|
Friends United Meeting |
 |
January - February 2005
News From Friends United Meeting
Kathy Sawyer Named Development Officer
Parenting & The Call to Cross-cultural Service
World Missions Morphs into Global Ministries
Ramallah Quaker Play Center: Thank You, Violet; Welcome, Muna
Ramallah Meetinghouse Opened
Kathy Sawyer Named Development Officer
In September, 2004, Kathy A. Sawyer was named to the position of Development Offi cer. Kathy has worked for Friends United Meeting since March of 2002 as marketing associate for Friends United Press and advertising sales for Quaker Life magazine.
While helping with a mass mailing late this summer, Kathy saw the job description for the Development Offi cer position and thought about pursuing the opportunity. After many weeks of prayer and consideration, Kathy applied, interviewed and was named to the position.
Kathy feels her personable disposition and ability to make friends wherever she goes will be key in her efforts to raise money for FUM. Being led by God, Kathy accepts her appointment as ambassador for Christ and Friends United Meeting, and the ministry FUM provides all over the world. Although not a Quaker, Kathy’s clear vision of God’s orders to “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15), is not limited to Pentecostals or Quakers, but to Christians everywhere, in every denomination. So she goes!
Kathy, along with Colin South, Director of Global Ministries, recently returned from her fi rst visit to the Friends Boys School, Belize City, Belize. Kathy views her trip as a vital step in immersion of every aspect of Friends United Meeting and the vision and priorities of the organization. Having never visited an underdeveloped/developing country, she was intrigued by the work FUM is doing in another country where there is a different way of life.
Kathy relishes the thought of contributing to FUM by continuing with tried and true practices, and implementing new efforts by educating those unaware of FUM’s work and ministry. Her expectations are to gain long-term support and signifi cant contributions.
Kathy grew up in Richmond, Indiana and has attended Christ Tabernacle Apostolic Church all of her life. She has two children Kourtney, 22 and Kendall, 20, both attending Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. Kourtney’s goal is to be an elementary school teacher, while Kendall has aspirations of entrepreneurship in areas of music and accounting.
Parenting & The Call to Cross-cultural Service
By Eden and James Grace, FUM field staff in the African Ministries Office, Kisumu, Kenya
For over 15 years—since long before we actually had children— we shared a desire to raise our family with signifi cant cross-cultural experience. We resolved to give them signifi cant experience outside the U.S., to expose them to global realities and to raise them with a strong awareness of the complexity of an American identity and the unsustainability of an American lifestyle. This is at the core of our vision of good parenting. Over the years, as our parenting goals matured, our children grew and our faith deepened, it became clear that God was integrating the strands of our lives into a leading for us as a family. Eden’s international ecumenical work, James’ experience in Quaker leadership, our commitment to global economic and racial justice, our spiritual connections with Kenyan Quakers—all these elements converged into a clear leading to move to Kenya. Our call was not simply to a job, but was rather a wider call to a life that is as much about parenting as it is about international Quaker leadership.
Of course, this clarity has not always been easy to grasp. In some painful moments of searching prayer, we have asked God whether our faithfulness to our call to service might damage our children. Clearly, we are choosing a challenging life for them. But could God be requiring us to offer up our children in fulfi llment of our ministry?
Over and over, we laid our doubts and fears before God, and always received the same reassurance—God’s will for our faithfulness and God’s will for our family are not divided. A blessing upon one of us is a blessing upon us all. God calls us, together, in ministry to the world and in love for each other. The indivisibility of our family is one of the strongest foundations of our call to cross-cultural ministry. For us, it is symbolized by a carving Eden brought back from Zimbabwe of four fi gures whose bodies are entwined, and who share a common stone foundation. During the preparation to depart for Kenya, we sought to mark each transition and successive loss for our children with a prayerful and ritualistic event in which we honor the complex mixture of feelings, affi rm the abiding importance of special people, places, and possessions, and ask God to knit us ever more deeply to each other and to God. Through the challenges ahead we are sure God’s presence with us will not falter and that we can know the Spirit most deeply through each other as a family.
Part of our calling to serve internationally is to provide a transnational experience for our children. In addition to the Christian service in which we are to engage, we are hoping to raise sons who will become Americans with a concern for all of God’s peoples and all of God’s creation.
On the advice of Liz and Tom Gates, former FUM fi eld staff in Kenya, we read the book Third Culture Kids by David Pollock and Ruth Van Reken. Very interesting! The experience of living in another culture as a child while one’s identity is still being formed appears to be profoundly different from the experience of living in another culture as an adult. Children who’ve had such an experience often further develop their skills as negotiators and communicators, and have a desire to work for peace and justice worldwide. But it can also leave them feeling rootless to a degree, never completely at home in any one culture. The book’s conclusion, as well as families we know who have had this experience, is that the benefi ts usually outweigh the challenges.
We had the good fortune to travel with our children to the FUM Triennial in Kenya two years ago, and spend some additional time in the country with them. They have come to know Africa as an exciting and interesting place and are excited to return to some of the places we visited then. These are some of the ways we prepared them for managing transitions:
- quilts
- goodbye from school and from our house
- giving away toys to relatives and friends
- family bonds—reading, singing and praying
- intentionality about saying goodbye
- list of activities/places/people before we leave
- road trip—exploring American identity
- unstructured time—creativity, imagination, dramatic play
- family unity
- honor all emotions
- create marker memories by ritualizing times of transition.
