Minutes January 2022 | Ravenswood United

Dreams Are Realized through Education

Your generosity helps students around the world pursue their dreams.

Tamilarasi and her mother outside their home.

Credit: Human Rights Advocacy and Research Foundation

Published On: December 1, 2021 Jan. 31, 2022

Tamilarasi is a very bright 15-year-old from a small village in Tamil Nadu, South India. She is lucky to be able to go to school. In her village, girls her age are often pulled out of school to be married.

Life isn’t easy. Tamilarasi’s father recently died in an accident and she is living with her mother and two other siblings. As a widow with no inheritance rights, Tamilarasi’s mother may lose their family home when her brother marries. The teenager worries about where she and her family will live in the future.

“Our life has become a question mark now,” she writes in a thank-you letter to the Human Rights Advocacy and Research Foundation (HRF), our Mission & Service partner. “Questions haunt me and sometimes I’m unable to sleep,” she says.

When a representative from HRF visited Tamilarasi’s school, she gave a presentation on children’s rights to the students at a school assembly. At the assembly, Tamilarasi and other students were encouraged to stay in school and they received a backpack. “The schoolbag was of good quality and spacious enough to carry all my books and notebooks,” she wrote. “I felt very happy.”

Offering school supplies to students makes it possible for our Mission & Service partners to help young people like Tamilarasi complete their education and stay in school.

What’s more, with support from Gifts with Vision, the United Church’s gift catalogue, HRF provided backpacks stocked with school supplies to almost 500 Tamil Nadu children who live in poverty. Without those supplies, the children would not be able to attend or participate in classes.

Your generosity helps students around the world pursue their dreams.

One day, Tamilarasi wants to become a doctor. “I want to protect children like myself from diseases,” she explained. “I know I can’t afford to while away my time!”

Thank you for making a difference by providing life-transforming advocacy and school supplies. Your support truly does help change lives.

Mission & Service partners have been working hard to respond to the emergency.

Credit: Thomas Noreille/ACT

Published On: December 1, 2021 Jan. 23, 2022

Last August 14, a 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck southwestern Haiti. This disaster killed at least 2,248 people and injured more than 12,700. It destroyed buildings and infrastructure, impacting hundreds of thousands of people. Days later, Tropical Storm Grace compounded the situation, bringing heavy rains that triggered mudslides. Since the earthquake, a severe fuel shortage, growing insecurity, and increasing water shortages have hampered efforts to restore basic services to thousands in need across the country.

In the five months since the earthquake struck, Mission & Service partners have been working hard to respond to the emergency. Through them, your generous gifts to the Haiti Emergency Appeal is helping people rebuild their lives.

Your support has provided

medical supplies and first aid kits
water treatment tablets
temporary shelters
food packages of rice, beans, and cooking oil
tools, seeds, and livestock for families and farmers
hygienic sanitation services
access to safe water for drinking, cooking, and personal hygiene
rehabilitated or reconstructed earthquake- and hurricane-resistant houses
pyschological support

This list consists mostly of things. Imagine their impact on people―on families like yours!

Imagine what it means when your life has been turned upside down to have a place to turn to for a meal, somewhere to lay your head, and later to have support to rebuild your home and someone in your life to talk to about what you have been through.

This is the difference your generosity makes.

Thank you for caring.

Haiti: How Your Generosity Is Helping

Theological Education Provides a Roadmap to Vitality

“We want to help communities of faith re-focus on core principles of church health.”

Credit: Vancouver School of Theology

Published On: December 1, 2021 Jan. 16, 2022

Vancouver School of Theology just celebrated its 50th anniversary. The school, which receives support through Mission & Service, has thrived for over half a century thanks to your generosity.

“We are committed to serve and support the church,” says VST’s President and Vice-Chancellor Richard Topping. To that end, the school has big plans for the coming year: to expand facilities in order to create more teaching space for its growing student body, to begin new partnerships, and to invest in helping congregations flourish.

“Many congregations struggle with issues of viability: for example, managing and maintaining buildings, paying for staff, and other related expenses. Through our Congregational Vitality through Community Engagement project, we want to help communities of faith re-focus on core principles of church health and begin to explore new ways of becoming a thriving church,” says Topping.

