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Friends United Meeting |
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January/February 1999
News from Friends United Meeting
Randy Reeves Execution Impending
FUM's Triennial: A Quaker Homecoming (history of Quakers and Williamsburg)
Bethlehem Campus Explored; Samburu Mission Expands
Randy Reeves Execution Impending
Readers of Quaker Life may remember the story "Two Flowers in the Sanctuary" (April 1988) describing the trauma that befell two families and their friends in Central City Meeting in Nebraska. Randy Reeves, the son of one family, killed two women, one the daughter of another Friends family, in the Friends Meeting House in Lincoln, Nebraska, during the night of March 29, 1980. The parents, Ken and Mildred Mesner and Don and Barbara Reeves, have been life-long friends and have worked since the murder for clemency for Randy and for the abolition of the death penalty in Nebraska.
Since one of the victims, Janet Mesner, lived long enough to identify her assailant there was no question concerning guilt, and about a year later Randy, then 25, was sentenced to die in Nebraska's electric chair.
There has been a series of appeals. In the original trial, jurors were not instructed that they could convict him of the "lesser included offenses" of second-degree murder or manslaughter, neither of which carry the death penalty. The prosecutor falsely warned the jury that if it chose not to convict Randy of felony murder, he would walk out of court a free man. In 1996, the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Randy should be resentenced or given a new trial on the basis of lesser offenses for which he could have been convicted. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed that ruling with an 8-1 decision last June.
On September 26, 1998, eighteen years after the crime and with all appeals exhausted, Nebraska's attorney general requested the State Supreme Court set a date for execution, which it has done: January 14, 1999.
If Randy is executed, three of the four people executed in Nebraska's recent history will have been minorities convicted of killing whites. He would be the sixth Native American executed in the United States since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976; all of the previous five were convicted of killing white people.
There remains slight hope, until possibly the last minute, of reduction in Randy's sentence to life without parole. Nebraskans Against the Death Penalty and the Friends Committee to Abolish the Death Penalty have joined Randy's lawyers in an appeal for executive clemency by the newly elected governor and the Nebraska Board of Pardons. They are joined in this effort by the Omaha Indian Tribe and Grace Blackbird, Randy's birth mother. Grace and others arranged for a prayer vigil on the Omaha Reservation in early December.
Central City Friends continue their deep and abiding spiritual support of both families. Some members visit Randy from time to time. Members of the Meeting are taking an active role in the bid for clemency. They are also considering joining in quiet public witness at the prison if and when Randy is executed.
Johan Maurer, general secretary of Friends United Meeting, Joe Volk, executive secretary of Friends Committee on National Legislation, and Kara Newell, executive secretary of the American Friends Service Committee are working together with Friends in Nebraska in a series of contacts with state officials and public events in Lincoln, in hopes of building support for clemency.
To join the appeal for clemency for Randy, contact Kurt Rosenberg at Friends Committee to Abolish the Death Penalty (215) 241-3237; krosenberg@afsc.org; or visit NADP's website, http://www.nadp.inetnebr.com. To address Gov. Elect Mike Johanns, fax him at (402) 475-9996 and mark the cover page "executive clemency." Please send copies to: Friends Committee to Abolish the Death Penalty, 1501 Cherry Street, Philadelphia, PA 19102.
Perhaps it is helpful to reaffirm that we're all children of God and none dies in vain. Randy brought love and joy and good memories to many who know him. His short life (he is now 42) has raised consciousness among countless good people about the futility and cruelty of capital punishment.
Churches have been invited to place three roses in their sanctuary in honor of the victims and Randy on January 3.
fromWilmer Tjossem with additional information from the American Friends Service Committee.
Triennial in Williamsburg-A Quaker Homecoming
By Jay Worrall, Jr.
The Triennial program and costs are detailed with the registration form which is inserted in the center of this issue. In the March issue, we will provide more detailed descriptions of the workshop offerings. - Editor
Friends assembling for this year's Triennial in Williamsburg, Virginia, will meet just a few miles away from where the first Quaker messenger landed in America.
The messenger was Elizabeth Harris, a London woman about 26 years old; the time, late 1655, or 1656. George Fox had just written from his cell in Cornwall's Launceston Jail, "Let all nations hear the sound by word or writing. Spare not tongue nor pen...be valiant for the truth." And Elizabeth, Quaker for less than a year, answered the call. She set out for the New World, leaving her husband William and their baby son in London.
Elizabeth Harris evidently sailed aboard some ship of the tobacco fleet to Virginia's saltwater harbor, Hampton Roads. It lies some 25 miles down the James River from Jamestown and Williamsburg. Her sojourn here resulted in the appearance of five Quaker groups along the western shore of Chesapeake Bay, from Chuckatuck Meeting south of Hampton Roads to present-day Annapolis in Maryland.
Virginia in the 1650s was a royal dominion. All Virginians were required by law to attend the Church of England. The coming of the Quakers resulted in "An Act for Suppressing Quakers" passed by Virginia's legislature. It reads, "Whereas there is an unreasonable and turbulent sort of people commonly called Quakers, who, contrary to law do daily gather....To prevent and restrain which mischief it is enacted...that all Quakers...be imprisoned...till they...depart the Colony."
This law and others like it brought on a persecution that lasted over 120 years. Many Virginia Friends were jailed or whipped and their property confiscated. At least three died, martyrs for the faith. It ended only in 1782 when the Virginia legislature passed an Act for Religious Freedom.
