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Friends United Meeting |
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June 2003
News from Friends United Meeting
Commitments
By Retha McCutchen
My first visit to Israel was a Holy Land tour in the 70s. This was also my first international experience. We visited all the "holy" sites, swam in the Sea of Galilee and waded in the River Jordan. I even sat in the Mediterranean Sea because it was warm. Oregon's Pacific Ocean was my only former experience and it's always ice cold. Driving from Jericho to Jerusalem, we sang On the Jericho Road like all good tourists. Outside the St. Peter of Galatia Church, we sat on steps dating back to the first century. There we sang I Walked Today Where Jesus Walked Ñ and felt His presence there. The Spirit was very real in our worship; experiencing the presence of Christ is a healing and growing experience.
In March, FUM clerk Brent McKinney and I were a part of the annual FUM General Board meeting for East African representatives. We also had the privilege of visiting Kibara, a slum in Nairobi, Kenya, where over 700,000 people exist in extreme poverty. The scope of such poverty cannot be described; it is felt. One toilet for every 40 families, streets of dirt and sewage, no running water or electricity are realities. A walk into the depths of this slum led us to Lindi Friends Church — a Friends Church with a vision! They vision education for their children so they might have a future. These Friends put feet to their vision, living out one of my favorite verses from James: Faith without works is dead!
With a great deal of ingenuity and few material resources, these Friends created a weekday school from the Sunday meetinghouse.
We saw no paper, pencils or books.
We heard children singing, listening and learning; teachers passing on all they know.
We witnessed Courage and Hope.
When Jesus said "if you've done it unto the least of these my children, you've done it unto me," he was talking about the children of Kibara.
That day we walked where Jesus is — present tense rather than past. The Spirit was real that day in the lives of people called to minister under dire circumstances.
I would love to take a group of Friends to visit Lindi Friends. It would shock us out of our complacency. Each one would be ministered to through the witness of a Christian lifestyle radically different from anything we experience in Richmond, Indiana or Kaimosi, Kenya — a lifestyle of deep spirituality.
Aquavis, a group of Kenyan young adults committed to being God's hands and feet in Africa, have partnered with Lindi for encouragement and assistance. Kibara is a call upon their hearts.
This is FUM missions at our best.
New Director of World Ministries Called
The General Board has called Colin South as the new director of World Ministries for Friends United Meeting. Colin, and his wife Kathy, have been serving FUM as the director of the Friends Schools in Ramallah since 2000. They will continue in this position until a replacement is called or their contract ends in 2004, whichever comes first.
Colin's vision for FUM World Ministries includes at least three things. First, making sure "a good pre-preparation and resettlement program happens for all field staff." Second, implementing "an international recruitment process" for missions. And last, responding to "the Christian imperative to spread the good news."
"Unless we can overcome our crisis in confidence," Colin adds, "we will die as an organization. This means gaining a clear vision of the imperative to share the good news and how that works in an international, multi-faith environment. And all we do must be examined in light of what the Holy Spirit wants us to do."
Colin is a member of Britain Yearly Meeting and Witham Monthly Meeting in Essex, England. Raised as a Methodist where he received "good sound Christian teaching of faith and the Bible," he became a Friend while teaching in a Methodist school in Jamaica. His teaching and educational administrative work has been in Christian environments from a Catholic school in Ghana to an Anglican school in Britain to Friends schools in Ramallah. He has taught a diversity of subjects from chemistry and math to religious and peace education, plus family life and vocational guidance.
Before going to Ramallah, Colin served as the General Secretary of an ecumenical organization, "Christians Abroad," for over 13 years. Recruitment of people going overseas, development and being a mission consultant were just a few of his duties there. He is also holds a certificate in Charity Management. His other international mission experience includes working as a teacher in Ghana where he met his wife, Kathy.
Colin and Kathy have two children, Matthew, a computer consultant and Andrew, a research geneticist working on finding a cure for skin cancer. Andrew and his wife, Clare, have three children, Harvey, 18 months and newborn twins, Florence and Grace.
Quaker Cookbook Deadline Extended
Many thanks to all who have sent your recipes and meeting information for the new cookbook, Plain and Plenty: A Quaker Cookbook that Quaker Life and Friends United Press are joining together to publish. West Newton Friends, Indiana, even planned a carry-in meal to taste each possible recipe before sending. Sounds like great fun!
Guidelines for other meetings to contribute to this new cookbook are:
- 1 long or 2 short recipes, especially focusing on more healthy guidelines;
- a picture or photo of the meetinghouse which will be returned;
- a short history of the meeting of no more than 200 words.
Also wanted are quotations by Quakers that could be inserted as fillers throughout the cookbook.
Send contributions to: Quaker Life, 101 Quaker Hill Drive, Richmond, IN 47374. For more information, contact Trish Edwards-Konic at (765) 962-7573 or email: quakerlife@fum.org. Deadline for all contributions is July 31, 2003.
