Special Agents of Hope

Are you a Special Agent? The task isn’t nearly as difficult as Mission Impossible and far less dangerous than the Federal Bureau of Investigation. But that’s who we are recruiting to help Kentucky’s children - Special Agents to be the hands and feet of Christ.

On September 11, 1876, the Louisville and Kentucky Annual Conferences began electing special agents who were sent out into the Conferences to collect funds for an amazing cause. This amazing cause was a thriving “Widows’ and Orphans’ Home” established on March 18, 1871 by the Kentucky State Legislature, authorized by the Kentucky and Louisville Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. You know this amazing cause today as The Kentucky United Methodist Homes for Children & Youth.

Back in these early days, the special agents collected funds for The Home on Sunday Rally Days. Today’s special agents are now called Methodist Home Representatives. Are you one, or do you have one of these agents in your church? Or perhaps you are feeling a little nudge in your heart, a stirring placed there by God, that it’s time for you to become a special agent. Don’t worry, you won’t need to hold a rally or have a “secret mission” because we now have fully established Fifth Sunday Offerings that you’ll encourage in your church. In 1902 The Fifth Sunday Plan of Support was introduced. There were 151 Sunday Schools involved in this first Fifth Sunday Offering. They contributed an incredible $1,259.70 that first year!

We have evolved from our strong beginnings to now helping thousands of children and families each year. Our programs serve abused and abandoned youth from all across the state of Kentucky, as well as empowering the lives of families to help themselves. Celebrating 140 Years of Hope was a significant milestone, but we are always reaching out to serve more children and families. With your help we can do that! In 2012 we are blessed with an extra Fifth Sunday for a total of five: January, April, July, September, and December.

We invite you to be a Special Agent – either through your financial support, Wishlist donations, volunteer time, or as a Methodist Home Representative. Please come visit our campuses in both Versailles and Owensboro to see the centers of where God’s miracles occur every day. This mission is not impossible!

Research provided by Sharon R. Evans, Volunteer and Historian

The Kentucky United Methodist Homes for Children & Youth
859.873.4481 or toll free 877.887.4481
www.KYumh.org