October

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533 take part in Youth Outreach

(October 25) A total of 533 youths and adults from 52 churches across the Northern Illinois Conference (NIC) participated in Youth Outreach 2002 — making it one of the largest and most popular events sponsored by the Conference.

The hands-on mission event for youths in grades 6 through 12 was held Saturday, Sept. 28, at First UMC in Downers Grove.

After a morning that included singing, fellowship and worship with a message from the Rev. James Preston, pastor of Brooke Road UMC in Rockford and co-founder of the Youth Outreach event, the young people spread out to 21 different work sites in the western suburbs to put their faith into action.

They baked cookies for Public Action to Deliver Shelter (PADS) sites, sorted clothes and personal care items to be given away at a community center, entertained nursing home residents, picked up litter along a stretch of highway as part of the adopt-a-highway program and played games with developmentally impaired children.

In the largest project of the day, the youths sorted and bagged 42,000 pounds of sweet potatoes that were distributed to more than 30 different food pantries and soup kitchens.

The Youth Outreach event, started in 1997 by Preston and the Rev. Wendy Hardin, has grown from about 100 participants the first year to 400 last year to more than 500 this year.

“Our hope was to get 500 here this year,” said the Rev. John Smoke, associate pastor of First UMC in Downers Grove and event coordinator, “and we did it. It’s a great day.”

“This is our hugest event so far,” said the Rev. Lisl Heymans, pastor of Mt. Carroll and Hickory Grove UMCs and member of the leadership team for the event. “We are at capacity right now. It has been more successful than we could have ever imagined. It was awesome.”

In an offering taken during the day, the youths collected $570 to be divided between Carpenter’s Youth Club in Rockford and an international charity working for peace, according to Smoke.

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St. Thomas invites Muslim
neighbors to worship, picnic

(October 18) Nearly a year to the day, St. Thomas UMC, Glen Ellyn, invited its Muslim neighbors, who are building a mosque across the street, to return to commemorate their joint peace gesture of Sept. 16, 2001. Just as last year, but on Sept. 15 this year, the Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam joined its United Methodist hosts for worship and a picnic (in the photo) that offered tastes of both cultures and included a joyful scramble by children of both religions when a piñata broke open.

“A year ago together we decided to see what adversity had to show about our character,” said the Rev. Diana Facemyer, pastor of St. Thomas, in welcoming the Muslim guests, “and we decided to show that love is stronger than hate, faith is more powerful than fear, and human goodness is more powerful than all the evil in the world.”

The worship service included a litany of peace, the Prayer of St. Francis, and nine-year-old Muhammad Talha recited in Arabic the prayer from the Koran that Muslims say five times daily. Children of both religions left after Talha’s recitation to participate in special peace games downstairs.

Mubasher Ahmad, regional missionary for the Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam, and Facemyer each gave short meditations.

“The future is unpredictable and uncertainty still prevails,” said Ahmad. “For us, the members of religious communities, the question arises: What is it that we can do the best under the present atmosphere of uncertainty and apprehension?

“We humble ourselves in front of the loving God to teach us how to overcome fear and grief, how to remove ignorance and hatred from the world, and how to love each other unconditionally with full sincerity. All this is possible only when our hearts are united in God’s love and we generate love for each other.”

Ahmad pointed out that both the Holy Bible and the Holy Koran “tell us that our Lord God is the Most Forgiving and Most Loving God.”

Facemyer noted that the Lectionary readings for September were all about forgiveness. “When we refuse to offer God’s grace,” she said, “we become the embodiment of Jesus’ unforgiving servant. It’s true of us as a people and as a nation.”

During the picnic, the two congregations intermingled unhesitatingly. Haris Ahmed, a member of Ahmadiyya Movement who attended last year’s joint service and picnic, described the St. Thomas congregation as “awesome.”

“St. Thomas was proactive and reached out to us right after the event,” Ahmed pointed out.

Ahmed lost two friends in the World Trade Center: One was an airline passenger and the other worked in one of the towers.

“You are more forgiving than I can be of these terrorist acts,” Ahmed said. “They hijacked our religion and put my children in jeopardy by doing so.”

Shamin Ahmed, who has been leading the building program for the mosque across from St. Thomas, 2S511 Rte. 53, added that the St. Thomas congregation helped in getting approvals for the construction and hosts Friday prayers for the Ahmadiyya Movement’s members on Fridays in its basement. The mosque is expected to be completed in the next few months.