Youth Directors Gather
In late March, Youth and Young Adult staff from Indiana, North Carolina, Western, Wilmington and New England Yearly Meetings gathered in Richmond, Indiana for a two-day consultation. The informal meeting provided an unusual opportunity for peer conversations among this small group which oversees much of the youth work done in FUM yearly meetings.
Several of the yearly meetings have developed leadership development internship programs for young Friends. The participants shared resources including a packet of "emergency youth department programs" and programs to support monthly meeting youth workers. As part of a very large Lilly Grant to Camp Quaker Heights, Indiana Yearly Meeting also compiled "Resources for Leadership" which addresses topics such as conflict management, self-worth, spiritual gifts and communication that will be used to guide youth programming at the camp. The participants convened as an ad-hoc planning committee for the upcoming Emerging Leaders conference.
This was the second youth workers gathering convened by FUM's North American Ministries program of consultations for various leadership groups.
Nominate Emerging Leaders
In March 2002, FUM sponsored a conference for Emerging Leaders. Some forty-five emerging leaders mixed with another twenty current Friends leaders in times of worship, workshops and informal networking. It was a remarkable event, and participants said things like "God showed up."
We will hold another Emerging Leaders Conference this September 19-21, 2003, in Richmond, Indiana. We anticipate a growing attendance. The theme of the conference is "Witnessing With Your Life: Discerning Your Life Direction in Christ-centered Witness.' This will be an invitational conference, and a letter has gone out to all FUM clerks and pastors in North America asking for nominations of Friends who are:
- already committed Christians;
- emerging as leaders but probably not well-known beyond their local meeting; and
- are exploring the place of ministry in their lives.
We are thinking of ministry in the broad Quaker sense that ministry may take many forms and does not necessarily equate with paid church work. There is no age limit on this conference, but we expect that most participants will be young adults and older; this is not designed as a Young Friends event. Meetings should send suggested names to North American Ministries at Friends United Meeting.
The conference organizer Ben Richmond, director of North American Ministries said, "There were two major learnings from our first conference. The conference was exciting because the people who came already had a tremendous passion for Christ. Gifts of pastoral ministry, prophecy, service, were all affirmed and blessed. God is really at work raising up leaders among us. On the other hand, many of the participants told us that they were lonely in their meetings and hungry for mentors. We need to pay more attention to nurturing the new life that God is stirring up among us."
Quaker Book Club
The Quaker Hill Bookstore announces the first offerings in the 2003 Quaker Book Club. All books are discounted 10% for book club members. Besides the main Quaker selection, other books of interest to readers will be included. The holiday mailing will also include gift book ideas.
If you did not receive a mailing and would like to be included, please contact the Quaker Hill Bookstore at 101 Quaker Hill Drive, Richmond, IN 47374, phone 1-800-537-8838 or shop online at www.quakerhillbooks.org.
Andy and Lisa Stout: New Field Staff for Jamaica
By Terri Johns
A few months ago, Retha McCutchen and I shared a meal with Lisa and Andy Stout, who had just accepted a position as Friends United Meeting's Field Staff to Jamaica. Andy will begin as Chaplain of Happy Grove High School in September.
Many things I immediately liked about them were their warm smiles, their obvious enthusiasm for this ministry, and their energy and excitement, spilling out from within. What impressed me most, however, was the deep sense of calling they recognized upon their lives.
Andy and Lisa have known each other since high school, but the timing wasn't right for their relationship to bloom. After graduating from Huntington College, Lisa received a call to serve in Jamaica with Christian Service International. She served five years in the Highgate area.
In the meantime, God was also working in Andy's life. Andy completed a Master of Social Work degree from Roberts Wesleyan College and worked in a wide variety of social services, including White's Family Services in Indiana.
By the time Lisa returned from Jamaica, Andy too had felt the call to overseas service. Now the timing was right, and they were married. For the next two years, they spent time together discerning God's will for their lives. After careful consideration, they came to Friends United Meeting with their vision for Happy Grove High School.
Working with Lauriston Lindsay, head principal of Happy Grove High School, a position was created utilizing Andy's skills in social work while also meeting the needs of the high school. As Chaplain, Andy will help the school regain its mission of providing spiritual growth for their students. Once there, Lisa is eager to discover how her abilities might be best utilized within the community of Hector's River. Together, they hope to carry out God's work in Jamaica.
It is my hope that you get a chance to meet them and hear them speak. I am convinced you too will be blessed by their sincere and gentle spirits.
The Stouts are raising support and are available to speak at your meeting, USFW, Quarterly Meeting or other gatherings. If you are interested, please contact Terri Johns, Program Assistant for World Ministries, at (765) 962-7573 or email at terrij@fum.org.