Right now, through the Congregational Vitality Initiative, VST is working hard to identify the challenges that congregations are facing and help them see what the future might look like. As the research unfolds, VST will gather the best resources and practices that lead to congregational vitality and make them available to the whole church. With proven resources in hand, congregations will be equipped to become more healthy and vital. For communities of faith that are struggling or need extra support, the school plans to offer hands-on support.

“Your gifts are crucial to the work of our school. It is a source of encouragement to our work during these days when the whole of our operations is online because of COVID-19 restrictions. Through the hard work and dedication of a staff, faculty, and student body, who not only work hard but also care deeply, we have been able to continue keep our calling: to educate and form thoughtful, engaged, and generous Christian leaders for the church and the world in the 21st century,” says Topping.

Thank you for your gifts through Mission & Service. By supporting theological education, you ensure not only that the church has strong leaders but also equip them and the whole of the church with a roadmap to vitality, too. Thank you.

A Better World: One Water Project at a Time

Through Mission & Service you help provide solutions to water issues worldwide.

Credit: CLWR/E. Paulley

Published On: December 1, 2021 Jan. 9, 2022

According to UNICEF, more than half of the global population does not have access to safe sanitation and 2.2 billion people still lack access to safe drinking water.

Today―Baptism of Jesus Sunday—is a good day to consider our relationship with water.

How many Bible stories do you know have to do with water? Many of us have heard the story of Moses making water flow from rock and parting the Red Sea. We may remember stories about Jesus turning water into wine, walking on water, and calming it, too. So often, water is the focal point of God’s miracles and grace. It figures prominently because it’s necessary.

Clean water is essential to life, and yet around the world people suffer for lack of it.

The issues are complex. Climate change is altering weather and water patterns, causing shortages and droughts in some areas and floods in others. In some parts of the world, a growing population means rising demand and there isn’t enough water to go around. Water infrastructure problems sometimes mean people can’t access water even when it is available. There are racial and gender implications to accessing water, too. Did you know that, on average, women and children in the Global South walk nearly 6 kilometres to access water and carry nearly 19 liters of water every day?

Through Mission & Service you help provide solutions to water issues worldwide.

Your generosity supports irrigation projects and provides accessibility to water. Your gifts help construct bore holes, wells, and rain catchment tanks, which in turn address food security and sanitation issues in communities. During crises, your gifts help deliver drinking water where it’s needed most. In the midst of the global pandemic, your support is helping to construct sanitation stations and share life-saving hygiene communications through flyers and radio programs.

Thank you for your generosity! Together, we can build a better world. One water project at a time.

The Wisdom of Thoughtful, Intentional Giving

Our Christian faith calls us to think deeply about giving.

Credit: Photo: geralt from Pixabay

Published On: December 1, 2021 Jan. 2, 2022

Gold, frankincense, and myrrh. These are the gifts the magi presented to baby Jesus in Matthew’s Christmas story. Each of these gifts was highly symbolic.

In Jesus’ day, gold was typically a gift given to kings or people of high social class. Frankincense was burned during sacrifice offerings and worship services. Myrrh was used to embalm the bodies of those who died.

The magi recognized who Jesus was―important, worthy of worship, and someone who would pay the ultimate sacrifice. Their gifts were given to honour him. Their gifts were thoughtful and intentional.

While we may round up our tab at the cash register to give to a charity, our Christian faith also calls us to think deeply about giving. God calls us to discipleship, which means carving out time to reflect spiritually on what we are able to give. When we reflect on generosity as part of our spiritual practice, our giving becomes even more deeply intentional and meaningful.

And while it may be true that the people we support through Mission & Service need our generosity, we give as a way of honouring them. By working in partnership with trusted Mission & Service partners, we pay homage to, learn, and benefit from the resourcefulness, resilience, and giftedness of those receiving our financial support.

As the old adage goes, “Giving is a two-way street.”

How will you commit yourself to give generously, thoughtfully, and intentionally in this new year?

After the wisemen encountered Jesus and laid their gifts before him, they weren’t the same. The story goes that they went home by another road. In other words, their life took a new path.

May we too be changed by our connection with the spirit of Jesus, and in 2022 may generosity set us on an even deeper, more meaningful path.

As always, thank you for your Mission & Service support.