Dave Thomas, St. Thomas lay leader, said the reunion is not a “one shot deal.” He said, “They are going to be our neighbors. We are planning interfaith dialogues. They are members of our community.”

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Ministry of laity to others
should be praised every day

By Roger Curless
Northern Illinois Conference Lay Leader

(October 18) Those of you who know me know that I am not a particularly big fan of dedicating one Sunday a year to lift up the ministry of the laity. Part of making disciples for Jesus Christ — the mission of our United Methodist Church — is helping all people recognize and claim their ministries to one another.

That should be lifted and celebrated every Sunday and every day. There is no day when we are not called — expected — to be in ministry to others, wherever we happen to find ourselves.

This year’s Laity Sunday theme is “Welcoming the Stranger.” The text comes from Matthew 25:34-40, which is very familiar to most of us. The passage was chosen because it puts focus on the importance of being one who “welcomes strangers.”

But I fear that is too narrow when we consider the ministry of the laity — the ministry of all Christians. This passage defines ways for us to be in ministry and how we as individuals and collectively as congregations work as the people of God to better our world and serve one another.

I recall my Sunday School teacher in the third or fourth grade. She was trying to help us understand this point about taking care of one another. At the start of every Sunday School class she would ask each of us to tell her one thing we had done in the past week to “make Jesus smile.” The implication was that if we did something good for some other person then we would please Jesus and he would smile.

Being third and fourth graders our responses were what one might describe as spontaneous: meaning thought up that day or sometimes that moment. In addition, they often had some unspoken provisions: “I cleaned my room without being asked [again]” or “I didn’t hit my brother [this morning].”

While she never offered any judgment on our responses it has become clear what my teacher was trying to do. She was trying to get us to think about what we had done, at least in that past week, to be faithful disciples in ministry. I doubt that we would have completely grasped the concept then, but that was the real question: How had we, third and fourth graders, been in ministry to one another or to someone because that is what we as Christians are supposed to do?

So look at that passage in Matthew 25. Here is Jesus telling his disciples something about the criteria God was going to use to judge those who claimed to be faithful. These were actions that should have been done for Jesus: feed the hungry, drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, care for the sick, visit the prisoners and welcome the stranger.

Puzzled, the disciples asked when they had seen Jesus in such a state and when they had ministered to him in that way. Turning it into another teaching moment, Jesus let them know that when they did those things for one another and others, they were doing it for him. We can surmise that answer would put a smile on his face. At least that is what I learned in Sunday School some time ago.

We recall how John Wesley lived this scripture. He set up centers to feed, clothe, shelter and care for others. He not only visited the imprisoned but paid their debts. And while being active in the ministry to others he was unashamed in criticizing those elements in society contributing to hunger, homelessness, poverty and imprisonment.

Wesley understood that this was not a passage of scripture to be sorted through; it was not a matter of picking one or two of these areas. Ministry was to be found in doing them all.

Our Christian calling is to find the love of God to be so strong in our lives that we understand our individual and collective calling to engage every hour in ministry to others.

So, my sisters and brothers, laity and clergy alike, observe this Laity Sunday by examining in your heart where it is that you respond to the call to be in ministry. Hundreds of people in our congregations in Northern Illinois are actively, passionately engaged in ministries that respond to the needs around us. Yet, the call to Christian discipleship is not for some of us, but rather for all of us.

Each person in our congregations needs to be engaged in ways that feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, call on the sick and visit the imprisoned.

All of us must also find ways to assist others as they seek ways to raise our voices on those issues in our society that perpetuate hunger, homelessness, abandonment and imprisonment.

If you find you are not satisfied, or if you are with others who are not satisfied and not seeking their own ministry, then together ask God for guidance and join hands with so many of us who could and need to do more. Recommit your energies to the ministries to one another and our society to which we have been called by God. Give God thanks for the call and the opportunities for ministry that are there for all of us.

Remember that every day we wake up on this side of eternity, God expects us to be in ministry to one another. Then pause each day and ask yourself: What have I done today that would put a smile on the face of Jesus?

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103 attend NIC’s first
retreat for children

(October 18) Sixty-eight children, ages 9 to 12 years old, and 35 adult chaperones gathered at Wesley Woods on Lake Geneva in Williams Bay, Wis., Sept. 20-21 for the first weekend retreat ever sponsored for children in the Northern Illinois Conference (NIC).