World Ministries News Notes
Stan and Karen Bauer returned home to their farm in Iowa in early April. They enjoyed their stay at Friends Theological College in Kenya and left after establishing a dairy project on campus.
High school graduation in Belize is June 6 and Mike and Kay Cain are excited to attend this year. For the first time in the history of the Friends Boys School, one of the FBS graduates has completed high school. He has been an honor student all the way through school, and Mike and Kay are proud of him.
One of the children's cottages in Jamaica was recently vandalized. Angella Beharie offers many thanks to the faithful Friends whose donations came in at just the right time to cover the cost of repairs. "God really provides for His children," she wrote.
On April 19, John and Marjorie Scott returned to England from Ramallah. They attended Britain Yearly Meeting shortly after arriving home and are considering another six month stay in Ramallah in the fall.
Andy and Lisa Stout began their deputation in early April. They plan to be on their way to Happy Grove High School, Jamaica by mid-August.
Patrick Nugent, Mary Kay Rehard and their girls, Emma and Eliza, are returning in late July from Friends Theological College in Kenya to speak at local meetings and yearly meetings. The girls were delighted with a few special gifts from home when Retha McCutchen and Rich and Sandy Davis came for a visit.
Colin South will be teaching a course at Pendle Hill in late June, then he and Kathy will spend the summer in the United States. Colin and Kathy are the proud grandparents of twin girls, Grace Dorothy South and Florence Peggy South, who arrived March 25, 2003.
Pat Shrock will return to Kenya in August to spend another six months tutoring students at Friends Theological College.
Quaker Life Wins ACP Award
An Award of Merit was received by Quaker Life at the Annual Associated Church Press Convention held April 27Ð30 in Indianapolis, Indiana. This Award was received for "2002 Convention Coverage: Magazine" which focused on the 2002 Friends United Meeting Triennial in Kenya. The judges wrote: "The quality of the product in all facets is very good. It was a nice smooth read that went beyond conventional convention coverage." Also, our submissions on our Ramallah and Rwanda coverage rated 9s on a rating scale of 1Ð10 with 10 as the highest, although we did not win an award.
Young Friends Ministry in Turkana
By Lomuria
Since independence, education has been the background of every successful Kenyan tribe, but the pastoral communities of the Maasai, Samburu and Turkana lagged behind in climbing the ladder. Modern education was later introduced into Turkana through missionaries in search of people to spread the good news, i.e., able to read the Bible and translate accurately.
The missionaries who sacrificed to come to Africa, Kenya and the most hard and hostile district of Turkana became a blessing to the Turkana community. The Turkanas have benefited and are now able to teach others the way to the truth. Ministry is therefore on the move. Bravo! To the Quaker missionaries who came to Turkana and gave a lot in terms of resources and energy, may the Almighty Father bless you, wherever you are.
Currently the Quaker ministry is alive in Turkana due to a few of the youth taught by these missionaries. Your resources have played a role in our spiritual and physical life as Quakers. The youth are therefore becoming the prime target for the enhancement of Quaker ministry in Turkana.
The male youth only assist where they can but sometimes a responsibility arises they can't fit due to their education level. To be able to work in Kenya, you need to have a secondary certificate but most of these Quaker youth have only finished primary level. Sometimes these same youths go to different denominations looking for assistance and at last do not come back. The Friends ministry therefore keeps on losing more and more youth to other churches.
A few of the male youth currently assisting the program are those who were assisted by the Kenyan Quaker Men's Association to a higher level of education, and six young girls are being helped by USFW-International. The male youth are currently not assisted by any organization, hence they are getting fewer and fewer in the ministry.
Lomuria is one of the young Quakers in Lodwar Friends Church and is YFP-Presiding Clerk.
Graduation at Friends Theological College
March 29, 2003 was an historic day in the lives of nineteen Kenyan Friends pastors because a cake had been baked and dedicated in their honor for graduation from Friends Theological College (FTC). In Kenya, a cake declares an historic event. A day is blessed when God sends a shower upon Kenya and graduation was doubly blessed — the shower came but God delayed the rain until after the ceremony.
Fifteen students completed the three-year Diploma of Theology and four students received a one-year Certificate in Biblical Studies. The graduating class represented seven different yearly meetings and one non-Quaker student, and was composed of fourteen men and five women.
Dr. Patrick Nugent and Mary Kay Rehard officiated over their first graduation as Co-Principals of FTC. A certificate of appreciation was presented to Richard and Sandy Davis, administrators of FTC from 1997 to 2002. They had honored a promise to return for graduation after leaving in 2002. Professor George Kinoti, Executive Director of the African Institute for Scientific Research and Development, was the graduation guest speaker.
A crowd of approximately five hundred family members, friends, church and community leaders gathered to witness and celebrate this special occasion. May God richly bless the ministries of these pastors as they serve Him in East Africa.
Copyright (c) 2003 Friends United Meeting
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