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Children teach about social justice

BALTIMORE – Epworth United Methodist Chapel’s children, in the age 9 to 10 Sunday School class, helped celebrate Laity Sunday Oct. 24, by showing the congregation one way they were involved in social justice.

Dressed in biblical costumes, the children distributed 150 Fair Trade chocolates and explained that with fair trade practices, farmers make a better living and can afford to send their children to school.

One year and 4,000 meals celebrated

ESSEX – Essex UMC recently marked the first anniversary of the Table of Grace, which serves more than 100 people every Wednesday. A year ago there were about 30 people, then 70-80, but since June it has been 100 or more.

The church already had a food distribution program when they decided they needed to do more. Recently they served their 4,000th meal.

“We want people to know they are welcome in God’s house,” said the Rev. Kimberly Brown-Whale.

Worried at first how the church could pay for the meals, “I thought if it was God’s will, God would bless it,” Brown-Whale said. “And God did.” Several area partners, including Food Lion and USDA Emergency Food Program, help with the costs.

Nigerian emirs visit Manna House

BALTIMORE – A delegation of Nigerian emirs visited Manna House Nov. 6. They were attending a Health Leadership Seminar at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, and arranged to see how a non-profit social service agency operates. The emirs were especially interested in observing the soup kitchen operations.

Manna House, Inc., organized in 1966, has provided an average of 50,000 meals a year to the homeless and poor beginning in 1973, when the soup kitchen became one of the first permanent soup kitchens in Baltimore. It also sponsors a clothing bank, a Drop-In center for the homeless and the men’s health barbershop outreach program.

Two communions, two states get together

MARYLAND LINE – Maryland Line UMC and St. John Evangelical Lutheran Church (ELCA) in nearby New Freedom, Pa., held a joint Communion service Nov. 7 in celebration and recognition of the two denominations entering into Full Communion in 2009.

84 miles a good hike for 80-year-olds

CATONSVILLE – What better way to celebrate being in your 80s than taking an 84-mile hike, said the Rev. Carroll Yingling. He and his wife, Phyllis, walked Hadrian’s Wall in England over the course of 10 days this summer.

They treked 11 miles a day most days, Yingling said, but a couple days they walked a little less because “the going was so rough we were barely making a mile an hour, which is about half the speed that we usually walk,” he said.

This walking trip was the tenth the couple have taken. From the Alps of Haute Provence in France to Napa Valley and the Greenbrier River, the Yinglings say each trip is like taking a course in archeology, history and culture. “You learn so much more along the way than you could ever anticipate.”

Bikes collected for global friends

WEST FRIENDSHIP – Fifteen men from St. James UMC and Boy Scout Troop 555 collected 33 used bikes Oct. 23 to send to Costa Rica.

Bikes for the World transforms unwanted bicycles into one of the important transports for global friends, said the Rev. DaeHwa Park. He recollected that during his boyhood (in South Korea) he saw many “freight bikes,” reinforced by steel and carrying a bag of rice weighing 175 pounds.

“It is my joy to make a difference for our global neighbors through an outreach project like this,” said Wayne Smith, outreach chair. It’s also a project a small group can begin, he added, “and opens a door to the community where the church is located.”