Global AIDS Fund Committee Hosts Lighten the Burden IV

The United Methodist Global AIDS Fund Committee will sponsor the “Lighten the Burden IV” HIV/AIDS briefing at Hyde Park United Methodist Church in Tampa, Fla. on April 23, 2012 from 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

• Bishop Ivan Abrahams, the Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa, who will become the new General Secretary of the World Methodist Council in January. The World Methodist Council is made up of 77 member churches in 135 countries and represents 75 million people.
• Bishop Yvette Flunder (invited), the presiding bishop and senior pastor of City of Refuge United Church of Christ, a thriving inner-city congregation that has experienced steady numerical and spiritual growth. Responding to the needs of the AIDS epidemic, Bishop Flunder and her staff opened Hazard-Ashley House and Walker House in Oakland and Restoration House in San Francisco through the Ark of Refuge, Inc., a non-profit agency which provides housing, direct services, education and training for persons affected by HIV/AIDS in the Bay Area, throughout the U.S. and in three countries in Africa.
• Rev. Lydia E. Muñoz, senior pastor of PlumbLine Fellowship at Narberth United Methodist Church in, Narberth, Pa., a new church start in the Eastern Pennsylvania Annual Conference. Rev. Muñoz has a passion for multicultural and multiethnic ministries and working with marginalized communities.