The Parsonage on the Mountain has weathered Hurricane Sandy with little damage, save the loss of power (which is but an inconvenience in the grand scheme of things).
We are praying for those who cannot say the same.
If you would like to help those who have been more seriously harmed by this disaster, please join us in prayer.
Please consider, as well, a donation to UMCOR, the United Methodist Committee On Relief.
There are many highly respected relief organizations who will be able to use your money with integrity and wisdom, effectively and efficiently bringing services to those whose lives have been upended by the “superstorm.” UMCOR is a rarity even among these excellent relief organizations, in that it does not use a penny of directed donations for any administrative or organizational costs. A denomination-wide offering every year in March funds 100% of its administrative costs. That means that wherever you designate your money to go, 100% of your contribution will go to “direct relief” (the stuff hurting people actually get) there.
As someone who has always had to watch her pennies, I’ve always worried over charitable donations that I make. When you’re giving ten or twenty million dollars, it doesn’t matter so much if 10% of it goes to advertizing and another 25% to overhead and so on. You’re still giving millions of dollars in actual help to people who are actually hurting.
But when you can only give ten or twenty dollars, you want every penny of it to go as far as it can possibly go to helping hurting people.
I did not know anything about UMCOR until I became a United Methodist. (They do very, very little advertizing.) Now that I know about it, I’m proud to be a part of the organization that thought it up.
Give somewhere. Help someone. Do something. Anything is better than nothing. And if you’re not sure what to do or whom to help or where to give, please consider a donation to UMCOR.