---

Passage to India, With Love

Are you seeking Christian adventure?  Come join Mary Philip’s Volunteers in Mission (VIM) trip to India after Christmas.  Members from DUMC have participated in VIM trips this decade to South Africa, Zimbabwe, and India and tell glowing stories of their wonderful experiences.  But this VIM trip to India will be special, led by an “insider” with deep cultural knowledge of and insights into India.

We plan to visit two diverse sites in Northern India.  At each site the goals are to learn about the local culture and social programs and to offer such assistance as is feasible.  We will spend 7 days at a rural health program.  Health problems have broad social causes, so the rural programs include housing, education, food production, and shelters for abused children and women as well as medical clinics.  While there, tentatively we will help with construction of housing for destitute families and work on a farm.  The second site is an urban community development program in Mumbai (Bombay), India’s largest city.  This program offers education to street children, services to mentally and physically challenged youth and women, job training, child care and preschool centers, and health care.  During our 5 days here, tentatively we will help with health services for youth and women and with services for children with disabilities.

Details are not yet finalized, but tentatively we will leave California December 27, 2008, and return January 16, 2009.  In addition to time spent at the two sites and travel time, we will have up to 5 days for sight seeing (e.g. Taj Mahal and much more).  The cost per person will be from $2500 to $3000, which includes air fare to India.  This trip is likely to be popular and group size is limited to 12, so indicate interest soon.  For further information, contact Mary Philip or Jim

September Special Collection
India VIM Trip

September’s special collection supports our mission trip to India this winter. Ten members of our congregation will provide service to disabled children in an inter-city social program and make bricks and build housing for homeless in a rural community developed program. The VIM team members pay their own expenses, but each VIM team brings the materials needed to complete their mission and “gifts” for the sites where they work. For example, the student VIM trips to Africa University often bring tools and medicines. This special offering will allow the Davis UMC team to bring needed materials to the Indian programs they visit.

 

---

GOING GREEN

The UMC Social Principles exhort Methodists to be good stewards of the environment.  Many churches are responding to this call by embracing “greening the church” policies.  Our Church Council has joined the movement by adopting the goal of moving in a “green” direction, and by appointing a Creation Care Task Force to guide the way.  The Task Force has met once and decided immediately to be inclusive and transparently open.  We welcome additional volunteers as well as suggestions and good “green” ideas.  If you wish to join in the Task Force’s work, contact Jim Cramer.

Church Council decided to “go green” in response to a proposal from Trustees and Church & Society.  The Trustees’ interest in “greening” is partly practical - - they’d like to reduce our utility costs (electricity, water, trash) and make the church sustainable.  Church & Society’s interest in “greening” is based on social justice concerns.  High levels of consumption and waste in the U.S. make resources scarce and thus more costly (witness rising costs of oil and food due to increasing global consumption), and this hurts lower income people in the U.S. and around the world.  Pollution and global warming hurt poor people disproportionately.  And, of course, we’re all motivated by the Social Principles and the moral and spiritual imperative to be good stewards of creation.

 The goal of the Creation Care Task Force is to help Davis UMC and individual members of the church become better stewards of creation.  Pursuing this goal will entail learning, educating, and acting.  We need to learn more about how to conserve resources and reduce pollution and waste affordably.  The Task Force will search for answers and will hold educational forums at which we all can learn.  The Task Force, working with church staff and committees, also will recommend concrete actions that we all can take.  Again, we’re open to advice and help.  We welcome additional volunteers to work with the Task Force.

Crossection Goes Green

“Communication is priceless but costly.”   J. Courtney

 Our monthly Crossection keeps us informed about the life of the church and is essential, yet it also is very costly. For printing it requires a fancy, heavy-duty copier, an expense that concerns the Trustees. The postage for mailing it is a concern for the Finance Committee. And the trees felled for the paper are of concern to the Creation Care Task Force. All three committees have been searching for ways to reduce the costs of Crossection while maintaining its quality and usefulness.

 The solution, endorsed by Church Council and by church staff, is to move to electronic communication. We’re going green by reducing our use of paper. Members of the congregation who wish to continue to receive printed copies of Crossection in the mail (or to pick it up at church, saving postage) certainly may do so - - we don’t want to cut anyone off from our news source. But members who are comfortable with electronic communication may, in the future, access Crossection on line.

 We will experiment with alternative ways of making Crossection available electronically, but here’s what we will do initially. Each month Crossection will be uploaded  to Davis UMC’s web page. Nancy will send out an email announcing the new Crossection and providing a clickable link for easy access.  Each Thursday’s email of the week’s activities will include a reminder of (and link to) Crossection on line. Members can sign up to receive a printed Crossection in the mail or pick up their copy on Sunday morning. We hope that most members will opt for electronic  access to Crossection, saving costs of printing and postage and saving trees.

 Jim Cramer, chair of Church and Society

---

Community Activities

Interfaith Immigration Network

The Interfaith Immigration Network is a new group comprising Woodland and Davis faith communities including our congregation that has formed to reach out to immigrants in Yolo County to make our community a better place for all to live and thrive.

Davis and Woodland faith communities now have an opportunity to help unaccompanied immigrant children in need. Yolo County Juvenile Hall houses approximately 12 youth who have been found to be undocumented. The federal Office of Refugee Resettlement has contracted with six facilities including the Yolo County Juvenile Hall to provide bed-space to

hold undocumented children and youth under the age of 18 while they apply to remain legally in the United States or wait their journeys home. The youth incarcerated in Yolo County are boys between the ages of 14 and 18 who have been transferred to Woodland from all over the country. Due to confidentiality, we do not have information about how these children were identified as undocumented. 

 When these children arrive in Yolo County, they have nothing but the clothes on their backs. The Interfaith Immigration Network is gathering clothing and toiletries for these young immigrants. They are interested in collecting the following items:

• Shirts, Pants, Underwear, Socks, Jackets/sweaters and sweatshirts
• Towels—not too big and Toiletries (toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant)
• Phone cards

Cash donations are also needed. Make check out to Care for God’s Creation and put immigration-backpacks in the memo line. Julia Newcomb will coordinate the donations of clothes and money for our congregations. She can answer any questions you may have.

---

COMMUNITY MEALS
For more information, call Susan Padgett.

---

Fair Trade Coffee

To order Fair Trade coffee, tea and chocolate buying co-op, please e-mail or call Karen Hudson-Bates.

---