Many more wanted to participate and were turned away because of limited space, according to the Rev. Diane Olson, chair of the NIC Children’s Ministries Program Area.

“It was disappointing, we had to turn away so many children because we didn’t have room,” said Olson, who estimated that 100 children were told they couldn’t come. “The camp filled up in the middle of August, and we were still getting calls the week before the retreat from people who wanted to be a part of it.”

Olson said they had to share the campground with other groups because the retreat was booked only one year in advance.

The “Kids Are Peacemakers” retreat, co-sponsored by the NIC Children’s Ministries Program Area and Resurrection UMC, Chicago, focused on nonviolence and conflict resolution.

Bishop C. Joseph Sprague led an interactive Bible study, featuring dramatic reenactments of the story of Jacob and Esau.

Ruben Kanhai-Zamora, member of Grace UMC in Naperville, led games (shown in photo).

Under the direction of Margaret Harris of Grace UMC, Naperville, the children made keychains and magnets with a peace theme, floating doves, stained glass windows featuring a dove, and peace plaques with a Bible verse about peacemaking.

“The kids had a wonderful, wonderful weekend,” Olson said. “They enjoyed being there at the camp. The setting was great.”

In addition, the children got to meet their peers from all over the Conference.

“They got an idea that the United Methodist Church is a connectional church,” Olson said. “They discovered that there are kids all over the geographical areas that are struggling with the same issues but in different ways. We had kids from the inner city, suburbs and rural areas. We got a real good assortment.”

The children also got to get acquainted with their bishop, who spent the night in the cabin with the boys.

“They got to know him as a person,” Olson said. “After he left, one of the little boys came up to me and said, ‘Do you know where Joseph is?’ He was talking about the bishop. We adults don’t call the bishop by his first name, but the kids felt free to. It was just amazing.”

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NIC United Methodists rally for peace

(October 18) Northern Illinois Conference (NIC) United Methodists, alarmed by President George W. Bush’s threats to start a war with Iraq, have joined denomination-wide calls for peace and are demonstrating in rallies.

An estimated 150 to 200 United Methodists were part of an ecumenical rally at Federal Plaza in downtown Chicago Oct. 7.

Bishop C. Joseph Sprague was a speaker at the rally sponsored by the NIC Board of Church and Society, Broadway UMC in Chicago and the American Friends Service Committee, among others.

“President Bush’s first-strike rhetoric is anti- American,” Sprague told the crowd that cheered as he labeled such a war “morally indefensible, theologically reprehensible and politically lamentable.”

“This proposed war is so theologically reprehensible to believers in the one God of all,” Sprague said, “that people of faith, including the people called United Methodists, must be prepared for massive protests, including on-going acts of civil disobedience, should our government say ‘Yes’ to war with Iraq.” (Complete text of his remarks is on the NIC web site, www.umcnic.org)

The previous week, about 140 persons converged on the Batavia offices of U.S. Rep. Dennis Hastert, speaker of the House of Representatives, to protest the Administration’s threatened war with Iraq. Fourteen of those present, including the Rev. Deborah Fisher, came from First UMC, Downers Grove.

Scott Kerr, a member of the church, spoke at the protest and was in a group that went into Hastert’s office to present a letter of protest. Kerr, a member of Christian Peacemaker teams in Columbia, called war “morally unacceptable” and asserted that 80% of the victims of war are civilians.

The Rev. Duane Mevis, retired NIC pastor who attends Wesley UMC in Naperville, also spoke at the rally. He called for a Marshall Plan in the Middle East and deplored the Bush Administration’s rhetoric “for providing a cover for increased violence” in the region.

Another rally in downtown Chicago is planned for Oct. 26 at Federal Plaza, corner of Dearborn and Adams Streets.

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Chicago Crop Walk nears $1m

(October 18) The Chicago Crop Walk on Sunday, Oct. 20, will be one of 25 slated for that date in Northern Illinois. Walkers in Chicago will gather for registration at 1 p.m. at 750 S. Halsted (Chicago Circle Center on University of Illinois-Chicago campus) with entertainment and program scheduled until the 2:15 p.m. step-off.

Sponsored in part by First UMC/The Chicago Temple and Central UMC of Skokie, the Chicago Crop Walk will also celebrate its 20th year.

