Did you know that 664 million people on the planet do not have access to safe, clean drinking water? That is one in ten people. Agua Viva is helping communities not only get access to water, but to set up a long-term maintenance system for this precious water source. With your help, we can improve the quality of life and health of these communities.

Agua Viva Serves leads sustainable, clean water projects in Costa Rica. St. Luke’s will work alongside the community to connect pipes, dig ditches and bury pipeline to bring water to remote areas on the Nicaraguan border. All of the community sized projects include a co-op component to continue to maintain the systems for the future.  Agua Viva partners with communities to build a board of directors and begin collecting money to build a maintenance fund for ongoing operation. Learn more about this life-saving organization at http://avs.ngo/

 

Click on the image below to view stories from our team that worked with
Agua Viva Serves in Costa Rica.

 

Through the Methodists United in Prayer, a Florida United Methodist Conference initiative with the Cuba Methodist Church, St. Luke’s has a mission partner in Melones, Cuba. In spite of years of oppression and scarce resources, the Methodist Church in Cuba is thriving and growing.

Pastor Ramon is the pastor of our sister church, whose congregation has a deep prayer life and a big vision for their church in Melones. St. Luke’s has helped build the parsonage for the pastor and has had the opportunity to send teams to visit Pastor Ramon and his family.

If you are interested in joining one of these teams, contact serve@st.lukes.org.

Zoe Empowers is a three-year empowerment model which provides 8 general inputs in a holistic fashion, working with extreme poverty in 7 program countries (Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Tanzania, Liberia, Malawi and India). This program empowers these orphans and vulnerable children to become economically, socially, and spiritually strong.

St. Luke’s UMC has partnered with over 1000 children, in eleven and one-half full empowerment groups.  Over 325 households have been able to be a part of this life-saving and life-changing empowerment model thanks to the generosity of our congregation.  Other families, individuals and Bible study groups associated with St. Luke’s UMC, including the United Methodist Women and our own Children’s Ministry have also partnered with empowerment groups of their own, resulting in over 1500 more children being a part of the Zoe Empowers program.

Give the gift of hope and empowerment to support these ZOE Empowerment groups.

You can give today!

 

 

For more information about ZOE, visit Zoeempowers.org

 

Click on the image below
to see the 2023 Rwanda Missions Team on their journey

Iftar with the Islamic Center of Orlando

Interfaith ministries at St. Luke’s engages people to bridge religious and cultural differences. We provide opportunities for us to meet our neighbors of other faiths to promote peace and understanding. Through this connection, we are able to work together for the good of our community and the world. Watch our event calendar for interfaith events.

For more information or to be involved in this ministry, contact serve@st.lukes.org.

           

                      

 

Noah’s Pudding event 

The Atlantic Institute shared NOAH’S PUDDING with St. Luke’s.  Stories and the pudding were shared as a way to embrace diversity and build tolerance for differing beliefs, and traditions. The Atlantic Institute Central Florida is an independent, non-profit organization whose goal is to facilitate dialogue and bridge cultures  from multiple regions of the world.

St. Luke’s relationship and friendship with the Methodist Church in Belfast goes back to 1997. Out of this relationship came the opportunity to have Owain Campton from Belfast, as an intern with Missions. Currently, Belfast South Methodist Church, led by Rev. David Campton, and St. Luke’s are exploring ways to do studies together in order to deepen our relationships, hear perspectives from another part of the world, and grow together spiritually.

Branches supports children and youth from low-income and migrant families by providing an after school program, youth ministry, and community outreach. This ministry with a big heart is a beacon of hope in Florida City. St. Luke’s sponsors missionary, Kim Torres, Director of Grow and Climb ministries.

Missionaries are individuals who are called to serve God in a unique cultural context. These persons are willing to leave their own environment and share Christ in a new communities through their roles as teachers, church planters, preachers, doctors, community developers, agriculturalists, area financial executives, counselors and attorneys. Their primary roles include strengthening and renewing Christian congregations and communities; alleviating human suffering; and seeking justice, freedom and peace. St. Luke’s is currently supporting the following missionaries.

 

Kim King Torres
Serving at Branches, Florida City, Florida

Kim King Torres is a Church and Community Worker missionary with the General Board of Global Ministries serving as Director of Student Services of Branches, Inc., a community center in Florida City, Florida that provides a broad range of ministries among children, youth, and families. Kim has been a covenant missionary with St. Luke’s for more than a decade.

Branches is a holistic ministry with a focus on afterschool tutoring and enrichment, family literacy, a spring break camp (Oasis), and summer outreach (Summer Shade Day Camp). It provides ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) classes and family empowerment experiences, often in partnership with the Miami-Dade Public Schools. Branches touches the lives of many children and youth, sometimes leading them to seek careers in ministry and humanitarian services.

