SJA's 2024 Kenya mission team adopted the St. John Malaene Primary School. The team donated funds for a new water well and upgraded flooring and classrooms. The team also hosted a health clinic at the school with employees from Maua Methodist Hospital, and provided funds for more than 20 people to receive national health insurance so they could undergo surgeries and receive life-saving medical treatments. Earlier in the week, the team built a house for a family affected by HIV/AIDS and did other work around the hospital.

SJA sent a team of 13 to learn about the United Methodist Church in Latvia. They spent a week at Matras UMC helping with renovation work. Afterwards, they toured the 12 other UMC ministries in this Baltic country and visited for Soviet prisons and Jewish holy sites from WWII. Latvia is a beautiful country known for its traditional music and dance. The hospitality is exceptional and we hope to continue building our relationships with the Latvian people.

Two weeks before war broke out in Israel, SJA's Holy Land team returned home from a spiritually moving pilgrimage. The team took a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee, visited the site where Jesus taught the Beatitudes, walked the Via Dolorosa, and celebrated Holy Communion in the garden where Jesus' tomb may have been located. Along the road to Jerusalem, the pilgrims stopped at the Jordan River, where they remembered their baptism in an informal ceremony that words can't describe. Later, they also floated on the Dead Sea, and two of the travelers went on to see the holy sites of Egypt.