News

Liberia Election and Partnership Update

                            Many in IGRC and throughout the world have prayed for a peaceful presidential election in Liberia these past two months with the initial election in October and the run-off elections on Nov. 8. We are closely following the news reports from Liberia.   Prior to the runoff election there was increased random violence and since then, the country remains tense and watchful. By Nov....

IGRC launches partnership with Honduras

Knowing that God continues to each of us to move out beyond our comfort zones and to walk our faith journey alongside Christian brothers and sisters in other cultures experience a faith journey, Illinois Great Rivers Conference will launch a partnership with the United Methodist Churches in Honduras in August 2012. The first IGRC mission trip to Honduras is scheduled Aug. 18-26, 2012. The trip brochure is posted on the IGRC website and is also available by contacting bwolfe@igrc.org. ...

Eastern Europe/Balkan consultation at Alton Main Street UMC

The General Board of Global Ministries is sponsoring the Eastern European/Balkan States Consultation Oct. 27-29 at Alton Main Street UMC. Representatives from seven European countries -- Bulgaria, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Serbia, Hungary and Macedonia – will be on hand for the consultation. Information about The United Methodist Church in Romania and Albania will also be available. This is a wonderful opportunity to visit these countries and learn about the work of our...

Camping to launch Mission Illinois

Looking for a Mission Trip where all the planning  is already done for you? Mission Illinois is designed for you!   IGRC Camping and Retreat Ministries has announced plans for the first Mission Illinois experience July 22 to 27, 2012 at Little Grassy Camp.   The week will be spent working on mission projects in southern Illinois. All of the planning is done. Youth leaders need only provide transportation to and from the mission sites and chaperones for their...

Young adult mission interns commissioned

NEW YORK – Two Illinois Great Rivers Conference young adults were commissioned Aug. 18 to serve in ministries of justice around the world. Rachel Rebecca Berry and Kara Johansen Crawford were among 26 individuals between the ages of 20 and 30 who became US-2 missionaries and mission interns. The commissioning service was led by Bishop Hope Morgan Ward, episcopal leader of the Mississippi Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church.   Berry will be a mission intern with the...

From St. Elmo to Sumatra: Dale and Alice Walker find new mission in retirement at Asbury Seminary

WILMORE, Ky. – When Dale Walker left his home in St. Elmo to become a student pastor at Cypress and a student at nearby Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, he didn’t know he would, with the help of his wife Alice, someday begin a seminary in Indonesia. In fact, he didn’t yet know the former Alice Chiarello. Neither of them knew that someday Alice would publish the first hymnal of indigenous hymns in Indonesia. He also didn’t know he would author the first...

Wardrobe Rolls On at Riverside UMC

MOLINE -- A feature-length wardrobe program has played for a year now. A clothing ministry produced by Riverside United Methodist Church, and based on the C.S. Lewis book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe celebrated its first anniversary with an open house June 4 at its 2418 41st St. site.   The building used for the clothing ministry is a former parsonage near Riverside's Life Center. It opened last May in a garage at the church's 712 16th St., downtown Moline location.   ''...

Hungry Kids Unzip Blessing-Filled Backpacks

GENESEO -- When some kids from ''food-insecure households'' unpack their bookbags after a week of school, they find more than homework and textbooks.   They find a weekend's worth of food and a local church's blessings, too.   Needy students in the Geneseo School District earlier this year began finding one-gallon Ziploc bags containing six to eight food items, including cereal bars, cereal, canned fruit, juice boxes, instant oatmeal and canned meals such as stew, soup or pasta in...

Assessing the Damage

MARION – Southern Illinois has begun the recovery phase in the aftermath of flooding throughout the region in late April and May, disaster response officials reported in a May 16 briefing in Marion. Bishop Gregory V. Palmer spent three days in the region May 15-17, surveying the damage, offering words of comfort and support and engaging with Red Cross and Federal Emergency Management Agency officials on the response.   “I believe the Apostle Paul was Wesleyan in that he...

About Methodist Mission in Cambodia

The Methodist Mission in Cambodia represents the combined efforts of Methodists and United Methodists in the U.S., Europe, Singapore, Korea and Malaysia working to engage in ministry and missions with the people of Cambodia. Some of the programs sponsored by the United Methodist Church include:   Community Health and Agriculture Development (CHAD): Focuses on food security, health care, leadership development and entrepreneurship, including creating rice and cow banks to ensure stable...

