The Episcopal Church in Georgia | Holy Trinity Outreach

Global Outreach

Holy Trinity Parish, though a local congregation, understands its mission to include the global community. Below are some of the ways that parishioners at Holy Trinity are living out that mission.

Clean Water Project in Haiti

Holy Trinity is pleased to begin supporting the Clean Water Project in Haiti in cooperation with Food for the Poor, a global relief organization. Thanks to this exciting initiative, 55,000 - 75,000 people in Cap-Haitien and Port au Prince have clean drinking water now. (Formerly, they relied on rainwater collected in open ditches near sewage.)

A similar project for 13 wells in Port de Paix is under construction, scheduled for completion this spring. Funding from Holy Trinity will provide thousands of people, including many children, with clean water. The vestry has committed over $7000 from the parish Clean Water Fund for this purpose. (One well costs $4,075.) Additionally, parishioners have given over $21,000 and $1000 has been designated from the parish funds for Millinium Development Goals by the Youth Council, following a vestry request that young people determine where a portion of the funds should go.

Honduras Outreach

Through Honduras Outreach, Holy Trinity partners with Los Hornos, a village in Honduras. Honduras Outreach is a non-profit, non-denominational, organization based in Decatur. Each year parishioners visit and work with Hondurans on building projects, and help fund medical and educational services. Currently in a partnership with Los Hornos, Holy Trinity provided financing for a gravitational village water system completed in 2005. It supplies clean fresh water and eliminated the villagers' reliance on a drought-prone creek they formerly shared with their livestock. Trips to Honduras are usually in July and September.

Teleios Foundation Babushka Program

Holy Trinity Parish supports Alexandra Petrovna Byelavskaya, a 78-year-old scientist living in St. Petersburg Russia, through the Teleios Foundation's Babushka Program . Elderly women are the poorest segment of the population in Russia and double digit inflation year after year has rendered savings and pensions inadequate. The support Ms. Byelavskaya receives provides basic food, medicine, medical support and the services of a social worker. For more information contact the Teleios Foundation, PO Box 7213, Shrewsbury, NJ, 67702.

The Millennium Development Goals

"We are the first generation that can put an end to poverty and we refuse to miss the opportunity." - Vijay Amritraj

Inspiring words, yes, but can he be serious? Aren't hunger and poverty tragic but unavoidable facts of life in certain countries? They don't have to be, and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) address these and other urgent concerns with measurable goals and targets. They challenge us as people of faith to change these realities for so many in developing countries.

Millennium development goals focus on our citizenship in a global world.   They invite and challenge us to give 0.7 % of our income to accomplish these goals by the target date of 2015. This small percentage is the amount of the gross national product of all the rich nations it would take to accomplish the MDGs by the target date of 2015. (Currently the United States gives approximately 0.16% of GNP.) Even the poorest of us live in greater wealth than the one-sixth of the world's population who live on less than one dollar a day. Giving 0.7% is proportional. It might require some sacrifice, but it is achievable, and with less than one percent of what we have, we can lift people out of extreme poverty. Over 800 million of the earth's citizens go to bed hungry every night.

In what has become a major mission and evangelism emphasis of this General Convention, The House of Deputies joined the House of Bishops on June 18, 2006, in supporting the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and urging parishes, missions, congregations and dioceses across the Episcopal Church to work for their implementation. The MDGs are an eight-pronged declaration that has at its core the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger by the year 2015. Holy Trinity is joining in the effort, and commits itself to addressing the MDGs in ways large and small.

The Millennium Development Goals are:

    * Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
    * Achieve universal primary education
    * Promote gender equality and empower women
    * Reduce child mortality
    * Improve maternal health
    * Combat HIV and AIDS, malaria and other diseases
    * Ensure environmental sustainability
    * Create a global partnership for development with a focus on debt, aid and trade

You can learn more about the Millennium Development Goals as well as "What One Person Can Do" from Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation.

Heifer International and Food for the Poor

Holy Trinity's Youth Council, with the support of the vestry, has chosen two of the global ministries the parish will support in 2007: Heifer International and Food for the Poor.

Heifer's mission is to end hunger and poverty and to care for the earth. They envision a world of communities living together in peace and equitably sharing the resources of a healthy planet. Heifer's strategy is to "pass on the gift." As people share their animals' offspring with others - along with their knowledge, resources, and skills - an expanding network of hope, dignity, and self-reliance is created that reaches around the globe. This simple idea of giving families a source of food rather than short-term relief caught on and has continued for over 60 years. Today, millions of families in 128 countries have been given the gifts of self-reliance and hope.

Food for the Poor ministers to spiritually renew impoverished people throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Established in 1982 as a 501(c)(3)corporation, their goals are to improve the health, economic, social and spiritual conditions of the men, women and children they serve. Food For The Poor raises funds and provides direct relief assistance to the poor, usually by purchasing specifically requested materials and distributing them through the churches and charity organizations already operating in areas of need. In this way, the organization serves the poor with dignity and ensures the most appropriate use of donors' funds.