Jane Snyder began service as Clerk of the Section at the conclusion of the Annual Meeting held at Friends Center in Philadelphia March 18 & 19. Jane is a member of Multnomah Monthly Meeting in Portland, OR, part of North Pacific YM.  She has clerked her yearly meeting and is a recently retired middle school teacher. Jane replaces outgoing clerk Ray Treadway. 

Gayle Matson from Portland, OR, is the Section's new Treasurer, succeeding Cathy Habschmidt.  Gayle is a member of Bridge City Meeting, also North Pacific YM, and was part of the Fiscally Responsible Program Implementation Committee which guided the Section of the Americas in governance restructuring several years ago.     

Tokyo Friends Center and the meetinghouse in Mito are two buildings that have been damaged by the earthquake in Japan.  While Japanese Friends are reported safe, and their meetings are some distance from the epicenter of the quake, there are ongoing anxieties about radiation from the damaged nuclear power stations. You can read a full report from Yukiko Backes on the FWCC Asia-West Pacific Section's website.  This also gives information on how to donate to Japan Yearly Meeting. If you would like to make a US tax-deductible donation for immediate disaster relief, we encourage you to donate to one of the organizations that is part of InterAction.    

Mamoru Hitomi, of Mito, wrote to us of his experience as he was returning from a trip to Mt Fuji on the day of the earthquake:    

I was suddenly back to awful reality in the train from a few day personal trip to see Mt. Fuji. The train suddenly stopped between the stations and the car started rolling and the electricity poles began to move left and right. Aftershock earthquakes attacked us one after another, but none of the passengers were injured...

...a lot of people are still isolated in schools and buildings.  I was informed of our meeting house broken largely. The main structure was safe, because it was repaired about ten years ago putting steel structure inside of the brick building. But the kindergarten principal told me that both outside and inside were largely broken.    

When mafia-like gang members in El Salvador told Friends pastor Aminda de Arévalo that her school had to 'pay up' or else they would kill her own children, the threat was real: the delinquents knew every detail of their movements and whereabouts.  Aminda's faith and trust in God guided her to resist contributing to the culture of violence in which she lives. Aminda and husband Maudiel spoke at Salt and Light events in the Pacific Northwest about the need to be role models for our children, grandchildren and youth in general.  

Aminda de Arévalo, center, with Seattle Friends

Recorded ministers David Wolfe and Linda Kusse-Wolfe had come from living in Virginia just before moving to Qom, Iran, for a year of study and exchange in this Shiite Muslim study center, when the Virginia Tech rampage of slayings took place several years ago.  The outpouring of loving care and support they received from their Iranian neighbors upon hearing of the massacre, simply because they were from Virginia, was a lesson in radical hospitality. David and Linda challenge Friends to ask 'Who is my neighbor?' and 'When have I given or received hospitality from or to

someone who is different from me?' 

Participants in Portland, OR, Salt & Light event

As part our work to lift up newer voices among Friends, FWCC has arranged for Karen Gregorio de Calderón of Guatemala Holiness Friends YM and Cristela Martínez from the Evangelical Friends Church in El Salvador to travel among Friends in Peru next month to lead multiple 'Salt and Light' events. They will visit Friends churches in Tacna and Arequipa, among other places, and will lead a gathering for young adult leaders from Friends groups in both Peru and Bolivia.   

Karen Gregorio de Calderón

Karen and Cristela will also speak at the National Evangelical Friends Church of Peru's annual Easter week conference in Ilave.  Being Salt and Light: Friends living the kingdom of God in a broken world will be the topic throughout their speaking tour.

Karen is a former Quaker Youth Pilgrim who helped plan the 2005 World Gathering of Young Friends, and she attended the 2006 FWCC Annual Meeting in Chiquimula, Guatemala. Karen is a third-generation Friend with a ministry for teaching youth, young adults and others in her church and yearly meeting. Karen holds a degree in Business Administration and a Master's degree in organizational development. She is married to José Luis Calderón and works for the Technological Institute for Training and Productivity in Guatemala.   

Cristela Martínez

The youngest child of a single mother, Cristela was raised by her grandmother and found Christ at the age of twelve.  After her grandmother passed away, she felt "alone and abandoned, without knowing where to go or with whom to live."  But, she writes, 'at that moment God was more real to me than ever before."  Cristela received a degree in English and teaches both children and adults. As Clerk of Christian Education in her church and yearly meeting, she has trained youth for leadership roles in various ministries of the yearly meeting.  Cristela has represented her yearly meeting to FWCC Section of the Americas, and has served FWCC as an intepreter and translator.