Charles Mulemena
Serving in Amazon Rainforest, based in Belem, Brazil

The Rev. Charles I. Mulemena is a missionary with the General Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church, serving as coordinator of the Council of Christian Churches in the Amazon Rainforest, based in Belem, Brazil. The council serves the ecumenical community of churches in the Belem area of Pará State, located in the northern part of Brazil and part of the Amazon Region.

Charles has been involved in both national and international mission, which has given him experience in cross-cultural relations and led him to enter full-time missionary service. Charles and his wife Barbra are passionately involved with the Children’s Project called “RENASCER CRIANCAS” in 2 of the poorest urban communities (IcuiI & Vila da Barca) of the city of Belem. This project helps poor kids by giving them an opportunity to be true kids like any other by putting them in schools, providing them with educational support, feeding them and spending time with them every Saturday.

Charles is from Kitwe, Zambia and is an elder of the Zambia Annual Conference. He was pastor of Grace United Methodist Church from 2007 to 2013, and also director of the New Life Center, a United Methodist facility beginning in 2009. In 2011 through 2013, he was chair of the Kitwe District of the Council of Churches in Zambia. Charles received a diploma in theology and mission in 2007 from the Trans-Africa Theological Seminary located in Zambia, and also holds certificates in church administration and psychological counseling.

Charles is married to Barbra Chola Mulemena, and the couple has four young children: David Kayiji, born in 2010; Lubanji Chibumbu, born in 2014; Nkundeji Kalumbu, born in 2015; and Kuwaha Mapalo, born in 2017.

 

Deymi Cruz Moreno
Serving in Melones, Cuba

Deymi Cruz Moreno is a missionary working with the United Methodist Church in Melones, Cuba. She has worked at the church for about 15 years, working along side Pastor Ramon bringing the people from the village to a closer walk with Jesus.

Deymi became a missionary because of the transformation she had in her life and she wanted that for everyone. She has committed her life 100% to Christ and is ready to help the church in any way.

Deymi works at the El Cerro mission where she teaches a disciple class on Tuesdays and preaches on Thursdays. The rest of her time is spent with Ramon’s ministry in Melones, where she helps him lead worship in prayer and song as well as with general day-to-day work around the property including taking care of the pastor’s children, cleaning the church, and cooking.  Her greatest love is preaching.

Deymi and her husband live next door to Ramon and Yanaris. She worships with her mom, Rene, daughters Gretel and Susanna. She loves her two grandsons, Gretel’s boys Jeymi and Josua.

 

Miguel Mairena
Serving in Puebla, Mexico

Miguel Mairena is a missionary with the General Board of Global Ministries of The United Methodist Church. Miguel and his wife Nan McCurdy serve with Give Ye Them to Eat (GYTTE) in Puebla, Mexico.

Give Ye Them to Eat was founded in 1977, as a social outreach project of the Methodist Church of Mexico to combat hunger and poverty in the rural sector. The primary goal of “Give Ye Them to Eat” is to strengthen the capabilities of marginalized people and communities to meet their basic needs, and to determine and sustain a just and integrated development process so people can achieve the full promise and potential of their life as a child of God. Participatory methods and development tools are used to create conditions in which change can take place from within the communities. GYTTE uses people-centered approaches to development. It is through their various programs that this goal is achieved.

Miguel is the newest partner in the UMC Missionary Outreach Program at St. Luke’s.

 

Rev. Kris Schonewolf
Serving at The Oasis at LCI

Kris Schonewolf is the founding pastor and director of The Oasis at LCI, a ministry operating at Lowell Correctional Institution in Ocala, FL. The mission of The Oasis is to utilize faith formation, the arts and education to reduce recidivism and to improve the quality of life for incarcerated women, empowering them to experience transformation through Jesus Christ and change their lives for the better.

Kris has a passion for seeing women set free from the chains of shame, trauma and rejection. By helping them discover their true identity as daughters of God, they are able to focus on becoming all they were made to be and embrace hope for a brighter future.

Prior to beginning her work at LCI, Kris pastored two local United Methodist congregations, and holds a Masters of Divinity from Palmer Theological Seminary. Kris’s top gifts include leadership, teaching, healing, and encouragement.

Kris and her husband Mike have a blended family of 6 children and 9 grandchildren. Kris enjoys fitness, reading, and vegan baking.

 

 

Alison Gilmore
Serving in Skainos, Belfast, Northern Ireland
Working for Peace and Justice in Northern Ireland

Alison Gilmore is a missionary of the General Board of Global Ministries assigned as a counselor at the East Belfast Mission in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Global Ministries and East Belfast Mission have a long partnership in providing a Christian witness to peace, justice, and tolerance in the areas of unemployment, poverty, and social and political tension. One of the mission’s newer services is a counseling center that seeks to offer emotional healing resulting from years of conflict in the area. The 170-year-old East Belfast Mission, which has a worshiping congregation of some 200, sees itself as a center for many efforts to care for and support the poor and marginalized.