Our youth group from church is in Orlando this week doing mission work. We'll end our week at Walt Disney World touring the World Showcase at Epcot and learning a bit of "missions & outreach" information about each country. This is what we'll be learning:
Germany
·
History
of country As
Europe's largest economy and second most populous nation (after Russia),
Germany is a key member of the continent's economic, political, and defense
organizations. European power struggles immersed Germany in two devastating
World Wars in the first half of the 20th century and left the country occupied
by the victorious Allied powers of the US, UK, France, and the Soviet Union in
1945. With the advent of the Cold War, two German states were formed in 1949:
the western Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the eastern German Democratic
Republic (GDR). The democratic FRG embedded itself in key Western economic and
security organizations, the EC, which became the EU, and NATO, while the
Communist GDR was on the front line of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact. The decline
of the USSR and the end of the Cold War allowed for German unification in 1990.
Since then, Germany has expended considerable funds to bring Eastern
productivity and wages up to Western standards. In January 1999, Germany and 10
other EU countries introduced a common European exchange currency, the euro. In
January 2011, Germany assumed a nonpermanent seat on the UN Security Council
for the 2011-12 term.
·
Population
in 2009 82,167,000
·
Population
age 0-14 13.4%
·
Life
expectancy (females and males, years) 83.1/77.8
·
Infant
mortality rate (per 1,000 live births) 4.0
·
Unemployment in 2009 7.5% of labor force
·
Homelessness
rates An estimated
254,000 people are homeless in Germany
Approximately 25% are women
Approximately 11% are children and young people
Source: European Federation of National organizations working with the
Homeless (FIANCE)
·
Population
Below Poverty Line 15.5%
·
People
living with HIV/ AIDS 67,000
·
Religion Protestant 34%, Roman Catholic 34%, Muslim 3.7%,
unaffiliated or other 28.3%
·
United Methodist Missionaries
·
Michelle S. Dromgold is a mission
intern with the General Board of Global Ministries of The United Methodist Church,
serving initially with the Evangelisch-methodistische Salem-Gemeinde Neukölln,
Kindertreff Delbrücke (Kindertreff) in Berlin, Germany.
·
Erb-Kanzleiter, Christine- Pastor of Peace United
Methodist Church, an international English-speaking congregation in Munich,
Germany.
·
Givens, Krista- Pastor of the
International United Methodist Church of Hamburg, Germany.
·
Modayil, Romesh Philip - Local pastor of the
English-speaking International United Methodist Church in
Berlin-Charlottenburg, Germany.
·
Seckel, Carol Ann - Coordinator of English
Language Ministries and International Congregations Ministries with the United
Methodist Church in Germany.
·
Seckel, Kevin - Pastor of the New Hope
English-speaking Fellowship of the United Methodist Church in Frankfurt,
Germany.
USA
·
History
of country Britain's
American colonies broke with the mother country in 1776 and were recognized as
the new nation of the United States of America following the Treaty of Paris in
1783. During the 19th and 20th centuries, 37 new states were added to the
original 13 as the nation expanded across the North American continent and
acquired a number of overseas possessions. The two most traumatic experiences
in the nation's history were the Civil War (1861-65), in which a northern Union
of states defeated a secessionist Confederacy of 11 southern slave states, and
the Great Depression of the 1930s, an economic downturn during which about a
quarter of the labor force lost its jobs. Buoyed by victories in World Wars I
and II and the end of the Cold War in 1991, the US remains the world's most
powerful nation state. Since the end of World War II, the economy has achieved
relatively steady growth, low unemployment and inflation, and rapid advances in
technology.
·
Population
313,847,465
(2011)
·
Population
age 0-14 20.0%
·
Life
expectancy (females and males, years) 82.1/77.7
·
Infant
mortality rate (per 1,000 live births) 5.5
·
Unemployment in 2012 8.1% of labor force
·
Homelessness
rates
o
Estimated
homeless figures in the United States range from 600,000 to 2.5 million
Source: http://www.fas.org, 2009
o
1.37
million of the total homeless population in USA are children under the age of
18. 40% are families with children, 41% are single males, 14% are single
females
Source: International Journal of Psychosocial Research, 2008
o
Research
by Dennis Culhane, University of Pennsylvania, followed thousands of homeless
people in New York and each of them used an average of $40,000 a year in public
services, such as increased health care.
Source: University of Pennsylvania
·
Population
Below Poverty Line 15.1%
·
People
living with HIV/ AIDS 1.2 million (2009)
·
Religion Protestant 51.3%, Roman Catholic
23.9%, Mormon 1.7%, other Christian 1.6%, Jewish 1.7%, Buddhist 0.7%, Muslim
0.6%, other or unspecified 2.5%, unaffiliated 12.1%, none 4% (2007 est.)