“In the past 19 years, the Chicago Crop Walk has raised more than $955,000,” said Pat Rollin, member of First UMC and co-treasurer of the walk. “This year will take us well over the $1 million mark. Our goals are to have 1,500 walkers and raise $100,000.”

When asked if there is a continued need to raise funds for the hungry, Church World Service Regional Director Janet Young answered with an emphatic “Yes!” “In these past 20 years the numbers have only grown worse, with the gap between the very rich and the poor continuing to widen,” she said. “The need is great and, as the body of Christ in the world, we need to ‘step out’ and lead the way in creating awareness of the problem.”

Young said one in five persons around the world lacks access to clean water and lives on less than $1 a day, an amount referred to by the United Nations as absolute poverty.

She said there are 37 million refugees and internally displaced persons around the world. The World Health Organization estimates that more than 37 million adults and 3 million children live with HIV. Malaria and malnutrition continue to ravage parts of the world.

“Every walker, every footstep, every dollar is needed in the fight against hunger and poverty,” Young said.

To find out specific details about any of the area Crop Walks or to register or donate, call (888) 297-2767 or go to www.churchworldservice.org. Chicago walkers may register online at www.cropwalk.kintera.org/Chicago.

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BOM’s Endowed Fund Scholarships
to go to students already in seminary

(October 11) The Northern Illinois Conference (NIC) Board of Ordained Ministry offers an “Endowed Funds Scholarship” for students already enrolled in a seminary.

“This scholarship aims to reduce debt and keep finances from being an impediment from entering or staying in seminary,” said the Rev. Thomas Potenza. “In 2002, the average debt at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary of students who graduated with any kind of governmental student loan was $24,219.”

Potenza said the scholarship is intended to attract and support candidates of high quality and strong talent and keep these candidates within the Northern Illinois Conference. “Therefore, candidates must express a desire to do ministry within the NIC for an extended period of time,” he said.

Ministerial students must exhibit excellence in one or more areas of ministry, and demonstrate financial need. Recipients will be drawn from applicants who are especially promising college students and have caught the attention of pastor or lay leaders within their local church and who might be enabled to try seminary if granted a multi-thousand dollar scholarship their first year.

The scholarship amount available is up to $4,000 per candidate per year. Each year, up to two scholarships may be awarded to students eligible for seminary but who have not yet entered.

Potenza explained that an Endowed Funds Scholarship award to such an “entry-level” student can be “held” for up to a year until the recipient is actually admitted to and enrolled for first year studies.

Application deadline is Nov. 15. Applications should be made through the Rev. Thomas Potenza, Epworth UMC, 37W040 Highland Ave., Elgin, IL 60123, (847) 931-5400.

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4-week Millennial Challenge
campaign will kick off Oct. 13

(October 4) All United Methodists in the Northern Illinois Conference (NIC) are being asked to use the four weeks from Sunday, Oct. 13, through Saturday, Nov. 9, to pray for and make sacrificial contributions to “The Millennial Challenge,” an NIC initiative to raise $1 million for ministries helping children in Angola, India, the NIC and the future. Contributions and pledges for future gifts are to be brought to the Special Session of Annual Conference on Saturday, Nov. 23, at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb.

To participate in the four-week program of prayer and giving, follow the directions on the four-week prayer calendar (shown below) distributed at last June’s Annual Conference session and available on the NIC web site.

During the first week, the focus will be on the children of war-torn Angola in West Africa. During the second week, prayers are to be for the children of India. The third week’s prayers are for children in after-school programs in the NIC. The final week focuses on the children of the future.

Instructions on the prayer calendar for making daily gifts to the Millennial Challenge are designed to highlight the differences between what we have and what is needed by the children in each of the four areas. Typical contributions are: “Give $1 for every bathroom in your house,” “Give 25¢ for every time you wash your hands today,” “Give $1 for every stove, oven or microwave in your house,” “Give $1 for every bed in your house,” and “Skip one meal today and give the cost of the meal.”

