February 21, 2024 Weekly Update
Happy Wednesday!
Last Sunday we began our worship series “Remember.” Our focus this Lent is on the covenants of God in the Hebrew Bible and their connection to the new covenant Jesus introduced at the first Easter. Last Sunday we also reflected on our covenant with our missionary friends in East Angola. I shared photos from the Agricultural Program at the Quessua United Methodist Mission Compound.
Since our fundraising with our Flathead Valley United Methodist churches last spring for the Poultry Project, we’ve witnessed our Angolan partners make great strides. Kutela Katembo and his farm worker crew now have:
- 300 small chicks growing and ready to begin laying eggs in six months
- 200 chicks already laying eggs (330 eggs donated to weekend meal program recently)
- Poultry buildings are completed and ready to house total of 2000 chickens.
Our connection as United Methodists across the globe is like a covenant we share with one another and God. The Florida Conference also helps support missionaries, and recently a testimony was shared by Quessua resident Ruthie Schaad about a young girl in Quessa benefiting from our covenant and connection:
“Little Maria, now 5, is such a miracle that gives such joy that it has to be shared. I saw her with her father on Friday after a number of months of not seeing her. Maria was diagnosed with and treated for extra pulmonary TB. She lives in Sona, the most remote of the Quessua mission villages. The village is across the Lombe River where there is no proper pedestrian bridge much less one for vehicles. During the rainy season, people cross precariously in hip-deep, flowing water. There is no school, clinic or stores there.
I first saw Maria in her village in November of 2022 and from then on couldn’t get her out of my mind. 2 other children in the family had died of the same thing, not diagnosed then and her family assumed it was some kind of witchcraft. It was a Godsend when missionary Dr Stephen James Foster came through on a visit and saw to it that Maria could get to Luanda. With donated funds from the Florida Conference of the UMC, Maria’s father took her to Luanda for a month, where they stayed in the hospital under very difficult, unsanitary conditions. Eight months of treatment was not easy. The rest of the extended family was suspicious at first. But her father persisted. Soon they saw Maria gradually getting better. The photos speak for themselves.”
Thanks be to God for individual and community miracles happening due to our covenant and connections as United Methodists across the world! See you this Sunday!
Lenten Blessings,
Pastor Jared