Thank you

To All My Friends and Family in the United Church of Christ,

Greetings to you all in this Lenten season. May the love of Christ build within you a resilience and hope sufficient to meet the challenges of our day.

I write to thank you for your support for this year’s One Great Hour of Sharing Special Mission Offering. Through this Offering, the United Church of Christ engages in sustainable development, refugee, and disaster ministries within the United States and around the world.

As many of you know, in times of disaster, those funds help the United Church of Christ stay active in assuring that recovery systems are strong. We are flexible and fill gaps in service in order to accompany the most vulnerable people. We enable our churches and individuals to practice preparedness, and to sustain long term recovery strategies long after the news cycle on the disaster ends.

In recent days, we have witnessed excessive damage from typhoons in Southern Africa and massive flooding across the Midwest. Mission partners in Zimbabwe and Mozambique were affected by these disasters, as were many of our church communities across the Midwest. In addition to your ongoing financial support for One Great Hour of Sharing, I call for prayers for our partners in southern Africa and our church families across the Midwest. They are all uplifted by your contributions and your prayers.

I give God thanks for the outpouring of generosity. As we approach the season of Easter, a season in which the rising of Christ instills within us all the hope of redemption and new life, I find myself filled with gratitude for the ways in which your gifts sustain our ministry. Through your contributions and prayers, we are helping to restore hope through building and rebuilding communities of resilience. Thank you all, and may the spirit of the living God and the risen Christ abide with you through the living of your Days.

Humbly yours in Christ,

The Rev. Dr. John C. Dorhauer
General Minister and President
United Church of Christ