Posts Tagged: one great hour of sharing

OGHS: We Are There

During One Great Hour of Sharing, we hear the call in Isaiah 58 to become “repairers of the breach, restorers of streets to live in.” During this Lenten season, we have heard stories of empowered and empowering women. Tenacious and faithful women, binding their families and communities together in strength. In every time and in… Read more »

OGHS: Sowing Seeds of Hope

Paola Tognarelli’s [Tog-na-rē-le] connection to Mother Earth is sacred. Just like the bond she now shares with the other women in her life through an organization based in Panama City, Panama, called Women’s Meeting Space. Women’s Meeting Space is a non-governmental organization that advocates for the rights of Panama’s women, both Indigenous and from its… Read more »

OGHS: A New Day for Farmworkers

Lupe (loo-pay) Gonzalo understands all too well the hardscrabble life of a farmworker. She often had to wake up at 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning to travel to a farm, where she was handed a bucket and told to fill that bucket as many times as humanly possible during the day. “That’s your… Read more »

OGHS: Restoring Dignity to India’s Most Oppressed

While the economic and social status of women may be improving marginally worldwide, the life of the Dalit women in India remains unchanged. “Dalit” is a word from Sanskrit and Hindi that literally means oppressed or broken. Dalits are forbidden to draw water from the common well, from entering temples, are given the leftovers thrown… Read more »

OGHS: Building Connections to Last… Advocating for Environmental Justice

What does July 16 mean to you? If you are part of the Navajo nation, or have connections near Church Rock, New Mexico, that date might stir a heartbreaking memory of a preventable disaster that continues to have disastrous impacts. Over 40 years ago, the earthen dam of a nuclear waste disposal pond broke near… Read more »

OGHS: ‘Unstable Connection …’

Those two words have taken on a deeper meaning in the past couple of years, haven’t they? For many, the words “unstable connection,” “weak connection” or worse, “lost connection,” are synonymous for an online meeting that has become frozen or dropped off. These dreaded words, popping up on a phone or computer, mean whatever is… Read more »

Celebrating the 2022 One Great Hour of Sharing with Our Youth

Engaging the children of your congregation with the four churchwide Special Offerings has never been easier or more important, whether you are engaging them in-person or virtually. There are numerous ways children can connect with One Great Hour of Sharing (OGHS) during the season of Lent, including the ever-popular fish coin banks that often arrive… Read more »

OGHS: Because We are the Church, Together

Life during COVID has been challenging. That feels like an understatement, right? At times, we have all felt disconnected, confined. Missing family, missing friends. Lonely. Worried about the groceries holding out. Unsure of what the future may hold. Imagine feeling all of those things but living in a place or in a situation that was… Read more »

OGHS: Because Healing Empowers

“Mama O” is a survivor, a healer. Her moment of greatest need led her to Black Women’s Blueprint, a civil and human rights organization headquartered in Brooklyn, New York. Since 2008, Black Women’s Blueprint is specifically focused on the needs of Black women and girls. At 65 years of age, Mama O is among the… Read more »

OGHS: Because We Grow

Reclaiming ancestral wisdom Trinity White Plume just turned 13. Like the gardens she has newly learned to plant and tend, she is growing in extraordinary ways. Where Trinity lives on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota — roughly the size of the state of Connecticut — there is but one grocery store. Moreover,… Read more »