The 2007 Christmas Miracle Offering is Complete!

The 2007 Christmas Miracle Offering to expand the child development & protection program and the safe water project in southern Darfur resulted in $1,145,649--once again surpassing any previous year's offering and bringing total gifts for Darfur since January 2005 to $3 million!

• The Ginghamsburg family gave $932,053 through sacrificial offerings and the purchase of Sudan resources.
• 36 partner schools, churches and businesses gave $203,712 toward the miracle.
• The interest earned, which also goes directly to UMCOR for the project, is $9884.

Thank you for your generous response to God's call to serve the least of these! 2007 partners included:

Action Tire & Auto Center – Troy, OH

Adams Investment Properties – Miamisburg, OH

Advance Packaging Technologies – Waterford, MI

American Trademark Construction Services – Clayton, OH

Belle Haven Schools – Dayton, OH

Carlisle 7th & 8th grade basketball teams – Carlisle, OH

Christ UMC – Covington, VA

Church of the Master UMC – Wauseon, OH

Church of the Redeemer UMC – Columbus, OH

Design Realty & Associates – Troy, OH

Edington Heating & Cooling – Troy, OH

Farmer UMC – Bryan, OH

Genesis A UMC – Birmingham, AL

Gordon UMC – Gordon, OH

Grace UMC – St. Johnsbury, VT

Intrepid Care – Piqua, OH

Johnson UMC – Norton, OH

Karma Salon & Spa – Dayton, OH

Lytle UMC – Waynesville, OH

Marysville First UMC – Marysville, OH

McMiller-Kearns Masonry, Inc. – Troy, OH

Miami East High School - Fletcher, OH

Miami Valley District UMC - Dayton, OH

Net RX, Inc. – Columbus, OH

New Tech Plastics, Inc. – Covington, OH

North College Hill Schools – Cincinnati, OH

Northmont City Schools – Englewood, OH

Open Table of Christ UMC – Providence, RI

Ortega United Methodist Church – Jacksonville, FL

Rainbow PreSchool – Arcanum, OH

Southern Hills UMC – Lexington, KY

St. George Island UMC -  St. George Island, FL

Urbana UMC - Urbana, OH

Vacation Bible School Elimsport UMC – Allenwood, PA

Vision Community Church - Warwick, NY

Wesley Chapel Church - Gravel Switch, KY

Sudan Photo Book

Available Now in the Ginghamsburg Bookstore!

Many people have been asking for photos from Darfur. Here they are! This Sudan photo book features many of the best pictures from Darfur taken by our Ginghamsburg team. Book proceeds are used to spread the word about The Sudan Project. ($35 per copy, includes tax)

Spread the word about The Sudan Project!

Here’s how:

• Go to “resources” and scroll down to view a gallery of downloadable photos or use this website to show others video stories about the work in Darfur.
• Pick up The Sudan Project media package / winter 2007 for $2 in the Ginghamsburg bookstore on the Main Campus. Includes all project videos from 2005 through December 2007, photos, a PowerPoint presentation and more.
• Give The Sudan Project: Rebuilding with the People of Darfur, A Young Person’s Guide by Melissa Leembruggen as a gift that will delight and educate kids on your Christmas list. Partial proceeds benefit the project. Available online or in the Ginghamsburg bookstore.
• Now available in the bookstore! Live Simply-new hope in a world of despair. This hard-cover photo book features photos from Darfur and tells the story of God’s miracle. Each $35 purchase helps us spread the word about The Sudan Project.

UMCOR “Sudan Project” Strategic Partners Visited Ginghamsburg

On December 1 and 2, Sashi Chanda, a United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) project leader within the Sudan, and Sam Dixon, Deputy General Secretary of UMCOR, participated in five weekend worship celebrations to update the Ginghamsburg congregation on the current situation within Darfur and on project results. Mr. Chanda was the first UMCOR team member who moved into Darfur in early 2005 to courageously lead the agricultural project. As the head of UMCOR, Sam Dixon is responsible for UMCOR’s work in 80-plus countries around the world. Slater Armstrong, a Nashville-based Christian recording artist with Integrity Music, also performed.  (View the weekend message that included Sashi and Sam on stage with Mike Slaughter.)

Resource on Darfur Now Available for Kids

The Sudan Project: Rebuilding with the People of Darfur, A Young Person’s Guide (Abingdon Press) by Melissa Leembruggen, a Ginghamsburg attendee, helps make children ages 9-12 aware of the devastating effects of poverty and war in Sudan, as well as the suffering of Darfur’s people. The book focuses on the plight of the people of Darfur and encourages hope that they can flourish through the help readers can provide.

The Sudan Project:

• Teaches children about Sudan, through an A to Z overview of its history and culture, as well as how the social climate affects Sudanese lives.
• Contains a glossary, lesson plans, a Sudanese recipe, discussion questions, service project ideas, and more!

This resource is ideal for directors of Christian education, pastors, teachers, parents and grandparents, libraries, and relief aid organizations. A portion of the proceeds goes to support The Sudan Project of Ginghamsburg Church (www.thesudanproject.org). Click here to purchase The Sudan Project.

