Message from Conference UMVIM Coordinator

Brothers and Sisters in Christ!

With various disasters in our country and around the world, and with ongoing missions that many congregations support with finances and teams, I wanted to take this opportunity to remind you of the importance of registering your team with the UMVIM (United Methodist Volunteers in Mission) office and the importance of purchasing insurance for your team members for the duration of the trip. This summer I had the privilege of serving on a team that spent a week in Honduras. Making use of UMVIM Leader Training resources, using the daily devotional and reflection guides UMVIM provides, and having insurance for our team were vital to a successful and safe mission team experience.

Whether you are planning a day trip to serve at Upper Sand Mountain Parish, a weekend or week-long in-country trip to do disaster recovery or a longer trip to another country, registering with UMVIM helps us know how our local churches are putting Christian love into action locally, regionally and around the world. It also helps us to know what projects and missions local churches are interacting with so that we can share that information with other local churches wanting to get involved. Furthermore, UMVIM provides affordable insurance for your team members to cover accidents and injuries that might happen while serving on a mission team. They also offer Covid protections through some of the available insurance policies.

To find out more about UMVIM, you may visit their website at https://www.umvim.org.

If you would like to share information with me about missions organizations you or your church have served and that other churches might want to know about as they consider sending teams out, please send me an email. I can be reached at todd.owen@umcna.org.

Let’s be Christian love in action!
Rev. Todd Owen
North Alabama Conference UMVIM Coordinator