World Missions Morphs into Global Ministries
By Jens Braun
This story was posted in the Global Ministries Blog. Click here.
Ramallah Quaker Play Center: Thank You, Violet; Welcome, Muna
By Kathy South
Violet Zarou officially retired after 22 years of supervising the Quaker Play Center in the Amari Refugee Camp, Ramallah, West Bank although I am sure she will visit the children from time to time. Her long years of service and commitment are appreciated so much. Her role in keeping the momentum going at the Center was so important, particularly during the turbulent times in the history of the project. She was willing to go to the camp any time there was trouble, such as if a teacher was sick, there was flooding or after occasional break-ins. She had a very good relationship with the camp community and the mothers in particular over the years. Today, when Violet shops in Ramallah or in El Bireh, people stop her and thank her for her part in the Play Center—as parents, grandparents or as graduates of the Play Center. The new Supervisor is Muna Khleifi, whose first name means hope in Arabic. Muna was born and raised in Ramallah, is married and has two children, a boy and a girl who are students at Friends School. Muna has studied at Bethlehem University, the YWCA and recently at Bir Zeit University. She worked for the British Council for 18 years managing different arts activities from painting to theater, dance and music. She also helped many students pursue post-graduate degrees in the United Kingdom as the British Council Scholarship Officer.
Muna is enthusiastic about the development of the Amari Play Center as it helps children to share, love and respect each other as they play and learn. They learn pre-reading and numbers before going on to the First Grade at the UNRWA Schools in the camp. Empowering self-respect and positive communication are also key issues that the Play Center has fostered since its beginning.
The Play Center was founded in 1976 when two European Friends were visiting Ramallah and expressed an interest in starting a play center at one of the refugee camps. Over the years, it has been a project of the Ramallah Friends Meeting and has undergone a number of changes. In 1992, a fire destroyed most of the original building in the camp and much of the equipment.
At one time there were two play groups, one meeting at the annex of the Ramallah Friends Meeting in town and the other group meeting next to the Girls UNRWA School in the Amari Camp. After the roof of the annex was condemned in 1996, the group meeting in town was discontinued, leaving only one group.
As you can imagine, there is a long waiting list for the Play Center which can now take 42 children. They are 5 to 5 ½ years old and stay for a year before moving up to the UNRWA Schools. The children start learning English and Arabic as well as their numbers at the center. This year there are plans for a music program with musicians from the Barenboim-Said project who are working in Ramallah. Usually each family is allowed only one child to attend per year, but the Play Center has had twins and, one year, triplets!
The Center is co-educational, which is unusual for Muslim communities; the teachers and supervisor try to keep an even number of boys and girls. Wafieh Said Attyah, the main teacher, has been with the Play Center for 17 years. Since Reema Abuadamah is on maternity leave, the assistant this year is Arej Eldin-Dibi, a graduate of the Play Center. In March 2003, when UNWRA began building a new addition to the Girls School, the Play Center had to move to temporary premises. The first move was not far away, into the home of one of the women in the camp, but the space was cramped, both inside and out. Then in May 2003 the children and teachers moved to the Youth Club Building in the camp. This space had a nice grassy play area with play equipment, but again the rooms inside were small and cramped. The children stayed for almost all of that academic year while the new addition was being built. In the winter months when the rains came, it was cold and damp.
Teachers and children alike rejoiced when they were able to move to the new rooms in May 2004. There is one big room (12 x 5 meters square) with new tables and chairs, a sink and storage space, a toilet block and a smaller room for small group and music activities. Although there is not as much play space outside as the original site, there is new play equipment for the children, and there are radiators so the children will be warm and dry in the winter. The Play Center was officially opened in June 2004 when Bronwyn Harwood of the Europe and Middle East section of Friends World Committee for Consultation came to Ramallah.
By Maia Carter Hallward
For the first time in over 10 years, approximately 30 F/friends gathered for worship in the historic Friends Meetinghouse in the center of Ramallah on November 21. As one Friend noted when speaking out of the silence that the quiet of the beautifully-renovated stone interior was not complete: from outside we could hear the noises of people going on with their lives, a sign of resistance and of hope in the midst of the on-going Israeli occupation and the recent death of Yasser Arafat. The Friend noted that two years ago when she fi rst saw the meetinghouse, it was literally a dump. The gates had been broken by Israeli tanks, the roof caved in and the yard fi lled with rubbish. One would never know to see the place now.
Another Friend shared how, sitting there, she was fl ooded with memories of coming to meeting with her father as a young girl and how meaningful it was to be worshiping in this place once again.
Jean Zaru, clerk of Ramallah Meeting, welcomed F/friends to worship and gratefully acknowledged the generosity of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, Baltimore Yearly Meeting and individual Friends, who made this possible. Local Friends were joined by members of the Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI), a World Council of Churches initiative, and international Friends who have been part of the Ramallah meeting in the past.
At the rise of meeting, friends were encouraged to continue their worship in action, with the planting of trees in the garden. Friends from South Africa sang as they dug holes for the new trees, and many took turns with the hoes and rakes. The whole yard has been tilled and planted with a variety of native plant species, the stone pathways lined with greenery.
A more formal opening of the meetinghouse will take place in March, when representatives of the international committee working with the Ramallah Meeting come to discuss plans for making the meetinghouse into an International Friends Peace Center.