University UMC's Know, Grow, Show Community Garden
by Amelia Hunt 

      One day last spring a woman from our neighborhood was walking her dog, she saw us working in the garden and stopped to talk to us. As she continued talking she revealed that her mother lives just two houses away and is about 90 years old. She was having a lot of health issues during the winter. She had noticed our sign saying "Come and enjoy the Community Garden! We want to help our neighborhood, so pick produce as you need, but please be kind to our plants." So, she and her sister decided to check it out to see if there was anything there that their mother could eat. She said that she found spinach and swiss chard. They brought the leafy greens back and cooked them down to a consistency that their mother could eat and she ended up loving it. So, all winter long they kept cutting back the swiss chard and spinach, cooking it for their mother aiding her in the nutrition she needed. She was so grateful.

     The Know, Grow, Show Community Garden is a resource to our neighborhood and even our community. Our goal is to meet nutritional, relational, and spiritual needs with our 3 phases: the growing garden, the Gathering Place, and a Prayer Garden (coming fall 2017). Our prayer for this garden is to grow and be helpful to more than just our church, but to our little corner of the world. God is using this garden in ways unseen most of the time, so we must have faith He uses this garden to feed His children and that He continues to use His church to show His love and peace to our community.

For more information call University UMC: 575.522.8220 or email Amelia Hunt, Coordinator of Lay Ministries: amelia@uumclascruces.org.

Separate Programs but Meals & Youth Group Time Together.
More info coming soon!
Sacramento Website 

Super Bowl February 5 - Let's Box 'em Up and Stack 'em Up Campaign 

     In football, the phrase "stack the box" is used when the defense puts its players in a rectangular formation ("in the box") to stop the offensive team's rush in its tracks. Traffickers run a game on the vulnerable and we aim to stack the box against them, to intercept their game and to box 'em up for prosecution.

     This annual awareness campaign gets real results. Last year a woman e-mailed the national office who had helped a trafficking survivor; at first she didn't know what to do, then she remembered that United Methodist Women has resources for prevention, protection and prosecution which she would not have known without our #umwumbrellas campaign. So put away your umbrellas and...

Let's Box 'Em Up!
      Stacking the boxes will symbolize United Methodist Women intercepting the traffickers who bind the vulnerable within boxes of imprisonment. Our boxes will also embody our commitment to be in communion with survivors of trafficking.

Join our virtual barricade of boxes:
      Open boxes, closed boxes, and tied boxes! All kinds of boxes can be held, decorated, stacked, left open or sealed. Stack up your boxes with others or simply hold a box yourself, but let's box 'em up!

Bishop Bledsoe will be visiting towns across the Conference on a spring itineration. Joining him will be the DS of location, CF&A representative, Insurance/Benefits representative, Randall Partin, Provost, Sid Strebeck, Conference Lay Leader and others.  

The United Methodist Church is facing change and challenge from within.  Simultaneously, we have the opportunity to bring light and grace to an uncertain world without.  The Bishop felt compelled to travel throughout the NM & NWTX Conferences to provide an update and address questions and concerns.  At a time when our differences tend to be more prominent, this will be an opportunity to talk and focus on what binds us together.  Please choose a time and location that is most convenient and join us for a time of sharing.  The Conference wants to hear from you!  Questions?  Contact Randall Partin at (505)255-8786 or randall@nmconfum.com.