 
 Carolyn and I arrived in Port Maria late Monday afternoon with Dr. Steve Guy, who directs the medical clinics, and Carey Smith and Jim Taylor, who direct the micro business programs. Our strategic partner in Jamaica is ACE (American Caribbean Experience). Marla Day is the director of ACE and our host while we are here.
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We drove up into the mountains Tuesday (stuck in the mud only once) 1 to check on a farm owned by Mr. Edwards and son, who have applied for a micro loan to purchase a truck to haul produce to market. His farm is literally 10 acres on the side of a mountain where they grow pineapple, cocoa, limes, avocados, tomatoes, plantains, bananas, coconuts, ackee, pears, apples, sugar cane and breadfruit. It was quite an experience traversing the slippery terrain on foot 2 in the mud. Mr. Edwards also has pigs 3 scattered out along the mountainside. He has amazing produce but is being ripped off by a middleman who takes 2/3 of the profits for transporting his produce to market. We also stopped at a public school to see the lunch area that our summer team led by Paul Jones constructed in July. The most touching part of the day was our stop at the infirmary where the poorest of the poor come to spend their last days. We threw a birthday party 4 for all of the indigents complete with cake, ice cream and party favors. Many had to be hand fed. Kneeling next to the bed (main graphic at top) of a young woman with cerebral palsy feeding her one bite at a time was incredibly humbling. What we do to for the least of these we do to Jesus. Dr. Mark Bentley, 5 who directs our dental clinics arrived Tuesday evening. Wednesday we will spend the day serving medical and dental patients in one of our partner churches located in a very rough neighborhood. How do you change a city? One neighborhood at a time! God bless... 
Posted By: Pastor Mike Slaughter on Nov 19, 2008 11:00AM
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 I met with a woman this week who is a volunteer board member for The House Of The People. This project has sheltered hundreds of Rwandan people, many of whom escaped the Rwandan genocide. There are currently 18 residents that are being provided for. This humanitarian service in Dayton, Ohio, is run on a simple budget of $15,000 per year. They are dependent on volunteer help and a long-term grant source. Like so many non-profits in this time of economic crisis, many of their donors are facing their own budget crises. The House Of The People has just been informed that it will lose 1/3 of needed monies to begin the new year. This board member came to me knowing of our own work in the Sudan and asked for ideas in raising the life-giving resources.
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The number of people coming to Ginghamsburg’s two food pantries has increased exponentially with the loss of jobs in the Miami Valley area. We have seen almost 300 families in the first three days of this week at our Ginghamsburg pantry, and the client flow has increased by 100% over 2007 at our Fort McKinley site. We are beginning the fifth year in raising the needed funds to continue our projects in Darfur that will eventually impact close to ¼ of a million people who are living in the middle of the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. I am meeting with student leaders today from my home high school planning the assembly that we will hold in their district schools during Thanksgiving week. They raised $10,000 last year. Carolyn and I are leaving on Monday with a Ginghamsburg medical team and business leaders who are the entrepreneurs behind the Jamaica micro-businesses. We want to see what is happening there and report on our work. There are no restrictions on sharing the gospel in Jamaica like we come up against in Darfur. People are looking for more than bread for their stomachs. There were 279 people in worship at our Fort McKinley campus last week. That is up 100 over just two weeks ago. We are at capacity and will begin a second Sunday morning worship celebration the last weekend of the month. People are making the commitment to follow Jesus! There seems to be no end in sight to meet the great needs and fulfill the great work to which we have been called. “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.” (Galatians 6: 9-10). God bless...
Posted By: Pastor Mike Slaughter on Nov 13, 2008 06:00AM
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 The date was August 28, 1963. I had just turned 12 years old, and by this point in my life I was old enough to understand the gross injustice wrought by racism and segregation in our country. Dr. Martin Luther King was leading a massive march on Washington, D.C., made up of people of all colors and backgrounds. Many religious leaders whom I would come to respect in latter years participated. The crowd heard the music of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. Charlton Heston spoke. From the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Dr. King gave what has become known as his most famous speech.