Ginghamsburg Team Home from Darfur, Sudan

A team of six from Ginghamsburg Church in Tipp City, Ohio, including Lead Pastor Mike Slaughter and his son Jonathan, returned safely to the Dayton area on Friday, June 22, following a six-day visit to the Sudan. The team, accompanied by its strategic partner for humanitarian relief in violence-torn Darfur, the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), traveled to Khartoum to meet with top Sudanese government officials regarding the crisis in Darfur and spent two days and one night in southern Darfur visiting internally displaced persons (IDP) camps and towns where Ginghamsburg is funding multiple humanitarian relief efforts.

Over the past two and a half years, the Ginghamsburg Church family has raised more than $1.8 million through The Sudan Project to fund three significant projects in southern Darfur. The first of these is a sustainable agricultural project, initiated in 2005, that has now expanded to feed 65,000 Sudanese refugees. The second project, a five-year venture initiated in 2006 to provide child safety and development, has already led to the creation of 90 schools serving 3000 students. Sixty of those schools are temporary structures within five displaced persons camps. The remaining 30 are permanent structures serving towns within the region. The program also includes life skills training for both male and female adolescents and a full kindergarten with a daily meal program. By the project’s conclusion, 15,000 children in both government and rebel-held areas will be served through the program. The third initiative began in the early spring of 2007, and over the course of four years will result in 10 water yards that will provide safe water and sanitation to an estimated 219,000 Sudanese. Currently, reconstruction for six water yards is already in process in areas surrounding the town of Adilla in southern Darfur. Typically, children, usually young girls, travel more than eight miles daily to retrieve water. With the implementation of these new yards, that distance has already dropped to three miles, a significant improvement. In areas where safe water is already available, cases of diarrhea and life-threatening disease from unsanitary water conditions have been significantly reduced.

On June 19, Mike Slaughter met with Minni Minnawi, currently considered the president of the Darfur region and a vice president within the Sudanese administration of President Omar al-Bashir. Mr. Minnawi rose to significant international attention in the spring of 2006 as the rebel leader of the Sudanese Liberation Movement Army (SLA or SLMA) who signed the May 2006 Darfur Peace Agreement with the Sudanese government. His role in that event also led to a White House meeting with President George W. Bush on July 25, 2006. In the meeting, Pastor Slaughter shared with Mr. Minnawi the nature and intent of Ginghamsburg Church’s work within Darfur.

The Ginghamsburg team is returning home with approximately eight hours of video footage and 3000 digital photos to demonstrate to the Ginghamsburg congregation and other churches the stunning difference that people can make in a place named by the U.N. as the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today when they commit to action--when they commit to changing the world.

The Sudan Team 07

Bill Weikert	Dr. David Brown	Jonathan Slaughter	David Gibboney	Michael Pollard	Michael Slaughter

Ginghamsburg team on the roof of hotel in Khartoum, Sudan, on Tuesday, June 19

2006 Miracle Offering Update!

2006 Offering Total Reaches $1 Million

In December 2006, Senior Pastor Mike Slaughter challenged Ginghamsburg’s attendees for the third year to spend only one-half on Christmas gifts of what they would normally spend and to bring the rest in for the Sudan Project “Miracle Offering.”  This year’s result? One million dollars, to continue Ginghamsburg’s child protection & development program, serving 15,000 children in Darfur, Sudan, while also implementing a four-year project enabling 10 water yards that will provide safe water and sanitation for 219,000 people, the most critical health need in Darfur today. 

This is the third year that Ginghamsburg has participated in this Christmas “Miracle Offering” initiative, which has enabled the church in just 24 months to provide over $1.8 million in Darfur relief.  The first year resulted in $317,000, which Ginghamsburg Church immediately used in partnership with the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) to establish a self-sustaining agricultural project that has now expanded to feed 50,000 people in Darfur. For more information, click here.

These churches and organizations contributed directly to the 2006 Miracle Offering in partnership with Ginghamsburg, helping to making the $1 million total possible (for exact total, see below):

Central Lutheran Church - Chippewa Falls, WI
Dayton North District of the United Methodist Church - Dayton, OH
Fairmont High School - Kettering, OH
Genesis UMC - Birmingham, AL
Johnson UMC - Norton, OH
Ladies Ministry of First Baptist Church - Troy, OH
Morgan Hill UMC - Morgan Hill, CA
Mount Olivet UMC - Arlington, VA
New Church Birmingham East - Birmingham, AL
North College Hill CSD - Cincinnati, OH
St. James UMC - Miamisburg, OH
Urbana UMC - Urbana, OH

2006 Sudan Offering Total:  $1,009,391.42
 
Breakdown:
-Ginghamsburg Church Family (via offering and Sudan products): $923,085.23
-Other Churches/Organizations: $81,017.56
-Interest Earned:  $5,288.63

Note: Interest earned includes all interest accumulated through the Sudan Project “Christmas Club” as well as interest received on the Sudan Project account balance in January and early February awaiting Ginghamsburg Leadership Board approval to release funds to UMCOR for the 2007 child protection and development and safe water initiatives.  Banking fees on accounts were paid by Ginghamsburg Church’s general budget, not from the offerings given. Final amounts were released to UMCOR on Friday, February 9.

Ordinary People Doing the Extraordinary!...

  Passionate Giving Video