A beginning of the year reminder. Self care is not an indulgence, it is a necessity.  You need to take care of yourself so that you can take care of others.  This includes yourself, your unit, your church, etc...  All of these entities need to be healthy enough if they are going to be helping others through your mission work.

Reminders: 

• Mission Today - 
  • Gold Unit: Complete at least 16 of the criteria, 10 of which must be marked with a star.
  • Silver Unit: complete at least 8 of the criteria, 4 of which must be marked with a star.
• Reading Program -     
  • Every reader and every book from the program counts towards reading credit for your unit.  Don't forget to include "Response" magazine in your reading.
• Social Action -
  • The form for becoming or continuing as a "Charter for Racial Justice Club Unit" is available on the Conference website.  Here is the direct link: https://pnwumc.org/umw/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Racial-Justice.pdf
• Nominations -
  • If you, or anyone in your unit, are interested in joining the district executive board, you can contact anyone on the nominations committee.  

Book Review - Social Action 2020

Written by Rosemary McCarney, Where Will I Live? is intended to help children not affected by the refugee crisis to understand it.  I have found that it also resonates well with children who have experienced homelessness, foster care, or other feelings of abandonment. It can be used with a Sunday School class that is discussing the traveling that the families in the Bible take throughout the year (begining with the magi).

Treasurer's report

Through December 10,2019, we have submitted over $28,500 towards our pledge to mission. In addition we have contributed $900 to UMCOR, $479 to Prayer & Self Denial, $800 to Tacoma Community House, $200 to the Endowment Fund and $200 to U2 Missionaries. That's a total of $2,579!! That is a grand total of $31,079. Thanks and Blessings from your treasurer, Sharon Wischmeier.

Raise your light: Taking the unexpected path

Think of the quote above and the Bible verse beside these words.  What path could you to share God's light and impact the world?  

From the UMW national website, the campaigns that are being worked towards are:

• Just Energy for All
• Interrupting the School-to-Prison Pipeline
• A Living Wage for All
• End Maternal Mortality

A few ways that you can make small changes that can have a big impact are

• choosing to spend your money at locations that pay ALL workers a living wage
• volunteer at your local school (or on the school board) to help break the pipeline into prisons
• Assist low income mothers to be to get to prenatal appointments (many of the clinics that they can afford are not in locations near where they live) - even the offer of bus passes could be a big help to some
• Write to the local paper, on an online discussion forum, to your government representatives, etc... to help educate others on the changes you would like to see come about.

Your District Executive Board

Date Reminders

CALENDAR 2020

Conference and District events.

January 18 PNW UMW Exec Board ZOOM Meeting
February 6 WA Interfaith Advocacy Day, Olympia
March 28-29 PNW UMW Exec Meeting, Lazy F, Ellensburg
April 17-19 Western Jurisdiction Meeting, Tempe, AZ
May 9 District Exec Board Meeting, Summit UMC
June 12-14 PNW UMC Annual Conference, Puyallup
July 23 PNW UMW Exec Meeting, Selah UMC, Yakima
July 23-26 Mission U, Wesley First UMC, Yakima
August 8 District Exec Board Meeting, Vancouver First UMC
September 19 C2C District Annual Meeting, Vancouver First UMC
October 15 PNW UMW Executive Meeting, Bothell UMC
October 16-17 PNW UMW Annual Meeting, Bothell UMC

If you have any other information that you want me to put here, please let me know by calling (36) 609-0503 or emailing me at lmilner2016@gmail.com .

Final Thoughts

You can only move so many mountains.  The more mountains that your doubt creates reduces the number of other mountains that can be moved by your faith. Work on overcoming your doubt allows you to move more mountains!