UMC #Giving Tuesday

Dear Brothers, Sisters of Our Home Church Greetings from Copacabana, Bolivia!

We have great news! The UMC General Board of Global Ministries has a declared December 3 to be Giving Tuesday. On this day, GBGM will match every dollar donated to an Advance Mission Site such as the Peru-Bolivia Lake Titicaca Border Mission - #3021288!

We are always thankful and proud of the support – both financial and spiritual – we receive from our home church. We are serving here because the direction our spiritual journey took while at DGFUMC. Thanks to what we learned in classes such as Just Faith, and serving as volunteers for programs like Bridge and PADS we found ourselves yearning to serve in a way unique to us. Thank you all for all you have already done for the mission we serve.

If individuals or the congregation are willing and able to again offer support for the mission’s work, we’d be most grateful, as would the poor indigenous Aymara people with whom we live and work.

To qualify for the Matching Gift Challenge:

• All gifts must be sent electronically on Dec. 3, 2013.
• Gifts for Mision Fronteras must be made at our Advance page found here:

http://www.umcmission.org/Give-to-Mission/Search-for-Projects/Projects/3...

• Go to the above link and click on the big red "GIVE NOW" button
• GBGM has designated $500,000 for this challenge.
• An individual mission can raise up to $50,000, which GBGM will match!
• If you’re likely to make an individual gift, great! If you can help by doing a fundraiser, please aim to raise funds in November, consolidate them into one fund, and send it electronically early on Dec. 3.

A quick summary of Mision Fronteras’ existing and planned projects:

• 7 functioning green houses – important for boosting local income & dietary nutrient intake;
• School materials for hundreds of poor, rural students whose parents might withdraw them for lack of money to buy supplies;
• Ongoing dental hygiene training and supplies for school children;
• English classes for the community and occasionally for the Bolivian border police;
• Cuy farm – an income-producing project so the church district can provide food, shelter, and emergency care for abandonados and families in crisis;
• Family-based quinoa project – to boost income and dietary protein for families and generate income for church-based human services;
• In July a 13-member mission team helped local volunteers lay a new water line for a mission-sponsored, church construction project;
• We’ll host another mission team from northern Illinois in February 2014;
• By the end of the year, the mission will have hosted four individual UMC
• Volunteers in Mission. Terms of service range from 2 weeks, to 2 months, to 8 months;
• We’re trying to help local young adult Methodists become more cohesive. They want to learn about fund-raising so they can attend church conferences. They also want to establish a rotating young adult worship service.
• We hope to build 3.5 new latrines. The "half" latrine will be a rebuild. The others are for communities where people now relieve themselves in the same streams that provide drinking water.
• We are exploring a new congregation-based project to help generate income for human services. One congregation wants to invest in baby pigs, which they’d raise and sell at a 10-fold profit. Another is interested in a green house.

If you can make a gift on December 3, please do so, knowing that GBGM will double the impact of your donation. And remember: money goes a long way here:

• $75 (+ $75 matching gift) will buy school supplies for 50 students;
• $200 to $250 (+ matching gift) will build a green house;
• $750 (+ matching gift) will build a latrine with running water.

We and our Aymara brothers and sisters bid you a heartfelt Thanks, Gracias, Yuspajara!

Deb Rissing and Jeff Wasilevich
Site Hosts and Coordinators
Peru-Bolivia Lake Titicaca Border Mission Advance Site #3021288