With 14 million people on deck, the United Methodist Church can do amazing things. 14 million people using God’s love to change the world? Mountains can be moved.

At the 2009 United Methodist General Conference, Methodist leadership from around the world set tremendous goals to eliminate poverty, eradicate malaria, create new places for new people, and raise up young leadership.

The United Methodist Church wants to invest in every person it comes in contact with whether they walk through church doors or not. We’re not only about recruiting people to church on Sunday. We’re about reaching out whether the open door is here at a church, or in the form of a mosquito net. The United Methodist Church wants to help people where they are.

Although I don’t always agree with all my fellow Methodists … I all can get behind these goals.

My dear friend, pastor, and Methodist leader, Bobbi Kaye, invited her coordinator, Rachel, to speak to our church about eradicating malaria. Saint John’s is asking everyone to donate $1000 to the program which will first be implemented in Sierra Leone. The program includes prevention, treatment, and education by providing mosquito nets, training, medicine, and hospital equipment.

Rachel is pregnant, and when she talked to our church, she discussed that she initially thought that $1000 was too much to donate when you are waiting for a baby. She said she needed to spend her money on things like organic crib sheets. She read that our generation slept on chemically treated sheets when we were babies and we are LUCKY TO BE ALIVE.

No really, we are lucky to be alive, and Rachel’s parallel made me see that. Thanks, Rachel, for making me see how lucky we really are.

In the time it took you to read this blog post, four children died of Malaria.

Any amount is appreciated and needed! Read more about Imagine No Malaria

Austinites: Attend the Family Friendly Fundraising “Stomp Out Malaria” Walk – Saturday, October 24, 8:00 -10:00 a.m. at Lamar Middle School