Adopted by the Annual Conference Special Session in November 2000, “The Millennial Challenge”— Yellow Band in the Rainbow Covenant — is a four-year conferencewide campaign to raise a total of $1 million by the end of 2004 for four projects to help children:

1. Angola Partners involves work with the West Angola (Africa) Conference and four other conferences in the United States to build a residential school for orphans in Catete.
2. India Reconnect is intended to reestablish the relationship between the NIC and the India Methodist Church by helping repair and modernize 20 churches, schools and hospitals.
3. After School Action Plan (ASAP) is intended to expand and strengthen after-school programs in local churches in the NIC.
4. Establishment of a Mission Endowment Fund will provide interest income to help fund future ministries for children and youths in Northern Illinois.

Both the prayer calendar and pledge card can be printed by downloading pdf files from this web site.

Or, contact Betty Hillsman in the Conference offices, (312) 346-9766, ext. 124, to obtain additional copies.

For more information about The Millennial Challenge.

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UMMen’s Spiritual Congress
doubles attendance

(October 4) More than 160 persons attended last month’s United Methodist Men’s Spiritual Congress at Conference Point in Williams Bay, Wis, more than doubling the previous year’s attendance.

Registrar Jim Sheldon of Community UMC, Naperville, said the 166 attendance included six clergy — one of whom was a woman — and five youths. Every District was represented.

As in previous years, the Upper Room Living Prayer Center opened a satellite phone line at the Spiritual Congress. Conference attendees signed up for two-man shifts rotating every half hour to answer calls, which were coming in every two to three minutes.

“We’re not making any attempt to try to solve any problems of the callers,” explained Duane Heidenreich of First UMC, Freeport. “We’re just trying to calm them and let them know someone is praying for them.”

The prayer center volunteers fill out a form about each call and send it to the Upper Room in Nashville where it is sent on to prayer covenant groups around the world.

During a 30-minute period, calls came in from Arizona, Texas, North Carolina, Michigan, Florida and New York. The Upper Room Living Prayer Center is celebrating 25 years of ministry. It is expected that the center will receive more than 250,000 calls this years. Men answering the phones in Williams Bay said typical calls involved divorce or lost jobs. In at least one case, the caller was crying. Bob Schou of Beth Eden UMC, Rockford, said he had one caller who said she saw the number in a magazine.

Wallace Neal of Hartzell Memorial UMC, Chicago, was in charge of the prayer line, and trained the answerers on filling out the form and made suggestions on how to answer calls. “Usually, the person who answers the call can handle the prayer request,” he said, “But if something is very severe, we would take that prayer request to the whole group that is here for prayer. We can put 100 people in a room to pray.”

Neal said he is amazed by how often the person answering the call is “just the right person for that particular caller.”

Among the largest contingents attending the Spiritual Congress were a nine-man group from Greater Englewood Parish UMC in Chicago and a 12-man group from Grace UMC, Joliet.

Don Zwiers of Grace Joliet said one of the advantage of the Congress was an opportunity to have “great conversation” and fellowship with menfrom around the Conference.

Alvin White of Greater Englewood Parish echoed Zwiers’ comment, saying: “That’s the real deal.”

Rob Houston of Greater Englewood Parish said the Spiritual Congress was a big step for his congregation’s UMM. “We set out to establish ourselves,” he said. “Now we’ve come out to say we’re here now, but we need help, so we’re fellowshipping to get ideas and establish ties with other groups.”

The Spiritual Congress provided Bible study, worship and recreational opportunities for attendees. (Gordon Ferguson of Community UMC, Naperville, is shown in the photo participating in the Bible study.) Theme of this year’s event was “Men at Home, Work and in the World.” The Rev. Dr. Lloyd Saatjian, senior pastor of First UMC, Santa Barbara, Calif., led workshops on the theme and was the preacher at closing worship. In addition, Bishop C. Joseph Sprague met with the men on Saturday evening to answer questions.

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11 in DeKalb District live
as homeless for 24 hours

(October 4) Seven youths and four adults, including three pastors, lived on the streets of Leland from 3 p.m. Friday, Aug. 2, through 3 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 3. The 11 said they experienced on a small scale what it means to be homeless.

“The hope was for the youths to understand and realize firsthand what it is like to be homeless,” explained Alka Lyall, pastor of Leland UMC, “and then realize how blessed we are to have everything we need.”

Youths were drawn from Leland UMC, Serena and Harding UMCs and Sheridan and Norway UMCs. Pastors Heju Cha of Serena and Harding and Sally Chipman of Sheridan and Norway also participated in the overnight experience of homelessness.

