Friday, November 11, 2022

U.M. ARMY - GOD @ WORK: CONNECTED


By Darlene Thomas

GOD @ WORK: CONNECTED was the theme for this year’s U.M. ARMY (United Methodist Action Reach-out Mission by Youth) mission weeks this past summer. U.M. ARMY is a national youth mission organization that offers youth mission opportunities across the United States each summer. U.M. ARMY is also a Volunteers in Mission vetted organization and can be found on the VIM website http://www.susmb.org/vim/

Several Susquehanna Conference churches were involved in this mission organization this past summer. The mission week was hosted by Trucksville UMC church. Four churches from our conference participated in the week: Trucksville UMC, Christ UMC (Mt. Top), New Creation UMC (Dover), and Shiremanstown UMC. In addition, two churches from Connecticut traveled to Northern Pennsylvania to join us.

Armed with hammers, paint brushes, yard rakes and other tools, this group of 44 youth and adults served the greater Trucksville area, helping both individual families as well as local social service organizations. We truly felt GOD @ WORK through everything we did – CONNECTING us with the community, new friends and our faith. In addition to the work we undertook, we also worshiped together each morning and evening, enjoyed wonderful food prepared by our awesome kitchen team, and had lots of fun with games, an end of week picnic, a visit to a local dairy farm including yummy ice cream and strengthened our walk with God through lunch devotions and a prayer journey. The highlight of the week was our Community Celebration Dinner, when we invited the neighbors we served to a dinner and program to celebrate the projects we completed and the lives we touched.

GREAT NEWS!! U.M. ARMY is coming back to Trucksville in 2023. We will be there the week of July 9 and we would love to have more churches from the Susquehanna Conference join us. Registration will be opening up on November 1, so please check out the U.M. ARMY Northeast website for more information. You can also contact Gina Grubbs at ginagrubbs@umarmy.org or Darlene Thomas at gabrielt0303@gmail.com to discuss the possibility of your group joining us.

Our theme for 2023 is GOD @ WORK: TRANSFORMING. Won’t you join us and help us continue to transform the Trucksville community and the lives we touch?