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“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal. “I have a dream that my four little children will live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. “And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’” Today is a day to put aside all political differences and to celebrate the reality that an African American has been elected to the highest office in the land and the most influential internationally. Remember, sisters and brothers, that segregation was the legal law of the land until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (just 44 years ago)! Ask any person of color what they are feeling today. Don’t ask about what they believe politically but what they are experiencing on the inside. Ask me! Ask anyone who has spent their lives working to demonstrate God’s redemptive purpose of reconciliation in and through the church. Today is a day to put all political differences aside. We must work together for the healing of our nation and world. Bono of U2 fame calls this the “re-branding of America.” What a statement to the world about the continued greatness of American democracy. God’s redemptive purpose continues to overcome all oppressive forces of evil. Let’s pray for our newly elected President that he may have the wisdom and faith to lead in this time. And let us work together to heal all partisan divisions. God bless...
Posted By: Pastor Mike Slaughter on Nov 05, 2008 06:00AM
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 Last weekend Jim Wallis did an interview with me concerning the upcoming election. Listen to the podcast from that interview.
God bless...
Posted By: Pastor Mike Slaughter on Nov 01, 2008 01:31PM
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This past weekend, I met a friend for the first time that has had influence on my life since my early twenties. Jim Wallis, CEO of Sojourners, and I have known of each other’s work but met for the first time this past Saturday afternoon just before Jim spoke to our church and our "Change the World" conference attendees. I was inspired, as I had been from the first Sojourners magazine I had ever read, by his weekend message and our heart-to-heart conversation over dinner. Jim posted these comments about his experiences at Ginghamsburg on his “God’s Politics” blog on October 29....
The following excerpt taken from the blog “Seeking the Heart of God” by Jim Wallis at Sojourners.
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I have had a simple prayer on my heart of late — “God, break my heart for the things that break yours.” This past Saturday and Sunday I spent the weekend with Pastor Mike Slaughter at Ginghamsburg United Methodist Church outside of Dayton, Ohio. I spoke four times to his congregation and the “Change the World” conference their church hosted. After the final session of the conference, I got to see a little bit of Mike’s heart for the church. We were about to walk out of the sanctuary when he stopped me. Their worship hall was filling with homeless folks, former prostitutes, alcoholics, and drug users. It was their Saturday night recovery service. Each week hundreds of people in recovery, who would never think to darken the door of most churches, gather to worship, pray, and support one another. Mike grinned a big midwestern pastor grin and said, “Man, if this just ain’t the heart of God, I don’t know what is.” Over the course of the weekend, almost 1,000 conference attendees and regular church goers made decisions to let their hearts be broken by the things that break God’s heart—in response to an “altar call” after every service. Commitments ranged from getting involved with advocacy for the homeless to a change in career. Here are a few that stuck out: “I will become a nurse and serve underprivileged kids.” “I will pray more and teach my kids the power of prayer.” “Mentor single moms.” “Participate in home restoration for the poor.” “Begin a center for women victims of domestic violence, including legal, medical, and employment assistance.” “I want to do photography for the poor and show what is happening in the world.” “Give hope to my students who have been homeless and support those students whose families will be without income when GM closes.” “Contributing to help the situation in Darfur and against the sex slave trade.” “I will consider adoption.” “I will meet with the leader of my church to unite a group of committed Christians.” “I will participate in homelessness awareness on my college campus.”
Seeing commitments like these are a powerful illustration of God’s people seeking to change their hearts, lives, churches, neighborhoods, cities, and the world to reflect God’s own heart. Within three years of Katrina hitting New Orleans, this church had sent 42 teams to work and to serve in that city. We serve a God who cares about the sex slave trade, the GM plant that is closing, the orphans waiting to be adopted, and the poor that are among us. We serve a God whose cares, concerns, and vision are broader than any of us can imagine. What else struck me from so many of the responses was that their roots were all in faith, in hope, and in love. In sharp contrast, the world teaches and marketing firms have capitalized on the fact that in our broken human nature, we often make decisions and priorities based in fear. And it is these decisions based in fear that actively tear apart our churches and rip them from their roots in Christ. When false prophets proclaim apocalypse and ask us to live by fear and not by faith, we can rest assured knowing that “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and of a sound mind.” As we consider priorities for our nation and approach a critical election, I pray that this will be a time of reflection for us all — a time to allow God’s “perfect love to cast out all fear.” I pray that all of our prayers will be to seek the heart of God and that, in turn, our hearts will be changed. (end of Jim Wallis post) God bless...
Posted By: Pastor Mike Slaughter on Oct 29, 2008 01:31PM
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