No Images? Click here September 2017Hurricane Harvey Asbury Outreach has already responded with a $5,000 gift to our United Methodist Committee on Relief, UMCOR, on behalf of our congregation. UMCOR is one of the very best ministries of the UMC, and 100 percent of your gifts go to the designated cause, as salaries and overhead are funded separately. UMCOR has long-term staff on the ground in Texas and is already at work. If you wish to make a monetary contribution, Asbury recommends giving directly to UMCOR. Asbury can also forward your gifts to UMCOR if designated. We will continue to monitor the situation in Texas. Our hope is to send teams when there is a clear picture of when and how we can help our sister churches in the disaster-affected areas. If you desire to serve on one of these teams, please contact the main church office at 918.492.1771, and we will put you on a prospective outreach team. Day of Service Asbury’s 7th annual Day of Service will be Sunday, September 10, and this year is different than ever before! Everything will be provided for you; just show up ready to serve! All sites will offer devotionals and some kind of worship. Also, depending on the site, lunch will be a barbecue, grilled hamburgers or boxed lunches. Come make new friends and serve while having fun! We want to create small group connections through this serving opportunity. Invite friends and neighbors to join us as we serve in this practical and fun way. All details will be taken care of—you just show up. For a list of sites and to register, to go asburytulsa.org. See how easy it is to make a difference! 2nd Saturday There will be no 2nd Saturday this month. Instead, please join us for the Day of Service on Sunday, September 10. A Spotlight on the Asbury-Union Learning Center: Asbury Local Outreach invested $1,402.50 on GED tests for 33 students. Out of the 33 students, 12 graduated with their high school diploma! Several joined the military, some are attending Tulsa Technology Center as well as Tulsa Community College. One of this year’s graduates, who finished the program in two weeks, is a brilliant 17 year old girl. She was in gifted classes throughout elementary school in Broken Arrow. “S” was diagnosed with anxiety, depression, and self-esteem issues. Her anxiety and stress made her hair fall out, so she had to shave her head and wear wig. The mother, a single parent and a writer for Kenneth Hagin ministries, didn’t know what to do. Her mom thought that changing school might help her, so “S” began her sophomore year at Union. The bullying mercilessly continued and she dropped out of school. The Asbury scholarship program paid for this gifted student’s HiSet tests. A perfect score in each area is a 20. Her scores were Reading 20, Social Studies 20, Math 19, Science 19, and Language 14. “S” is now enrolled in Paul Mitchell’s Cosmetology school. When I talked to her recently she told me she was very happy and felt she accepted and fit in with the students there. The staff at Asbury-Union Learning Center writes: “Thank you so much, Asbury Church, for helping to make a better life for our wonderful students. Because of you, their lives now include choices!” Syrian Refugee Crisis – With around 12 million people displaced from their homes, this crisis is overwhelming. Where do you even begin to help from a world away in Tulsa? Prayer! We can all pray, and we don’t have to leave Tulsa to do so. Our connection to the Kinship Network, a group of churches and ministries in the U.S., Syria and Lebanon, offers specific and informed ways to pray through a weekly prayer email. Updates alternate each week between Syria and Lebanon and include current requests that come directly from our connections in each of those countries. Contact Jim Davis in Asbury’s Global Outreach office to be added to the Kinship email list. Guatemala – Guatemala is an Asbury focus area which is part of our Latin America ministry team. For many years, our students have engaged there on Spring Break Missions, working alongside a church, a school, a boys’ ministry and an orphanage. Out of those relationships have grown a larger connection resulting in our third an annual non-student team to minister in the orphanage, Hope For Tomorrow. Our teams work to meet physical, emotional and spiritual needs of both the children and the staff. The Little Lighthouse and Family Hope House, two Tulsa ministries with Asbury ties, have also participated in these trips, demonstrating and teaching basic physical therapy and adoption-related counseling. What a beautiful picture of working together with our skills to make a Kingdom impact. International Community Outreach at TU – Did you know there are lots of opportunity for global outreach right here in Tulsa? One of those opportunities is with University of Tulsa students from around the world. TU has one of the best petroleum engineering programs in the world, so students from the oil-producing world are right here in Tulsa. ICO provides meaningful services for international students, such as providing furniture, English conversation practice, weekly on-campus lunches, soccer games, ladies brunches, mall visits, all the while giving the Holy Spirit his gentle moments to convey God's truth inoffensively, relevantly, convincingly. Far-reaching effects can result as students themselves become conveyers of the message and aroma of Christ back to their homelands. There are lots of opportunities to volunteer. Contact Jim Davis in Asbury’s Global Outreach office to hear more. 1Nation1Day, Nicaragua - July 21-20 in Nicaragua for many of us from Asbury was truly unlike anything experienced before. God anointed the many and varied ministries there. Below is an impactful recap from Dominic Russo, one of the founders of Missions.Me and 1Nation1Day: Everything is different now. You and I responded, we worked, we invested, we believed, we stretched, we sacrificed, we mobilized. But, what we just participated in was far beyond us. At some point in the journey, the sovereign hand of God, the powerful wind of the Holy Spirit, the awesome strength of His kingdom emerged. Across the entire campaign, we found ourselves caught up in the middle of a decisive movement of God's Spirit.
As I made clear in Miami, this was not the fruit of my faith or the faith of Missions.Me. This is the fruit of our collective faith and the power of a united church! We can never be the same, behave the same, and believe the same. Everything changes now. Here is my charge:
We love you. It's impossible to fully acknowledge every hero who made this vision a reality, so we simply say to each of you the most sincere THANK YOU. We believe God divinely connected us, and THIS IS ONLY THE BEGINNING! - In Awe! Dominic, Lindsay, and Your Missions.Me Family Lebanon - Asbury will be sending its first medical mission to Lebanon this October 13-23. We still need at least two nurses and another physician. A pharmacist or pharmacy tech and a couple of general team helpers would also be positive additions. Susanne Johnson will be our team leader. Republic of Georgia - We will be sending a team to Georgia in early November to serve alongside a missionary couple there addressing women's health issues with education and counseling. Nancy Eckerd will be leading this small women's team. Rio Bravo Medical Team - Jim Furman will be leading this medical team comprised of physicians, nurses, optometrists, dentists, a pharmacist and several servant-hearted helpers. The dates are October 25-29.
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