| Conference will celebrate missions By Melissa Lauber UMConnection Staff More than 1,700 people are expected to make the global connection when the Baltimore-Washington Conference celebrates mission at their annual meeting June 8. The world is our parish and we intend to celebrate that at a worship service and mission fair, said Associate Council Director Sandy Ferguson. Making the Global Connection: A Celebration of the Covenant Relationship, which begins at 8 p.m. at the  Renaissance Hotel in Washington, D.C., will feature music from around the world; the preaching of the Rev. Paul R. Dirdack, a deputy general secretary at the General Board of Global Ministries; and the honoring of 95 conference churches that support missionaries. Dirdack, who oversees the denominations mission volunteers, health and welfare ministries and United Methodist Committee on Relief, will preach on the theme Blessed to be a Blessing. The music will include instrumental pieces from Hispanic and Indian congregations, a 35-voice womens choir from South Korea, and dancing by the Balafon West Africa Dance Ensemble from Guinea. Prayers will be offered in a traditional Korean style and participants will be given the opportunity to make a donation toward famine relief in Zimbabwe in the joyous African tradition of making offerings to God, said the Rev. Richard Brown-Whale, conference secretary of global ministries. There are 95 conference churches that support missionaries in a covenant relationship, financially and with their prayers. Twenty-one of these congregations have made a more extensive commitment and become Global Mission Partner Churches. According to Brown-Whale, to become a Global Mission Partner Church, congregations must: z Pay 100 percent of World Service and conference apportionments; z Have an ongoing program of mission education; z Be involved in local community ministries; z Pledge support, in a covenant relationship, for a missionary commissioned by the General Board of Global Ministries; z Pledge support for a person in mission sent by a partner church in another country; z Share their experience with neighboring congregations. The Global Mission Partner churches will process with banners during the mission celebration. Nan McCurdy, a conference missionary to Nicaragua, will present certificates honoring the churches. Information on how churches can become covenant partnership or global mission partner churches will be available at a mission fair that will follow the worship service. The fair, which will include refreshments and additional global music, will be set up in an adjacent ballroom at the Renaissance Hotel. Information on other mission opportunities and the conference Advance Specials will also be available. The purpose of covenant relationships and the mission worship and fair at annual conference is to bridge people and cultures in the name of Jesus, Brown-Whale said. Covenant relationships enable connections. They allow for a bridge between two parts of Christs church. Two years ago at annual conference, Bishop Felton Edwin May issued an invitation for people who wanted to serve as missionaries to come forward to the altar. One of the people who responded went on to become a missionary in Central Asia. She spent the past year helping people in places where there was no electricity and very little food, in conditions she never dreamed existed. Recently, she had time to reflect on her experience and how, in service to others, she discovered the depth and magnitude of God. I realized it all comes down to you and God, you and Jesus, she said. Like an onion, the layers of your life can be peeled away, one by one, and you realize it doesnt matter. When everything is gone, its all you and God. The mission celebration is a part of the 218th session of the Baltimore-Washington Conference, which will be held June 6-9. For more information about how your church can become involved in a mission partnership contact Brown-Whale at (410) 374-4231. | 
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