Our Journey

This year our church, Belmont UMC, decided to commit its annual Christmas Miracle offering to the Malawi UMC. Church members were encouraged to spend less of their Christmas budget on presents and donate the money saved to the Miracle Offering. The goal was to raise $30,000 to be used for building 10 churches [...]

This summer we went to the pool nearly every day. It wasn’t just putting on swim suits, grabbing a towel and heading to the pool. No, we had to pack snacks and juice boxes, make sure the dive sticks and Carter’s favorite toys were in the wagon, help Claire Marin find her goggles, [...]

Sunday morning we knelt as a family to receive Communion, trying to stifle the giggles as Carter dipped his bread into the tiny communion cup and then drained even the soggy crumbs from the bottom. We were given the bread and juice and called by name. We worshiped together as Danny reminded us in song [...]

As we decorated the Christmas tree this evening in our house in the burbs, as Carter and Claire danced in the kitchen to the Christmas mix playing on the iPod, as we decorated the tree with heirloom ornaments and retold the stories about them, and as I sit quietly by the fire and type this [...]

by Linda Johnson, Associate Pastor
I wish there was some way you could see what my mind sees or feel what my heart feels when I remember Malawi, Africa, after two separate VIM trips there. Walking into an African village is like walking into a National Geographic magazine from my childhood: huts with thatched roofs, dirt [...]