Offertory Prayer

Invitation to the Offering
The offering you made last week empowered ministry within our congregation and in response to the needs of our community. It also helped support the work of ministries beyond the local church that reach people who are in desperate need to hear the good news of love and redemption. Ministries that bring medical care to the poor and elderly in our own communities, following in the footsteps of Christ who sought to heal and give hope. I invite you once again to give generously as we worship God through the sharing of our gifts, tithes and offerings.
http://www.umcgiving.org/site/apps/nlnet/content3.aspx?c=qwL6KkNWLrH&b=3935565&ct=12937633&notoc=1


June 23, 2013 — Fifth Sunday After Pentecost

God of the universe and God of our hearts, speak to us this morning in our giving with your still, small voice. Remind us who we are; remind us whose we are; remind us why we have chosen to follow your Son Jesus the Christ. As we share in this offering today, remind us that when we feel as if we are the last ones left who have not turned from you, that we are not alone. What we do, and what we give is multiplied with the compassion of others. Keep us faithful in that knowledge. We pray this in the name that is above all others, Jesus the Christ. Amen. (1 Kings 19:1-15a)


Written by Ken Sloan, Director of Stewardship for GBOD. http://www.gbod.org/lead-your-church/offertory-prayers

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Another Story about Healing

The February 3 edition of the New York Times reports about a company that prospers by saving poor people's lives, Vestergaard-Frandsen.
Its products are in use in refugee camps and disaster areas all over the third world: PermaNet, a mosquito net impregnated with insecticide; ZeroFly, a tent tarp that kills flies; and the LifeStraw, a filter worn around the neck that makes filthy water safe to drink.

3 comments:

A. Boyd C. said...

The NYT article doesn't do justice to how cool the life straw really is. The military had a version of this for a long time, but this company redesigned the life straw to use much less expensive materials.

Una Malachica said...

I had never even heard of the life straw before I read this article. Have you seen one, used one?

A. Boyd C. said...

there was an article about it in popular science a few years ago.

Basically it's a light-weight ceramic filter built into a straw. It's similar to the filters you see some people have attached to their kitchen sink.

What these guys did that was remarkable was they figured out how to make the technology affordable enough to use in really poor countries.

If you had to you could drink out of the sewer with one of these things and not get sick.