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Dear Lake North District,
Thank you for your generosity of apportionment giving, which is a witness to the abundance of Jesus’ mission in the Chicagoland area and beyond. Our district paid 82% of our apportionment this year, up 5% over last year. Thank you for your commitment! It has literally changed people’s lives.
Globally our apportionment supports African University, United Methodist Committee on Relief, Black Colleges and missionary work. This year the Northern IL Conference was able to pay 100% of its General Church Apportionment. Thank you!
Much of your apportionment dollars stay local. Your gifts go toward leadership development equipping local church for redevelopment and toward new faith communities. Your gifts support anti-racism work through Justice for our Neighbors, as well as the work of the Anti-racism Task Force. Your gifts also support five campus ministries, two (Northwestern and UIC) in our district.
In fact, a big portion of our programing budget goes toward campus ministry. I want to tell you the story of a young woman, who because of the faithfulness of your giving knows the abundance of God grace in her life.
“My experience with faith in the past…was pretty shaky. Since finding out that I was a lesbian in freshman year…I found it hard to continue to trust in my faith. After a few years of some soul-searching and a lot of thinking, … I realized that I was still pretty alone in my faith. I didn’t get a lot of support from the family that did know and the church community that I was a part of. Then, at my orientation, I happened to snag a sticker for my laptop that was from the Inclusive Collective; it simply said “Never Perfect and Always Loved” and it was everything I needed in that moment. Then after looking more into the Inclusive Collective, I found that it was the space I was looking for to feel more secure in my exploration of faith and find community that was just like me and would accept me for who I was. My faith journey will never be truly settled within me, but I look forward to exploring it more with a community of like-minded people who I can rely on and be relied on by.”
Friends, your apportionment payment has allowed people like Lee to find the abundance of God’s grace in a community of people. Your apportionment gift is changing lives across the Chicagoland area and across the globe.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Rev. Brittany Isaac
Lake North District Superintendent
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