Spotlight

Congregations routinely celebrate college-bound youth with farewell gifts and parties featuring slideshows of pre-school Christmas pageants, high-school mission trips, and almost everything in-between.

Bishop Grant Hagiya challenged the conference last year to initiate at least 50 new Covenant Relationships with missionaries and this year at Annual Conference he doubled it!

“Lighten the Burden III,” a United Methodist international conference on AIDS, will be Oct. 14-16 here. Persons from around the world will gather to discuss “Working towards an AIDS-free World!,” theme of the event sponsored by the United Methodist Global AIDS Fund Committee.

Conference workshop sessions include discussions of “Looking at AIDS through Cultural Context,” “AIDS & Communities of Color — How can the church respond?” and “Resourcing Local Churches & Annual Conference AIDS Ministries.”

The conference’s speakers are drawn from around the world. They include:

• Dr. Musa Dube, theologian and biblical scholar, University of Botswana;
• Dr. Pauline Muchina, senior partnership adviser, UNAIDS;
• Bishop Minerva Carcaño, episcopal leader of Desert Southwest Conference of The United Methodist Church;
• Jeffrey Crowley, director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy (invited); and
• the Rev. Tyrone Gordon, St. Luke United Methodist Church, here.

A special workshop will be led by Etta Mae Mutti, who will share her experiences having lost two of her three sons to AIDS. Her workshop is “Hanging Onto Hope … Making Our Way Through Grief.”

Dr. Don Messer, executive director of the Center for the Church & Global AIDS and a Lighten the Burden workshop leader said he hopes this conference “will help awaken the sleeping giant called The United Methodist Church,” helping find practical ways to be involved in education, prevention, care and treatment.