The Friends in Virginia and elsewhere in the South developed an abhorrence of slavery. After 1800 when the Ohio Territory opened up for settlers, hundreds of Friends' families in Virginia-Antrims, Baileys and Bransons, Crews, Ellysons, Fawcetts, Ladds and Luptons, and their kin-packed up their farm wagons and headed west to Ohio. That rich new country was slave-free, declared so by Congress.
This migration "to the Westward Waters" brought about the launching of Ohio Yearly Meeting in 1813, followed by Indiana and then Iowa Yearly Meetings. Many members of Friends United Meetings have Quaker forebears who moved west from Virginia.
You might say then that the 1999 FUM Triennial in Virginia will be a home coming.
Jay Worrall, Jr., is the author of The Friendly Virginians: America's First Quakers, published in 1994.
Teams in Kenya and Cuba
Quaker workteams will be active in Kenya and Cuba during the month of January.
A team of nine leaves January 12 for Kenya. They will work at Lugulu Hospital providing general maintenance, minor electrical work, and small fix-up projects. In addition the team will be painting all the buildings, both inside and out. Ray and Jean Bubak of Brownsville, Oregon, are leading this group. In the recent past years, they have volunteered many hours in Ramallah, Palestine, supervising the building projects at the Friends Schools. They worked at Friends Theological College, Kaimosi, Kenya, as volunteers in 1996 with Kirk and Darcy VandenHoek.
The team will return to Indianapolis on January 29. Members of the team come from several yearly meetings and other denominations, including a member of Drs. Armstrong and Downing's home church in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Meanwhile, on January 15, a group of thirteen will meet in Montreal, Canada for 24 hours of orientation and team building before leaving for Holguin, Cuba. This is the third FUM-sponsored work team to travel to Cuba since January, 1997. Previous teams have assisted with the rebuilding of chapels in the villages of Retrete and Bocas. This team will be focusing their attention on replacing the roof of the pastor's living area adjacent to the Velasco Meetinghouse. Alma Ajo is the pastor at Velasco.
The team comes from Western, Indiana, Illinois, Wilmington, and New England yearly meetings as well as two other denominations. Many on this team have participated on previous work teams to Cuba. Judy Van Wyck Maurer is leading the two-week trip. Judy has represented FUM at the last three sessions of Cuba Yearly Meeting. The team returns on January 31.
These teams are sponsored by Friends United Meeting. Friends interested in participating in future workteams should contact the World Ministries office at (765) 962-7573.
Bethlehem Campus Explored; Samburu Mission Expands
Retha McCutchen returned from visits in Ramallah, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania
with encouraging stories of deepening engagement in various FUM missions.
The trip was held last October and November.
Retha met with the Ramallah Friends School board and with a group of Palestinian educators and business people in Bethlehem to discuss the possibility of opening a new campus there. Deep interest was expressed in starting an International Baccalaureate program. Tony Bing, professor at Earlham College with years of experience in the Middle East, plans to conduct a feasibility study next fall for a new Friends School campus there.
The Samburu mission currently consists of two schools where worship is also regularly held, run by Isaiah Bikokwa and Michael Wasike, and a dispensary run by Nurse Joseph Malongo. This was a return visit for Retha and she sensed a new interest in the mission on the part of the community. Parents and staff evidenced their support of the school by raising funds for bricks for its walls while the Mission provided iron sheets for the roof.
Jeremiah Leaduma and Simon Langatario Leparachao have each donated five acres of land to the mission to open another school and worship group some 32 kilometers into the bush from Maralal Town, the headquarters of the current Samburu work. Simon, now the patriarch of his family, came to Christ when he was a small boy during a visit from an itinerant missionary. He has maintained his Christian faith all his life in isolation, hoping for the arrival of a Christian mission with integrity such as Friends that could provide teaching and fellowship based on Jesus Christ.
A generous gift from Western Yearly Meeting funded a retreat for representatives from each of the Kenyan projects that receive funds from Friends United Meeting. Staff from Lugulu Hospital, Friends Theological College, and the Turkana and Samburu Missions met with Retha McCutchen and Rich and Sandy Davis at a retreat center in Eldoret. This was the first time that some of them had met each other, and was an occasion when they could discuss together FUM's principles of financial planning and accountability in one another's presence.
Tanzania Yearly Meeting is an associate member which has requested full membership in Friends United Meeting, and Uganda Yearly Meeting has applied for associate status. Retha McCutchen and Rich and Sandy Davis met with various factions in both yearly meetings during a fact finding mission to those countries. Johan Maurer and Retha McCutchen plan a follow up visit later this year.
FUM Staff Changes
Krista Nicholson
and Curt Ankeny left the Friends United Meeting staff at the end of 1998.
Krista Nicholson started as FUM's business manager in 1992. In addition to overseeing the accounting work, she made significant progress in updating the computer equipment and network for the central office.
Curt Ankeny joined the staff in 1996 and has served as assistant secretary for outreach and recruitment working with both the Meeting Ministries and World Ministries programs. He has been instrumental in energizing the work teams program and led groups to Belize and Cuba.
Krista and Curt are both members of Arba Friends Church, Indiana Yearly Meeting.
FUM has appointed Mary Jo Mulloy of Richmond, Indiana, to manage our financial systems. Watch for an introduction to her next month.
Jubilee Songbook Here
The Jubilee Songbook has 45 songs ranging from prayers and table graces to seasonal and Bible story songs. They are from the Jubilee: God's Good News curriculum, for children from age two through eighth grade. The 63-page songbook is available through Quaker Hill Bookstore for $6.95; with cassette for $15.95 and with CD for $17.95. Postage and handling will be added.
Copyright (c) 1999 Friends United Meeting
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