Dear HIV/AIDS Advocate! Happy Fall! Thanks for your ongoing commitment and work towards creating an AIDS Free World! World AIDS Day  World AIDS Day is fast approaching (December 1), and we hope you are able to highlight this issue in your congregation and/or community. We have posted worship resources on our calendar. In addition, you can find more resources on the UMC Global AIDS Fund website.
Ideas for action: - Include the bulletin insert in your Sunday bulletin sometime during December
- Write an article on World AIDS Day for your church newsletter
- Work in partnership with other churches to sponsor an AIDS Day event
- Pray for those who are infected and affected by HIV
Additional information at World AIDS Day Campaign. Lighten the Burden III Update For those of you who attended Lighten the Burden III in October, we hope you received spiritual nourishment for the journey and also useful information for your AIDS ministry. Thank you for participating. We welcome any feedback you might give to make Lighten the Burden IV a more relevant and powerful event. That event will take place just prior to General Conference in April 2012, so mark your calendars! The big news coming out of Lighten the Burden III was the launching of the 20/20 Vision Campaign. You'll be hearing more about this as it develops. The UMC Global AIDS Fund is excited to partner with you around ways to mobilize support and funding in your local church and annual conference! For more information, read this article about Lighten the Burden III. AIDS Where You Live For those of you living in the United States, a new website Statehealthfacts.org (from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation) provides free, up-to-date, and easy-to-use health and health policy data on all 50 states. Statehealthfacts.org has data on more than 600 health topics including Medicaid and SCHIP, Medicare, health coverage and the uninsured, health costs and budgets, providers and service use, minority health, women's health, and HIV/AIDS. Below are links to new data on federal funding for HIV & AIDS. Information was collected for Federal Fiscal Year 2009 and represents the latest available state-level data on all major federal funding streams for HIV/AIDS in the U.S. Check out how your state is doing! Participate in Alternative Christmas Giving! Download our Alternative Christmas Ideas guide for ideas on how a contribution to a worthy cause can make a difference in the world. It's a great way of honoring someone special in your life during this holy season. So far, there are about 4,000 AIDS Ambassadors on this Network and we welcome others. If you know of someone who would like to receive this newsletter, please forward this email or direct them to My GBCS to sign-up. Lastly, thank you for all you do as a follow of Jesus Christ to bring peace and health to all people around the globe. We will soon be celebrating Christ's birth... a time of joy and hope. May these holidays be a blessing to you and your family, and may you find the strength to carry on as we work together to create a more perfect world. Linda Bales Todd
Director of the Louise and Hugh Moore Population Project lbales@umc-gbcs.org
202-488-5649 | 
