The Wake Interfaith Hospitality Network (WIHN) is a cooperative interfaith program in which host churches provide overnight accommodations, meals, transportation and other amenities weekly for persons who are temporarily homeless. As a host congregation Highland UMC offers its facilities and other services four times a year. Highland volunteers provide meals, serve as overnight hosts, and give needed transportation each morning to the WIHN site or to area schools.  Visit WIHN's website for more information.

Please contact David Dix for more information or to sign-up as a volunteer. He can be reached at (H) 786.0594 or (W) 541.2701 or email.

Every summer since 1984, Highland UMC has sponsored the Highland Service Project. The Senior High youth from Highland and several other area churches, along with adult supervisors, spend a week (typically in June) doing small building and renovation projects in and around the homes of senior citizens in Wake County who have qualified through the Social Services Department. With the assistance and support of many adults from Highland, the youth stay overnight in cabins at Umstead State Park, going out during the day as teams of five youth and two adults to do the designated service projects. Both in the early morning and evening hours the HSP participants pause for devotional activities and fellowship. Over the years, the program has grown, touching countless lives in our local community and challenging hundreds of youth to be the hands and feet of Christ in this world.

For information about 2009's HSP, download our brochure.

Are you looking for a way to bless and serve others? If so, consider joining the Prayer Shawl Ministry. You don’t need to be an experienced knitter or crocheter to join. We have plenty of good teachers. Each month, there are four opportunities to meet and fellowship. Beginning in September, we will meet on 1st and 3rd Wednesday evenings at 6:45pm following Cross Training and 1st and 3rd Thursday mornings at 10am Questions? Contact Heather Lear.

As a mission-minded congregation, Highland is constantly looking forward to the next opportunity to be of service to our local and global communities.  Look for announcements about the next opportunity, which may include:

• Mission Work Teams - most recently to Guyana
• supporting Refugee families
• helping a homeless family get back on their feet
• splitting firewood with Warmth for Wake Coalition
• gleaning sweet potatoes with the Society of St. Andrew
• providing meals at the Helen Wright Center
• Race of Grace
• CROP Walk
• Meals on Wheels
• supporting missionaries around the world

Highland UMC is blessed with wonderful, large facilities, which enable us to open our doors to numerous groups in our community.  In addition to the ministries like Wake Interfaith Hospitality Network and the Boy Scout, Cub Scout, and Girl Scout troops afiiliated with Highland, we are pleased to host:

• English as a Second Language classes
• Alcoholics Anonymous
• National Alliance for Mental Illness family support group
• Overeaters Anonymous
• Fellowship of Christian Athletes from Martin Middle School
• Capital Quilters
• Star Twirlers square dancers
• Toast Masters
• Raleigh Sports Club
• Kiwanis Club
• US Dance ballroom dancers
• Raleigh Flute Association
• NC State University's Political Science department graduation

“…what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” - Micah 6:8

The Micah 6:8 Team has been charged with developing a process whereby its members would study selected global, national, and local social issues and provide opportunities for interested members of the congregation to study, deliberate and, when appropriate, to advocate for what is right and true and good in the context of Christian discipleship.

Some of the resources and issues we have considered include:

• The UMC General Board of Church & Society’s “Faith in Action”
• The World Council of Churches – “The Decade to Overcome Violence”
• “The Raleigh Report” from the North Carolina Council of Churches looking at issues before the North Carolina General Assembly.

All who are interested are welcome to join. For meeting schedules and agendas, please contact Donna Wolcott.

The Mission Ministry Team seeks to expand the ways the church demonstrates the love of God. Not only does it disburse the funds the church generously provides for outreach to those in need, but it also provides "hands-on" mission opportunities for the congregation. Such activities have included packaging food packets for the hungry, chopping wood for those without heat, gleaning sweet potatoes, collecting school supplies, building Habitat houses, participating in charitable events like the CROP Walk and the Race of Grace, and sponsoring mission teams both at home and abroad. The team also supports many long established mission activities, such as WIHN and the Highland Service Project.

