Serve Our World

Renton UMC has a strong history of world service extending to areas outside the Renton city limits. Listed below are some of the areas we currently support or have supported in the past. Our financial support for these programs generally occurs through Sunday morning collections and special offerings. However, many of our members are also active in "hands on" local disaster relief and mission trips. If you have an interest in serving a greater area other than Renton, then Renton UMC is the place for you. COME, CONNECT and SERVE with us.

Missions Committee

This committee seeks and promotes short-and long term remedies to justice and mercy issues like hunger and homelessness in the community and around the world. With a dedicated budget, this committee requires 2 hours per month for meeting with additional time for promotion and participation in actual service to others.

Meeting time: Meets last Sunday of the month after church in the Library/Conference Room 110

Leader: Frank Rutherford

Paul Jeffrey (missionary)

Below is a recent letter from missionary Paul Jeffery in Africa, who recently visited our church to discuss his work. Click here to read more about his work and view his photos.


February 28, 2011

Dear friends in my supporting churches,

It’s a rainy Sunday morning in Malawi. Rainy season, when the rains fall on the just and unjust. Also the well-fed and the hungry. I’m here to document the response of faith-based organizations to a persistent food security crisis in this part of Africa. It’s a complicated story, in that the Malawi government has done several things right, and the country has enjoyed bumper corn harvests that reportedly meet the needs of all. Yet look more closely and it simply turns out not to be true, and faith-based organizations are among those working at the grassroots to help the most vulnerable–households headed by children or single mothers, for example–produce enough food to make it through the year, particularly the current “hunger season” when family resources run out while waiting for the time to harvest.

I write to thank you once again for making possible what I do. In 2010, congregations and individuals contributed over $49,000 to Global Ministries in support of my ministry. In troubling economic times, that’s remarkable. Along with the support you offer through both prayer and advocacy around issues of justice and peace, your enthusiasm for mission–both locally and globally–helps sustain me through long days of jet lag and interminable four-wheel drive journeys across the African bush.

For more than two decades I’ve written you long letters about my adventures, studiously ignoring your appeals that I write shorter missives that would fit on one church newsletter page. Yet new occasions teach new duties, and so I’m going to be brief here but encourage you and members of your congregation to read my blog, where the internet offers a chance to mix words and images in a way I can’t do here. So if you haven’t done so already, please link to my blog from your congregation’s website, and mention it in your Sunday bulletins. As we work together in mission, it’s one way we can keep in touch.

Here’s the main address: kairosphotos.com/blog

In recent weeks I’ve posted about

Gaza: Life blockaded – kairosphotos.com/blog/?p=732

Haiti: Rubble nation – kairosphotos.com/blog/?p=652

Washington: Moms not criminals – kairosphotos.com/blog/?p=679

After I return to the U.S. in a week, I’ll post about my experiences here in Malawi.

In a few hours, as Sunday morning begins in the United States, you will gather once again to celebrate Christ’s resurrection. Please pray for Lyda and me, and know that we join in praying for you as you engage in the adventure of mission in your community.

Paul