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HEREFORD ? Since his retirement from the insurance industry in 1992, Paul Cummins, 69, an 18-year member of Hereford UMC, has given thousands of hours of his time to help others. He also earned his local preacher?s license.

Baltimore County?s Department of Aging honored Cummins for volunteering more than 1,000 hours last year. He also received the Presidential Volunteer Service award for more than 4,000 hours of life-time volunteer service and was inducted into the Maryland Senior Citizens Hall of Fame.

Cummins was interim pastor for Monkton UMC in 2004, served as chaplain for the Hereford Optimist Club and before that for a hospice program for three years. He was chairman of the conference?s Endowment Fund board in the 1990s.

But his great love is computers, or rather seeing that people like seniors and children from impoverished schools have the opportunities to learn and use computers.

In 1999, he created Senior Cyber Net, which provides individual computers, computer labs and computer training to several thousand people in Baltimore. He has turned the organization into a network of volunteer-run programs. Today his creation has 900 computers at some 52 sites, including Centennial-Caroline and Eastern UMCs.

'Since 1999, I?ve gotten 9,000 hours on this project,' he said. 'I consider it my ministry.'

Cummins reflects a little, 'I don?t want to spend the last phase of my life on trivial things, like shuffleboard or cruises,' he said. 'I think if you have a real purpose in life, you?ll not only live longer, but you?ll live better.'

                                                                  -Across the Conference is compiled 
and written by Linda Worthington