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Awakening the United Methodist Church to Mission

Our hosts at the Shade and Fresh Water Project were Teca (Maria Tereza) Greathouse, and her husband Gordon.  Teca (pronounced: “Take-ah”) is a United Methodist missionary with the General Board of Global Ministries serving in the Fourth Region of the Methodist Church in Brazil.  Teca is a native of Brazil who has a love for teaching.  

Since 1996 Teca has served as the Brazilian coordinator of the Latin America Network of Programs Supporting Children sponsored by the Latin America Council of Churches.  She is also working with the national coordinator of educational programs of the Brazilian Methodist Church especially in the area of editing training materials and leading workshops.

Greeting from Gordon Greathouse

For more information about Teca and her mission work,
please see our 2008 Brazil Facts page.
 

Voices of Youth 2008 traveled to Brazil to learn about the Virginia Conference partnership with the Methodist Church of Brazil through Initiatives of Hope, and the Shade and Fresh Water Project (S&FWP).  This three-week experience, July 4 - July 25, 2008, had its mission phase at Nova Almeida near Vitoria, the capital of the state of Espirito Santo ("Holy Spirit").  Since the 1980’s, tens of millions of Brazilians have migrated to urban areas, where acute economic distress has created in this vast South American nation the greatest number of "street children" in the world.  The Brazilian government has proved unable to contain this humanitarian crisis, or to direct sufficient resources to families living at subsistence levels in the interior.  Voices of Youth conducted a performing arts camp for over 100 of these children at the Shade and Fresh Water Project.

Teca

Greathouse

CALLING ALL

VOICES ALUMNI

and

SUPPORTERS OF VOY !

Please join us for the first Voices of Youth Visioning Meeting on Saturday, September 20, 2008, at 10:00 am at the United Methodist Center in Glen Allen, VA.  

The purposes of the meeting are to:

1. Review what’s worked well in past tours

2. Review what’s not worked so well

3. Discuss core elements of VOY’s mission

4. Discuss making VOY more visible

5. Discuss getting VOY Alumni involvement

6. Develop ideas to improve VOY

We welcome any and all that want to share visions and ideas for the future of VOY.  

For those that cannot physically attend the meeting, we intend to have either conference call availability.  Please let us know if you will attend in person, or via conference call.  

In the meantime, contact the VOY Coordinator, Rachel Hundley at Coordinator@VoicesofYouth-VA.org to let her know you will attend, or with any questions.

URGENT NEED!

EMERGENCY FUNDS NEEDED

Shade & Fresh Water Project
Nova Almeida, Brazil Camp

While Voices of Youth 2008 was doing their mission work at the Nova Almeida, Brazil camp of the Shade & Fresh Water Project, the choir learned that a critical government grant for the Nova Almeida camp had been canceled for the upcoming 6 months.  This would have shut the camp down, leaving hundreds of children without S&FW’s daily support.  VOY ‘08 responded by saying “Here I am Lord” and pledging to raise $12,000 to keep the camp running during this time period.

You can learn more about this need and find out how you can help VOY ‘08 raise the needed funds by clicking here: