News

With wildfire season beginning across the west, the hope and prayer is always that everyone stays safe. But the reality is, our churches and communities need to be ready to respond. While – knock on wood – no fires are posing immediate threats to churches and communities across the Oregon-Idaho Conference this moment, interim disaster response coordinator Louise Kienzle is sounding the alarm bell for churches to start creating more disaster response kits as the supply is woefully low. If and ...

To Whom It May Concern: My name is Rev. Fungalei Taufoou, and I am the pastor of the Lents’ Tongan Fellowship of the United Methodist Church. I am writing to you on behalf of our church families’ concerns for the people in Tonga who have suffered from the volcanic eruptions of January 14, 2022. A consequent tsunami wiped out several islands and destroyed many people’s homes, boats, farms, and produce. The ash from the volcanic eruption was and I believe is still causing breathing difficulties ...

Clergy and lay-persons assigned to the local church: Are you carrying too much in this season? Struggling to balance caring for your community, church, family, and self? Trying to find your way in the new normal? You are not alone and this workshop is for you. Three clergy coaches share simple practices to ease the burden and give time to go deeper and gain support. If you are longing for a deeper transformation, you'll have the opportunity to engage the topic of overwhelm in ongoing coaching....

Photo provided by Dana & Kathy Bryson. .   In the last year, disaster response coordinators from the Greater Northwest Area have had to call on the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) for a wide range of support after devastating floods, then wildfires ravaged communities across conference boundaries – on top of a global pandemic.  “UMCOR has always been our strongest partners in response to natural disasters in the Greater Northwest Area,” said GNW Area Disaster Response ...

Shauna Signorini, resilience and trauma educator. .     After the first year of dealing with COVID-19, many are eyeing the opportunity to climb out from under this cloud. As that happens, there is a growing awareness that the impact this pandemic has had on our lives – individually and collectively – is going to be with us for much longer than is currently known. To address the needs of staff who have suffered varying degrees of trauma, and to prepare us all for working with others, ...

When news that Clarkes-Mulino UMC’s Rev. Tom Truby passed away this week after a prolonged illness, church members knew exactly what to do – even though it means they can’t gather in person right now to honor the life and legacy of Rev. Truby. Due to COVID-19 concerns about large group gatherings, the church knows its impossible to hold a memorial service in the space right now. But it’s not impossible to honor Truby, who served Clarkes-Mulino since 2007 and continued to do so this last year as...

Larry Johnson headed out the door on Wednesday of the Oregon-Idaho Conference Center in order to get to Pendleton, Oregon, by the late afternoon to assist with flood relief. “This would be the first time I know of, that we’ve responded in Oregon,” said Johnson, who is the Conference’s Emergency Response Teams coordinator. He plans to be in Pendleton for a Multi-Agency Resource Center (MARC) gathering on Thursday to aid those who had to evacuate their homes due to flooding or suffered ...

It takes more than 20 hours to fly there, but the people of Saipan are in desperate need of trained volunteer emergency responders to help them as they struggle to rebuild after Typhoon Yutu ripped through the area last fall. Larry Johnson, a member of the Oregon-Idaho Conference Emergency Response Team (ERT), recently returned from a two-week work trip there. As a commonwealth of the United States, the Federal Emergency Management Association (FEMA) is looking for volunteer organizations ...

There’s nothing quite as heartbreaking as stumbling across a grave of a young migrant infant in the desert. But that’s what Oregon-Idaho Conference missionaries and volunteers Evelyn Erbele, Teri Erbele and Louise Kienzle got to see when they took an up-close tour of the U.S./Mexico border in early April near Nogales, Ariz., and Mexico. “You just can’t describe it. There is nothingness, but this heat and wind and then you come across a grave,” Evelyn Erbele said. “And you realize you’re in ...

As soon as Rev. Barbara Nixon saw the votes tallied at General Conference that would ensure that The United Methodist Church would re-affirm and double-down on the unequal treatment of LGBTQ people within the church, she was on the phone ordering a banner for Corvallis First UMC. The sign, which was posted in the church’s front yard later that evening, reads: “We denounce the immoral decision of the global United Methodist Church. We stand with LGBTQ persons unconditionally.” Corvallis has ...