Missionary storyteller: Effingham reporter spending year in Cambodia

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- The evening was unseasonably temperate, even for Cambodia’s dry season, and as the sun crept closer to the palm-tree-studded horizon, it was almost chilly. I had my camera trained away from the impending sunset, taking advantage of the golden sheen it was throwing across a very quaint village and its inhabitants — the men with kromas wrapped around their waists, women with babies bouncing on their hips and children eyeing me curiously from their perch atop a...

'It's different when you come'

MONROVIA, Liberia --  February 2006 was our first trip to consider a conference to conference partnership. Today nearly 250 people from IGRC have experienced this journey. This is God’s partnership -- not ours -- and God continues to call others to go. Being in Liberia certainly is a “risk taking mission”. Besides the physical challenges of travel on difficult roads and heat, we face the potentiality of contracting malaria and typhoid. Daily life in Liberia is a constant...

LaMoine River District, Canton Wesley works in Tubmanburg on second mission trip

MONROVIA, Liberia -- In January 2011, the LaMoine River District  completed its second mission work team to Liberia to work in Tubmanburg, a 90-minute drive northwest out of Monrovia. The A.B. Anderson UMC in Tubmanburg sits along one route to Sierra Leone and it was heavily damaged and looted several times during the war. In February 2007,  A.B. Anderson, Jr., was clear that the war devastated the town, church and parsonage, but it did not deter their hope. While standing in the...

Change in Five Star Mission Program for 2011

A change has been made to the Five Star Mission program for 2011. The change involves the support level of a congregation's support of a missionary.  In addition to paying all conference apportionments in full and contributing to a General Advance Special, a Conference Advance Special and an UMCOR Advance Special, a church must have a covenant relationship with a United Methodist missionary.   To be in a "Covenant Relationship," a congregation needs to give a minimum of...

Technology Replaces Phone Cards

NASHVILLE -- The world back in 2003 was quite different from the world today. No Facebook or Twitter. No one had yet heard of Lady Gaga or “The Situation.” People used phones exclusively for placing calls. Plenty of things were not as they are now, but one fact has endured: The people of The United Methodist Church have always reached out to those who are in need. Thus, on Veteran’s Day 2003, the long-running Phone Cards for Military program began as the result of an...

12 Ways of Christmas Giving

Rev. Mike Slaughter, pastor of Ginghamsburg UMC in Tipp City, Ohio, recalls how a five-year journey changed how he viewed Christman. “In 1999, I was reading the Dayton Daily News when my eye was caught by an ad featuring a new luxury sedan, a BMW, for lease,” Slaughter recalls. “Being a car fan, I found myself checking out the various features. Then, my eye was drawn to a picture on the opposing page of a clearly emaciated child featured in an article about famine in the...

12 Ways of Christmas Giving, page 2

View Page 1 of 12 Ways of Christmas Giving... Contribute to food pantries or volunteer to deliver Meals on Wheels The holiday season always brings additional demands for feeding individuals and families. Food pantries are inundated with requests for assistance. Contact the local food pantry and see what the high demand items are and focus your attention on providing a week’s supply of that item. Additionally, the elderly and those that live alone depend on others to bring hot,...

A New Way to "Do" Christmas

      The Current asked IGRC congregations to share their stories on Alternative Christmas celebrations. Here are the responses we received: A New Way to ‘Do’ Christmas Bloomington Wesley UMC will launch its first ever Alternative Christmas Market on Dec. 5 between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. in Wesley Fellowship Hall. The event is open to Wesley worshipers and the general public, sponsored by Wesley's Missions Committee. At the Market you will find eleven shopping...

Chaddock specialists to travel to Liberia in January

QUINCY – Chaddock trauma therapy specialists Karen Buckwalter, Michelle Robison, Thomas Donovan and Angel Knoverek will extend Chaddock’s mission to Liberia on a mission trip Jan. 21-Feb. 3, sharing their expertise with the war-torn country. The trip will mark the fifth continent to which Chaddock has provided training and consultative services to children and professionals, and is another way Chaddock is bringing their connectional ministry full circle by offering vital support to...

Vehicles needed in Liberia for IGRC mission teams

Two four-wheel-drive vehicles capable of eight people are needed as soon as possible for the IGRC mission teams traveling in Liberia. A special fund is now established to raise funds to purchase two four wheel drive vehicles for IGRC mission teams use in Liberia. The need is simply for safe, dependable vehicles to help us continue to reach destinations in Liberia to further our partnership. These vehicles do not need to be new vehicles – only in good repair and capable of traversing very...