A head and shoulder photograph will be available. By United Methodist News Service A partnership between United Methodist Men and the Society of St. Andrew, aimed at energizing the church to feed the poor, is getting under way with the hiring of the first hunger relief advocate at the annual conference level. Krista Michael of Las Cruces, N.M., was hired by the Society of St. Andrew to help the United Methodist Church engage in ministry with the poor and hungry under the leadership of the Commission on United Methodist Men. She assumed her new duties Dec. 1 as hunger relief advocate to the denomination's New Mexico Annual Conference.
Plans call for advocates to be hired for the other annual conferences eventually.
Working part-time from her home, Michael will contact all United Methodist Men district presidents in her conference to introduce herself and the hunger relief advocate program. The program is a partnership between the Commission on United Methodist Men, the Society of St. Andrew and the United Methodist Committee on Relief. Her job was created in 1998, when the governing members of the men's ministry voted to expand the commission's partnership with the Society of St. Andrew, a Big Island, Va.,-based organization, to become advocates for the poor and for children, with a special emphasis on hunger. The partnership also is intended to show the United Methodist Bishops' Initiative on Children and Poverty at work. United Methodist Men have begun a new era of participation with and advocacy for the poor.