Grosse Pointe United Methodist Church is part of a global church. High school students visit Henderson Settlement in Kentucky each summer and adult missioners worked in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina and in Haiti following devastating earthquakes there.
Consider the best way for you to use your gifts in service of others beyond Grosse Pointe and Michigan.
UMCOR
The United Methodist Committee on Relief is the humanitarian relief and development arm of the United Methodist Church. UMCOR assists United Methodists and churches to become involved globally in direct ministry to persons in need. Discover ways that you can contribute to this significant work with your financial donations or by volunteering your time.
Haiti
Teams of GPUMC members visited Petit Goave, Haiti, twice to help that community rebuild and expand the Harry Brakeman school, a United Methodist school that was damaged in a devastating January 2010 hurricane.
New Orleans
GPUMC members visited New Orleans every year for 10 years to help that community rebuild after Hurricane Katrina. The congregation’s devotion to that effort led to the creation of our annual Palooza event, which is our primary fundraiser for mission projects, both local or global.
For nearly 30 years, GPUMC has sent a group of high school youth and several adult chaperones to serve for one week at Henderson Settlement in Frakes, Ky., in the southeastern corner of that state.
Although we are veterans at doing this work, this experience never gets old and continues to provide one of the most profound learning experiences for participating youth and adults along with our entire congregation.
Our focus has been on providing our youth with the opportunity to serve in a community that is very different from the community where they live. They learn and put to use some construction skills to improve the homes of those in Appalachia, but we see a much deeper and broader effect from their time in Henderson. They develop deep relationships with each other that sustain them through the difficult years of high school. They come away with an intense awareness that they have lived privileged lives and that they are compelled by their faith in Christ to respectfully reach out to support those who have not been so fortunate.