mail your completed application form by mid-March. You can download the application in two formats: PDF, or a fillable MS Word form.

For more information, you can contact either of these persons by email:

Cathy Reich, Administrative Assistant to Bishop Phil Whipple.
Donna Hollopeter in the Global Ministries office.

08 Feb Photos from UB Churches in Haiti

The City Soleil UB church, which was destroyed. A work crew from Canada was coming to work on the roof, but the earthquake forced the cancellation of that trip. The pastor is Rev. Baptistin.

Another UB church in City Soleil, this one led by Pastor Supreme. The building is believed to be unusable.

The church yard of our newest church, in Delmas, still under construction.

A church in the Delmas area. Part of this gate wall was destroyed. A large number of Haitians came here for refuge.

The Delmas church. This is the future main church and convention center. It was not destroyed. The team from Canada would have been working on this, too.

05 Feb Mission Trip to Spain – July 26-Aug 4 2010

Lane and Shane Smith

NOTE (March 29, 2010): This trip has been canceled.

Lane and Shane Smith, from Shoreline UB (Oak Harbor, Ohio), will lead a group of 8 people, from teens through age 30, on a ministry experience to Spain. The group will work with missionaries Troy and Julie Hendricks.

Dates: July 26–August 6.
Cost: $2500 per person.
Persons Needed: 8.

Trip members will be involved in a five-day English Camp built around recreational sports. This will be a wonderful opportunity to build relationships with Spanish youth while playing basketball or Frisbee golf or other special activities. The Spanish youth are interested in developing conversational English skills.

While in Spain, the team will learn about Spanish culture, the language, and learn more about the work with which Troy and Julie are involved.

Openings are still available. The $2500 cost includes air travel, in-country travel, lodging, food, travel insurance, and other miscellaneous expenses. It is important to submit completed applications by mid-March so Troy and Julie can begin preparing to host the team.

You can download the application. If you have questions, please contact either of these by email:

Shane and Lane Smith.
Donna Hollopeter at the Global Ministries office.

04 Feb Physical Therapists Needed in Haiti

I spoke with Samaritan’s Purse and the World Medical Mission in Boone, N.C., this morning about a number of areas in which we might be able to connect some dots between them and our United Brethren churches in Haiti. I’ll be communicating with our Canadian United Brethren, who oversee the work in Haiti, to see if we can coordinate something.

However, an immediate need is for physical therapists. Haitians are having amputations and other types of surgery, but have no one available to provide the help needed after surgery. If anyone is interested, call our office (toll-free: 888-622-3019) and we’ll arrange to get them there as soon as possible. If assistance is needed with flight expenses, Global Ministries may be able to provide help.

04 Feb Macau: Report to the General Conference

L-r: Ajiax Wo (Superintendent of Hong Kong Conference), Jeff Dice (former UB missionary to Macau), and Karis Vong, pastor of Living Water UB church in Macau.

On the first day of General Conference (January 11, 2010), Karis Vong reported about the ministry in Macau. Karis is pastor of the Living Water church, the first UB church in Macau, which this year is 22 years old. Here are some excerpts from her verbal report:

• “When people ask me, How big is Macau?’ I tell them they need to ask, ‘How small is Macau?'”
• “Identity is a big issue in Macau. People know Macau because of the casinos. Since 2003, Macau has become just like Las Vegas. Young people graduate from high school and want to immediately go to work in casinos. So they will stop studying, which isn’t good for the future of Macau.”
• “In Macau, churches and numbers are very small. People in Macau think small is okay, it’s good enough. Most churches have 40-50 people, and no church in Macau has over 1000. You can pray that we’ll have the confidence to become bigger. Being small, we have a lack of people to do ministry, lack of money.”
• Karis gave each delegate a music CD produced by the Macau churches in 2007. “We hold a concert, and have people buy tickets to come hear Gospel music. In Macau, we don’t have our own Christian music. We encourage our people to create their own music.”
• “Having to work on shifts affects churches.”
• Of its 550,000 population, only 4108 people in Macau attend Protestant services each week (up from 3106 in 2003).
• Prayer request for Macau: “How to prioritize our lives.”

The land size of Macau keeps expanding, as they reclaim land from the ocean. Look at these statistics:

03 Feb Honduras Medical Trip – June 2010

Once again this summer, Global Ministries will sponsor a medical mission trip to Honduras.

Date: June 11-19, 2010.
Cost: $1600 per person

This trip is filling rapidly. We still have a few spaces available. The special needs are: doctors, nurses, EMTs, and physical therapists. If you are interested, contact team leaders Robert and Fonda Cassidy (right) for more information.

02 Feb Haiti: Cite Soleil, Where 2 UB Churches Collapsed

In Haiti, two United Brethren churches located in Cité Soleil collapsed during the earthquake. Here is an update from Samaritan’s Purse about their work in that part of Port-au-Prince.

Few populations are more vulnerable than the thousands of Haitians living in Cité Soleil, one of the largest slums in the capital. The sprawling shantytown has long been notorious for its filthy conditions and dangerous gang wars. The earthquake only deepened the misery, sending thousands into packed tent cities in the baking heat with few resources. Pigs wallow in a nearby riverbed overflowing with rotting trash, and children splash through open sewage.

On a hot afternoon, Jean Claude, an elder at Eglise Chretienne Des Cities, a local church of 1600, says people are coming to the church’s collapsed gate daily, begging for help. The church has little to give and tells people to wait. He says aid groups come only sporadically.

But within 24 hours, Samaritan’s Purse was formulating a plan to care for the residents in a tent city a few hundred yards from the church. The team will organize sanitation, clean water, food, and hygiene kits, and point residents to the nearby church for spiritual care, while also providing clean water and other relief in more remote areas outside the capital.