The miracles of Easter continues as we give of ourselves for others

The Seashore District Volunteer Center becomes a miracle that will ignite more miracles for years to come.

Watching the Seashore District Volunteer Center come into being through e-mail and pictures sent from D'Iberville, Miss., has been a delight. Seeing the energy of more than 150 volunteers to date run wire and pipes, construct walls and beds, hang doors and windows, and finish floors during these months of Lent has been a resurrection story fully known by those who have given a week of their lives at their own expense. The building of the center has been a resurrection story.

Completing the center during the Easter season will be the beginning - a resurrection story lasting for years to come as volunteers, who have given of themselves so freely, use the center to help the people of Mississippi rebuild their homes and their lives.

Hopefully, by the end of the project later this month, this new center will be paid for through the generous gifts of thousands of Hoosiers and hundreds of churches as an example of what happens when we pull together. As we go to press, more than $100,000 is still needed to complete the project.

The lives of volunteers, who have traveled south, not only for the volunteer center build, but also to assist other Hurricane Katrina survivors rebuild their homes, have changed. Our collective gratitude could never express enough our indebtedness to these who have placed their energy in the lives of others first unknown to them, now lifetime friends.

This whole Hurricane Katrina recovery experience has been and will continue to be a rich example of God's reign in our lives - light to the darkness experienced by our brothers and sisters in Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama.

Jesus performed more than 30 miracles as recorded in the New Testament Scriptures. If we reason that a miracle is an unexplained action out of the ordinary for the good of another, the Seashore District Volunteer Center becomes a miracle that will ignite more miracles for years to come. We have made a difference in the name of Christ.

Hoosiers have been involved with other miracles this Lent as well. Here are a few:

Darfur moves slowly towards peace from actions of the international community sparked by people of faith ;
There has been no expansion of legalized gambling by the General Assembly;
More communities this year than last year across Indiana have become smoke-free in their public and work places;
Katrina evacuees here in Indiana sponsored by United Methodists statewide are putting their lives back together;
The dream of a new home for homeless women to gain control and direction of their lives is becoming a reality at Ruth's House in Evansville;
A former Indiana basketball coach has established a Web service to help place high school athletes in university program (page 7), and
A sense of hope for the future of the church in Indiana emerges in shared ideas between our two annual conferences as we consider the emergence of a new conference during each annual conference session in June. (NIC or SIC)

Easter ushers in a season of hope, new life and vitality.

Join in the celebration as you read the pages of your Hoosier United Methodists Together. We are about miracles as we, members of Christ body, give of ourselves for the furtherance of God's reign. Christ is risen.

Welcome.

- Daniel R. Gangler

Last updated on 25 Apr 2008

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