The youths were told to arrive at Leland UMC, 280 N. Prospect, with nothing in hand. After orientation and Bible study, each participant received a tote bag to remind them that as homeless persons, anything they acquired must be carried with them at all times. The fenced yard between Leland UMC and its parsonage was the group’s “cardboard city.” The group was dependent on other people’s generosity for food, according to Lyall.

Casey’s gas station donated dinner after the youths cleaned its facility. Leland UMC opened its doors for the group after 2:30 a.m. when the night, which was the coolest of the season, became too uncomfortable. At 8 a.m. Saturday morning, the group had to vacate the building because the congregation had activities going on in it.

A homeowner, Arden Dewey, saw the group in its cardboard city and offered breakfast. The food pantry from Sheridan UMC brought sack lunches in the afternoon. “They also brought along a box of things that are often donated to food pantries, but that are absolutely unusable for the homeless,” Chipman said.

Grace was shared through several people. Among these were the Johnson family that donated sweet corn; the Andersons that allowed the group to cook on their grill; and Kathie Mathesius, a bus driver at Leland School, who donated some money.

“It was also a learning experience to come across those who tried to get away from us by going 45 miles per hour in a 30 miles per hour zone,” Lyall said. “There were those who honked at us and those who ignored us by turning their backs on us.”

Every couple of hours the group discussed how their understanding of people’s needs might be changing through the day. Cha, from Korea, Lyall from India, and Chipman, a former missionary in Tonga, also shared their experiences of homelessness and poverty in other contexts. “We also discussed how we, as the most privileged, abuse the resources that are so readily available to us,” Lyall said, “while people in other places long for mere survival.”

In describing the 24 hours as a “blessed experience for all of us,” Cha said the youths had a “very different view of homeless people” at the end. “We realized not all choose to be homeless, and we realized how hard our parents work to make sure we are safe.”

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UMH&S van turned
into moving mural

(October 4) United Methodist Homes & Services (UMH&S), an organization that serves older adults in Chicago, wanted to do something special for its clients. So when UMH&S purchased a new van for its transportation program, it enlisted local painter Curtis Bewley to paint a mural to cover the exterior of the van.

“The folks were wanting a collection of thoughts from the 1940s and ’50s,” Bewley said. “I came up with the idea of a box of photos with pictures spilling out.”

Bewley wanted the design to look as if the sepia-toned photos had just been discovered, so the pictures overlap each other haphazardly. All of them represent people, such as Marilyn Monroe and Jackie Robinson, and images from a bygone era. The mural is designed to strike a chord with older adults who lived through that era.

“Some of the photos represent things that are more personal, such as a family dog or a first home, but they are still universal,” Bewley said.

Bewley added a personal touch to the mural by including his parents’ wedding photo. “My parents are kind of getting to that age now,” he said, “and this was my tribute to them.”

The fact that the mural has such a variety of images provides an emotional connection for almost anyone who views it. “I can name almost everybody on there,” said Mary Evans, a resident of UMH&S’s The Methodist Home. “It’s nice to have it decorated on there. It looks better than a bunch of flowers or something.”

Wrapping the entire van with sepia-toned photographs was a challenge. Rather than painting directly on it, Bewley painted the mural to scale in several sections, much like a puzzle. Best Imaging of Chicago scanned, enlarged and printed each puzzle piece on special 3M material used to wrap CTA buses with ads. The mural was then painstakingly reconstructed over the entire exterior of the van with the exception of the cab. Even the windows were covered, using a film designed so that occupants can still see out. The final result has the look of a seamless painting.

The new van has been noticed throughout the community as it is used to transport residents of UMH&S facilities to doctors, hospitals or recreational outings. “It gets a lot of attention when it’s out and about,” said UMH&S employee Peter Joly. “We’ve had a lot of walk-up inquiries. One man came up to me and said, ‘It’s really cool that you guys put all that effort into it.’”

Joly was particularly happy that Bewley, who had previously painted a mural on The Methodist Home’s rooftop garden, was hired to paint the mural. “I really like that we utilized a private artist,” Joly said. “We didn’t just use the corporate decal stuff they give you at the dealership.”

United Methodist Homes & Services is a nonprofit, nonsectarian organization with more than 100 years of service to older adults in Chicago. For more information about UMH&S, headquartered at 1415 W. Foster Ave., contact Carol Shaw, director of marketing, (773) 769-5500.

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