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Friends United Meeting |
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December 1997
News from Friends United Meeting
Workteams in Cuba and Belize Talbots retire Barbara Mays To Head Press Davises in Kaimosi Cuba Workteam Faces Possible Fine Cabrini-Green Peace Plan FUM news briefs
Work teams traveled to Cuba October 18-25 and Belize October 13-27.
The Belize work team, led by Tim Kendall of Western Yearly Meeting, did extensive remodeling of the Friends Boys School in Belize City. Siding was applied to the outside of the two-story structure, new windows and doors installed, a new bathroom added downstairs, the large second story room was divided into a classroom and office space. Paint was applied where needed. Ten people participated: Dale and Marilyn Guyer (West York, Ill.), Michael Klausmeier (Carmel, Ind.), Zach Nelson (Moravia, N.Y.), Tim Kendall (Carmel, Ind.), David Romberger (Holmes Beach, Fla.), Tim Brittingham (Westfield, Ind.), Orville and Joanne Carter (Thornton, Ind.) and Mavelea Lara (Victoria, Mexico).
Participants report that the team worked very well together, having a real sense of bonding. The team was assisted by volunteers Florence Emma Peery, who is presently overseeing the operation of the Friends Boys School, and Mike and Kay Cain who are currently living and involved in building a resort on the coast of Belize.
The Cuba work team was involved in beginning the re-building of a new meetinghouse to replace the wooden structure which fell down some 15 years ago. Eighteen Guilford College students, two Guilford faculty, two members of North Carolina Yearly Meeting, a member of the January 1997 work team to El Retrete, and Curt Ankeny from FUM, traveled to participate in a work team project in the small village of Bocas.
Members of the meeting such as Juanita Ditz and Zoila Cudina, have been praying for many years that their meetinghouse would be restored. The actual physical work began with digging holes and trenches for the foundation, the pouring of concrete for holes which will eventually be the support pillars for the walls and roof. The work will be continued by several members of the Velazco Meeting and two Cuban contractors hired for the purpose of overseeing the project and workers. By the time the next FUM work team arrives in mid-January next year, they hope to have most of this building completed.
The students and adults who participated in this work team experience left with a deep sense of gratitude for the hospitality demonstrated by Cuban Friends and the deep faith of Quakers in Cuba. There was, for many students, a special identification with the young people of Cuba Yearly Meeting. Many deep friendships were developed in the course of the week which will last forever.
These improvements have been made possible by the generosity of Friends across Friends United Meeting as well as Friends in England and Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. There is an ongoing need for funds to buy the needed materials to continue the plan to rebuild or repair other meetinghouses and chapels in Cuba Yearly Meeting. FUM welcomes individual gifts and the gifts from Friends meetings designated for the rebuilding of Cuban meetinghouses.
The work team scheduled for January 16-30, 1998, will have 15 participants-a full team of workers to travel to Velazco to work on the project at Bocas and to begin the replacement of the roof on the meetinghouse at Velazco, considered to be a historic site. Participants will be hosted by members of the Velazco meeting. This team is filled, but please contact Curt Ankeny at FUM (765) 962-7573 for information about future work teams.
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Richard and Ardith Talbot Retire
After twelve years with the Quaker Hill Bookstore and Friends United Press, Ardith and Richard Talbot plan to retire at the end of 1997. Both Talbots point with pride to the bookstore's emphasis on customer service. Dick notes that many local customers find the bookstore to be "a place of retreat and refuge."
Ardee had started the Alpha (Christian) Bookstore in Southerland, Iowa, in 1971. She moved it to Marshalltown and eventually to Mason City, Iowa. Dick Talbot had been a successful business manager for thirty years, managing a large cooperative grain elevator. During the farm crisis of the early 1980s, Dick's cooperative merged with another, and Dick was forced out of his job. For several months prior to coming to Richmond, he and Ardee worked at Quakerdale children's home in New Providence, Iowa,.
Kara Cole (Newell) recruited Ardee to manage the Bookstore beginning in January 1986, and Dick joined the staff as manager of curriculum sales. An early achievement for Dick was persuading Evangelical Friends International to allow the bookstore to sell The Adult Friend. Since 1987, the Bookstore has become its largest single distributor.
In 1989, Steve Main asked Ardee to become editor of Friends United Press and Dick took over as manager of the Bookstore. One of Dick's goals for the Bookstore had been to achieve a half million dollars in sales. Growth has been good in the last few years and Dick expects gross sales of about $450,000 in 1997. Dick points out that the book business is dependent upon discretionary income, and bookstores are hard-hit in times of recession. In the decade following 1985, Quaker bookstores in Pasadena, Philadelphia, Wichita, Kansas, and Salem, Ohio, have either closed or lost their Quaker emphasis. During the early 1990s, Quaker Hill Bookstore also lost sales, but it survived to become the sole major walk-in Quaker bookstore in the United States.
As a "people person" with a real passion for the bookstore, Ardee was hesitant to accept the assignment with Friends United Press. Now she says she has found deep satisfaction in "making the Christian world see the value of Quaker spirituality and Quaker history" such as T. Canby Jones' edition of George Fox's epistles, The Power of the Lord Is Over All, John Punshon's Encounter with Silence, Wilmer Cooper's A Living Faith, and the reprints of Barbour's The Quakers, and Moulton's edition of John Woolman's Journal. Breaking into the general Christian market has been a goal for the Press so one exciting achievement was getting Daisy Newman's books distributed as Reader's Digest and Guidepost condensed books.
