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` 120 WEST MAIN STREET, NEW HOLLAND, PA 17557 Church Phone: 717-354-0226 Church Fax: 717-354-7942 Website: http://nhumc.us/ Pastor: Ray Voran Pastor Email: revoran@gmail.com
JUNE 2013 I imagine most of you are aware of this since I mentioned it at several meetings and during one or two worship services, but I missed about half of our annual conference in May to attend our daughter Sara’s baccalaureate and graduation ceremonies at Messiah College. Win Hall and Loretta Zimmerman faithfully participated in the whole conference, so you should talk to them to get the complete report. Once again this year I was encouraged simply by being a part of that large gathering that reminded me that, even as each of us is a part of this congregation, New Holland UMC is a part of the larger church, which is a part of the Church Universal and the gates of hell will not prevail against us! And I do want to mention two things that were discussed at the annual conference: --Imagine No Malaria. The bishop of the Western PA Conference spoke on Friday morning about this effort to eradicate malaria (a disease that, as we know, is preventable and treatable) from the African continent. He told us that a child dies of malaria in Africa every 60 seconds. This is a real tragedy; BUT, when the Imagine No Malaria project began several years ago, a child died every 30 seconds, so we have made a difference. Imagine No Malaria is an example of something that is done right. United Methodist Churches from across the nation are involved in this effort along with other churches, community groups, businesses and individuals. While we see progress, the speaker encouraged us to continue the struggle so that we can witness that number changing to a child dying every 5 minutes, then every hour, day, month, and so forth. 2