NEW from World Mission

May 2009 

In Honduras we send four medical/dental teams and a veterinarian team annually. We send water well drilling teams four times a year to the EL Paraiso District . This program, besides the drilling, includes a water hygiene teaching program, an ESL program, VBS, and introductions to micro enterprise projects.

We are sending church planting teams to the Nueva Esperanza area and are in the process of building a multi-purpose building to house the newly formed home churches as well as a community center which will offer courses in the trades. These teams also award scholarships each year to deserving students at the high school level.

The Diocese of West Texas has formed partnerships with three dioceses in Mexico: Northern Mexico, Southeast Mexico, and Cuernavaca.  

In Northern Mexico we have church and house building projects in Piedras Negras, and a medical/ dental ministry in the same area. Teams also teach English as a Second Language (ESL), VBS, and a tapestry micro enterprise program for the women.   We have introduced the "Godly Play" program in the Monterey area.  This year we expanded our water well drilling program to the Texas/Mexico border area. (Go to  www.texaswatermission.org  for more information.)   

In Southeast Mexico we send a medical/dental team, a veterinarian team, and a program of continuing education for the clergy annually. We also have introduced the tapestry program for the women there as well as baking and animal husbandry projects for micro enterprise.

In Cuernavaca, we helped to renovate the diocesan center and the cathedral apartments. We support the Spanish Language Institute, which provides an immersion experience to live and learn Spanish “in the best place in Mexico.”  (For further information, go to adoc@cableonline.com.mx.)

In Uganda we completed the building of a Women's Educational Center in the Diocese of Nebbi, established a revolving bank program for the women to start micro businesses, and continue funding a scholarship program which provides secondary education to children of diocesan clergy.  A tapestry program has also been instituted in Nebbi.  Teams supporting these projects typically go out two to three times yearly. 

Hands of Hope ministry has begun work in Hoima (Diocese of Bunyoro-Kitara) and Erussi (Diocese of Nebbi) and works with Uganda’s Women of Purpose ministry.

We send, each year, family teams to work in the summer youth camps in Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine. We also send teams to work in the orphanages that are connected with the camps. We are helping them set up computer programs and learn better farming techniques.  We sponsor several transitional homes in St. Petersburg which help the orphans integrate into society.   In Minsk a safe house program teaches life skills and provides opportunities to develop social skills with on-site counseling available.