During this pandemic United Methodist Missionaries have not been able to travel to speak at supporting churches, but they have continued working and serving all over the world. In response to this reality the General Board of Global Ministries has organized a series of broadcasts that have been occurring almost every Thursday for the past several months. At each broadcast, 3 to 4 missionaries share their stories and ministry. The broadcast is called #STILLINMISSION. They will continue on into the future and all past broadcasts have been recorded. As you and your church continue to serve in ministry and mission all around the world through the United Methodist connection and you work on your 2021 budget, I encourage you to consider supporting a UM missionary through a Covenant Relationship.  You would commit a specific amount of money and prayer support. The missionary would commit to provide information about the ministry and prayer support for your church. 

I ask you to check out these broadcasts. In watching these I find myself inspired, motivated, moved to tears, laughter, enthusiasm and joy as I see how United Methodist are making a difference in the lives of God’s children. These can be used as part of a worship service, Sunday School Class, UMW or UMM meeting, Mission or Outreach meeting or other ideas as you reimagine how to connect with missionaries of the UMC. The information for Covenant Relationships is also on the umcmission.org webpage.

To get connected go to the webpage umcmission.org. About ¾ of the way down you will find the #STILLINMISSION button. Click it and explore how you and your church can serve in mission.

It has been helpful in the past if the Alaska churches all support the same 1 or 2 missionaries. This makes it easier for the missionary to get to travel to Alaska to speak in our local churches. This may not happen anytime soon, but I continue to hold this as an option to which we can look forward, In the future as we anticipate becoming a Mission District in the GNW connected to the PNW Conference. Thus, it could be helpful if we supported missionaries who are also in covenant with our sister conferences in the GNW. Following is a list of missionaries supported by OI and PNW. You may want to consider listening to their broadcast. If you are led to develop a covenant relationship with a missionary please let me know so we can spread the word to other churches and work together to make a difference in their support.

Submissions - If you have an article or event that you would like to share with the rest of the conference, submit it to the conference office by Tuesday at 9:00 am for consideration.