Hands On Housing - Spring 2009

An incredible event took place on May 2^nd in East Austin! UCOH took part in its 2^nd Hands on Housing event. Over 100 UCOH volunteers came out to roll up their sleeves and pour an incredible amount of love and sweat into home improvements for Barbara Mireles and Janie Tello, and it was a site to behold!! Together we painted their homes, did carpentry repairs, created landscape beds, trimmed trees, built a paver stone patio, improved energy efficiency in both homes, helped organize and build new shelves, and more. It was a beautiful expression of how Unity Church of the Hills puts Love in action. Our homeowners were very pleased! It was a wonderful opportunity to meet new people within our church community, enjoy fellowship with one another, and have lots of laughs too. It was a privilege to take part in such a wonderful community event, and I’m certain Barbara and Janie were feeling the love!

I was having a conversation with Janie Tello at the end of the evening, and she was sitting in a chair next to her home when she said with the biggest smile on her face, “You all have made my house so beautiful!” It was such a sweet moment, and each of you were part of giving her that beautiful gift.

Barbara Mireles was thrilled as well, she sent me an email and said, “I feel so blessed, I had only expected to get my house painted, but the love and effort from the volunteers was amazing and inspiring. Thank you!”

Thank you, Steve Bolen, for the inspiring words and the prayer you shared with us all as we gathered for lunch and fellowship. And a special thanks to Daniel Kaulfus for bringing this transformative Outreach project to Unity Church of the Hills.

So many volunteers came together contributing their time, talent, treasure, and collective heart to make this event a huge success – “Thank you” to you all!

Meet Maggie-UCOH's International Outreach Director

Maggie Miller is UCOH’s new volunteer “International Outreach” Director. Maggie has been attending UCOH since March 2008 and is passionate about international development work that creates opportunities for people to contribute fully to their life transformation.

Maggie has 10+ years of work experience in the nonprofit field, specializing in program management and evaluation. She is Founder and Executive Director of DiscoverHope Fund, an international development nonprofit promoting abundance for women and their families living in economic poverty through microcredit and sustainable support training and education.

DiscoverHope Fund began in 2004 as a volunteer grassroots pilot project called “HopeBank” in Cajamarca, Northern Peru, where Maggie resided for two years. HopeBank grew out of the voices of women in poverty sharing with Maggie that they wanted a “hand up,” not a hand out—they wanted income, jobs, and credit to grow businesses to help create sustainable lives for their families. The HopeBank project lasted approximately 1½ years and implemented successful microcredit concepts from other well-respected microcredit institutions such as Grameen Foundation USA. After nearly two years of living in Cajamarca, Maggie was chosen as a research fellow for FINCA and FriendshipBridge to conduct grassroots research on poverty and the power of microcredit with indigenous communities in Panajachel, Guatemala. The HopeBank project became DiscoverHope Fund in the USA in Feb 2007, upon receiving the IRS 501c3 public charity exemption.

Previously, Maggie worked for six years as a Program Director in San Diego, focusing on program design and evaluation for youth development programs for peace after completing her MA in Communication. Maggie has her certificate in Nonprofit Leadership & Management through Texas Associations of Nonprofit Organizations.

LoveLight and UCOH beaming in South Africa

UCOH has an ongoing partnership with LoveLight, a project of the Light Center in Baldwin, KS committed to serving AIDS orphans in South Africa. As such, UCOH sends a monthly tithe to support ongoing and simple needs of the children in orphanages.

LoveLight has been at work dispersing UCOH funds in South Africa. Some of the UCOH funds were gifted to Ndeleka at the Siyaphambili orphan care project. She feeds enormous numbers of children with a hot meal after school each day. UCOH funds were used to purchase badly needed chairs for the main dining area which is used for craft activities and homework.

Bryan Mitchell, a UCOH member, visited the South African project with Robin Goff, Director of the Light Center who runs the LoveLight project. Robin reported the absolute excitement in children to have something as simple as chairs. She wrote to UCOH, “you never saw children so excited to have chairs! Finally a spot to sit down to eat their one hot meal of the day served after school. For many this is the only the nutritious meal they get in a day. Ndeleka has close to 200 children on her list of children needing meals after school.”

We are blessed to be part of this ministry of using gifts to help co-create a unified global family. In years to come, UCOH hopes to partner in sending groups of volunteers to South Africa to help lift the families there. In the meantime, several volunteers will make an initial trip to set this foundation in July 2009. There will be an informational meeting on LoveLight travel to South Africa on May 22 at 7pm. For those interested, you may contact Maura Reyhfuss, project leader, at M302@suddenlink.net or simply come to the meeting at UCOH.

Welcome to Love in Action!

Welcome to Unity Church of the Hill’s “Love in Action” blog! This is a place where we collectively celebrate our work as a Spiritual community and affirm that we are part of the larger beacon of light that reflects the true and wonderful nature of our potential. Our outreach begins with the knowing that each person to whom we minister is whole and complete; they are filled with resourcefulness, intelligence, and Light. While our programs and projects help meet needs and provide opportunities for life transformation, the greatest gift we give is honoring the Christ that is each person. We honor you for opening your loving and generous heart to join us!