The group meets the second Tuesday of every month and welcomes anyone to attend and propose new mission opportunities.  Contact our team leader, Linda Edwards, for more information.

Our Evangelism Team seeks to fulfill Christ's commission to go into all the world through practices of Christian hospitality and member empowerment. We welcome our community to Highland through our church programs and our facilities. We seek to welcome and embrace newcomers and visitors to our worship services and programs. We help to educate and empower our members so that we can love and reach out to all people -- the unchurched, those who would like to resume church-going, and anyone who wants a vibrant and meaningful relationship with Jesus Christ.

We meet on the second Sunday of each month at 6 pm.  All are welcomed to join us.  Contact our team leader, Peggy McCants, to learn more.

Progress is being made! You’ll recall that last April, Highland members participated in an Offering of Letters with Bread for the World, a Christian organization that seeks to reduce hunger and poverty by changing policies that hinder improvement. Last year’s initiative was to advocate for systemic change to the way that our foreign aid is handled—better oversight, more aid to agricultural development, etc.

A post from Bread for the World reports that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved S.1524, the Foreign Assistance Revitalization and Accountability Act of 2009, with fourteen of the seventeen committee members voting in favor. Kay Hagan is one of the co-sponsors. In the house, H.R. 2139, the Initiating Foreign Assistance Reform Act of 2009 now has 121 cosponsors, up from just a few when we began writing
letters. Among them are Brad Miller and David Price. Consider another letter to Senator Burr. Then we will have all our elected officials working on reform.

Have you ever wondered if the Methodist Church helps with disaster relief?

We do, mostly through an organization called the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR).
This group is responding to flood disasters in both the Philippines and northern Georgia. In the Philippines, the rains on Sept 26 displaced 400,000 people. It is estimated that 250 people have lost their lives and that count will probably increase. In northern Georgia, there have been 9 deaths reported. Buckets with cleaning supplies have been sent from UMCOR’s Relief Supply Depots to aid many with clean-up efforts.

If you would like to individually contribute to this disaster relief, you can, place a check in the offering plate. For the Philippine relief effort, mark the check: Philippines Emergency #240235. For the relief effort in Georgia, please mark the check: U.S. Disaster Response, UMCOR advance #901670.
UMCOR continues to work in the Sudan where it is estimated that over 400,000 people have been killed and over 2 million are displaced. UMCOR works in Darfur and other areas with agriculture extension programs and emergency supply distribution. UMCOR also is working with other humanitarian organizations to provide assistance to Sudanese refugees who have fled to neighboring countries. If you would like to contribute to this relief effort, checks should be marked: Sudan Emergency advance #184385.

Dear Partners in Ministry to, for, with and by the Less Fortunate and Destitute War Affected Youth (WAY) in Liberia, we embraced children carrying burdens from the past that seemed to pick up more weight day by day as we worked with them. Burden of trauma and stress, burden of poverty and ignorance, burden of hunger and nakedness, burden of illiteracy, burden of rejection and violence, burden of injustice and cultural oppression… Please click here to view the entire newsletter. 

The Guyana Mission team arrived safely yesterday morning at about 6am. They are at their work site and doing wonderfully. Please continue to keep them in prayer and thanksgiving for the work the Lord will do through them on this trip.

Meal Packing Event for Stop Hunger Now on Saturday, March 20

We are making good progress on raising enough money to top our record of packing 31,000 meals, but to pack that many meals, we’ll need lots of volunteers:
We need about 70 volunteers for each shift, the first from 9 a.m. until 11a.m., and the second from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. We’ll also need about 10 people for setting up at 8:00 a.m. (at least 5 strong enough to hoist 50 lb. bags of rice), and 10 more at 1:30 p.m. to load the meals that we’ve packed into the truck and to sweep up. We’ll be signing up volunteers on several Sundays prior to the event, but please get March 20th your calendars today.