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Greetings
from Week of Compassion, and thank you for your continued support of WOC.
Your generosity, concern and prayers bring help and hope to countless
people throughout the world. We are grateful; many are
grateful. Within
the WOC budget, the single largest line item is the Compassion Response
Fund. Through this allocation (and special designated accounts), WOC is
able to respond promptly to emergencies, disasters and other urgent
humanitarian requests as they arise. Below is a brief summary of responses
we've made through June 30 from the Response Fund and from certain
designated disaster accounts. This does not include resources we are
providing for long-term development projects, partners, etc., but is an
overview of the many emergency relief and recovery needs to which we
Disciples are responding. In the first six months of 2007, WOC has
provided $714,381 in relief and recovery grants from these accounts and
has responded to a variety of humanitarian appeals on the average of once
every 1.9 days. (Already July '07 is proving to be one of our busiest
months ever. In the first 18 days, WOC has made 27 emergency responses -
an average of 3 responses every 2 days!) More
than 750 Disciples congregations have now requested the new WOC
interactive map/poster to track emergency and long-term development
responses on a weekly basis. It is a great way for Disciples to see how
our gifts to WOC are used around the world, around the year. A complete
list of those responses is on the WOC website: www.weekofcompassion.org.
For a complimentary map/poster, contact Elaine at 317.713.2442 or email
her at ecleveland@woc.disciples.org.
Of
course, the real story is not so much in facts and figures but in the
personal stories behind the numbers. Here are two recent letters we would
like to share with you: Johnny, The
church in Mahomet wants to thank Week of Compassion and all of the
Disciples churches that work together to help in situations like the one
we are facing. We are not homeless or hungry, but we do have limited
resources in a situation that many are facing in our area because of
flooding water. We thank you and our spirit is good and we will
survive. Wally
Brown, Pastor, Mahomet CC, Bertram, TX Johnny, I
recently had a conversation with Alan Doswald of ESA/Love INC about the
money that came from WOC for freeze relief. Alan was very excited about
the size of the Disciples contribution; no other church in Fresno gave as
much as we did. The money went to buy food and pay bills for people in the
community. As the churches did not limit the funds to church members, the
churches have experienced growth. There are at least 20 new families in
these 8 churches, and more than 50 contacts have been made with people in
the community. The Church met the physical needs, and now those in need
are willing to let the Church meet spiritual needs as well. What a joy to
have been part of this. Natalie
Chamberlain, Pastor, United CC, Fresno, CA
Africa:
[$146,500] 2,000
- Angola, cholera outbreak East
Asia and the Pacific: [$13,000] 5,000
- China, earthquake Latin
America and the Caribbean: [$30,000] 7,000
- Colombia, floods and volcanoes Middle
East and Europe: [$6,000] 6,000
- Lebanon, emergency relief Southern
Asia: [$173,438] 3,000
- Central Asia, disaster mitigation General:
[$6,000] 6,000
- Church World Service, Community Arise Project Domestic:
[$339,443] 250
- Alabama, fire |
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Week of Compassion is the relief, refugee, and
development ministry fund of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
responding around the world around the year on behalf of congregations and
individuals of the church. |