There have been stressful times, particularly during the controversies of 1987-1992, when Friends United Meeting was seeking direction. Ardee says, "The realignment years were tough ones for everybody. We had to go through those times for FUM to survive. Steve Main opened the way so that Johan could come in with the strong leadership he has provided." Dick noted that "The biggest thing we have overcome was that we didn't have to handle every Quaker book. There are lots of things being printed that reflect a very individualist approach to Quakerism."
Dick expresses concern about the future of the Quaker movement. In an era of declining denominational loyalty, he asks, "Where are Quakers learning about their Quaker background? We should be selling classics like George Fox's Journal and The Journal of John Woolman but we're not selling that many. There are some good Quaker history books that should be read by everybody. But there are fewer and fewer book readers."
Dick and Ardee affirm that "ministry won't cease just because we stop working here." Dick plans travel and lots of volunteer work. Since an invitation to speak at a Mother-Daughter Banquet at South Marion Friends about eight years ago, Ardee has been in great demand as a humorous speaker, with over a hundred engagements a year. She says, "We live in a hurting world. When I can laugh at my situation or Dick's situation, it gives people permission to laugh at themselves." She will doubtless continue to be busy, bringing her special combination of healing and humor to dozens of denominations and civic groups.
Welcome Back, Barbara Mays
On November 7, after a five-month search process, Friends United Meeting announced the appointment of Barbara Bennett Mays as publications coordinator. This position includes the responsibility of serving as manager and chief editor for Friends United Press.
This is Barbara Mays's second time as head of the Press. After a successful period of service from 1981 to 1988, she left to direct the United Way organization for Wayne County, and later served as resident life coordinator at Pendle Hill, the Friends study and retreat center near Philadelphia. She holds a journalism degree from Indiana University and has done graduate work at Ball State University and Earlham School of Religion. She is a member of Clear Creek Friends Meeting in Richmond, Indiana, and an attender at First Friends Meeting, Richmond.
Along with her part-time responsibilities for Friends United Meeting, Mays will continue her current fundraising and marketing work with the Richmond Symphony Orchestra. Aside from the Press, her FUM duties will include press relations and quality control for FUM's printed materials.
There has been only one Friends United Press manager since Mays left in 1988-Ardith Talbot, who retires at the end of this year. Friends United Press's other staff member, Carolyn Rhoades, will continue serving the Press full-time in the areas of order fulfillment, bookkeeping, and typesetting and layout.
Davises Arrive in Kaimosi
Rich and Sandy Davis have arrived safely at Kaimosi, Kenya, at the beginning of November after several interim weeks in Nairobi. They used the time picking up some Swahili and getting accustomed to the ways of Kenyan culture and meeting many Friends. They write, "We have only begun to meet those who will be lifelong friends!"
Cuba Workteam Faces U.S. Government Fines
Members of the January 1997 Friends United Meeting construction workteam which helped build a new meetinghouse at El Retrete, Cuba, received notices of a $1,000 fine per participant. After an eight-month investigation, the U.S. Treasury Department charged that the team had not obtained the required license and that in the course of their visit they "engaged in certain transactions in which the government of Cuba or a national of Cuba had an interest."
The October 21, 1997, notification was immediately challenged by FUM staff, who pointed out, in letters to the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the U.S. Department of the Treasury and Indiana's two Senators, that FUM's intention to send officers and volunteers had been communicated to the government several times since August 1995, and the pertinent information regarding travel regulations was not received until fourteen days before the start of the work trip.
At press time, FUM's approach is to work for a common-sense settlement of the apparent technical violation. (The October 1997 workteam to Bocas, Cuba, did receive a travel license for a nearly identical project.) Staff have requested a waiver of the penalty. FUM general secretary Johan Maurer could not discuss alternatives should this approach fail, but he noted that there were clear freedom-of-religion issues involved when a government office interferes with a project which is wholly and transparently a ministry within an established denominational structure.
Cabrini-Green Peace Plan
After weeks of escalating violence in Chicago's Cabrini-Green neighborhood (see FUM news, November, 1997), the Near North Ministry Alliance presented a peace plan to curb gang violence in the area and save the local elementary school from being closed. The plan included public education and having parents and church members undertake safety patrols in the area. The Ministry Alliance also includes plans for gang outreach, safe havens and after-school activities.
Paul Vallas, Chicago school chief, who had planned the closure of Jenner, was quoted in the Chicago Sun-Times, October 22, 1997, "It's a very comprehensive and very sound plan. I'm impressed with it."
Steve Pedigo, from the Chicago Fellowship of Friends, and FUM field staff,
was centrally involved in the formation of the Near North Ministry Alliance,
and worked intensively over the last month in the creation of this community-based
peace initiative.
FUM news briefs
Mary Glenn Hadley will be providing pastoral leadership for Sunday worship, Wednesday Bible study and hospital visitation at Cadiz Friends, Cadiz, Ind., November through January during David Brock's sabbatical.
Ben Richmond will be on leave during December and January; Judy Maurer and Michael Crook will be covering duties with Quaker Life.
The long-anticipated history of Friends in Jamaica, The Fairest Isle by Glen Vincent and Mary Jones Langford, will be released by Friends United Press by the end of December 1997.
Copyright (c) Friends United Meeting 1997
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