Header: Experience Your Neighbor's Faith
July Newsletter   Forward this email to a Friend
July 8, 2010
Greetings!

When I talk excitedly to people about Faith House, I often see them first listen attentively, then nod, then wait for me to finish so they can share about their own encounter with person from a different faith. Then they follow up with an idea on how to fight religious extremism or care for the poor, oppressed, and our planet together. We all have stories to tell. 

What is your story? If you don't have one, I hope you will cross some boundary markers and make one. I also hope you can help us here in our "laboratory of interdependence" in New York City explore the ways this can be done in a sustained manner. Your gift during our mid-year fund drive would go a long way in helping us build our capacity to make a difference where it matters, in the hearts and minds of people. 

In addition to planning our fall line-up of programs, Faith House has been focused on organizing the people who enable this community to develop. The Kitchen Table team of volunteers will be having a summer meeting next Wednesday (details below) and our Board of Directors has been engaged in fundraising and supporting the capacity of our small (all part-time) staff.

After two months of work and 84 applications later, we are exuberant to introduce to you our first Community Development Administrator, Faigy Abdelhak. Faigy will be working with me and Bowie Snodgrass, Executive Director, to increase our capacity to better serve the growing Faith House community and organize our data, programs, and reporting. See Faigy's bio is below.

We have raised almost one-third of the total we need to meet our 2010 expenses. There is a way to go. We can only make this vision reality with your participation. Help us keep the momentum right now. Thank you.



SEND A CHECK to "Faith House Manhattan"
PO Box 552, NY, NY 10028

GIVE ONLINE through our Fiscal Sponsor (Adventist Metro Ministries)
to "Faith House"

GIVE ONLINE through our Facebook Cause

Thank you all who have already contributed to our mid-year fundraiser!  Their names are listed in the right column below. 

The world is changed through new ideas that are given a chance. We had the idea, we ventured out with the dream of a better city and a better world, and we need a chance which only you can give us. There are no other people, only those who understand. Thank you for making a contribution today.

Samir Selmanovic
Founder and President of the Board
New York City
STAFF TRANSITIONS
New Community Development Administrator: Faigy Abdelhak

Faigy Abdelhak Faigy Abdelhak joins Faith House Manhattan as their first Community Development Administrator. While working at Faith House, she will also be enrolled in the NYU Wagner/Skirball dual-degree program for Public and Nonprofit Management and Policy (MPA) and Judaic Studies (MA), where she is a Jewish Foundation for the Education of Women Graduate Fellow and will be specializing in International Studies.
 
Faigy spent this past year serving in Avodah: The Jewish Service Corps in Chicago, IL working as a Community Outreach Coordinator for i.c.stars. She had moved out to the Midwest after attending Queens College and studying Sociology, Journalism and Honors in the Social Sciences. Faigy spent the summer after graduation in Ramogi, Uganda volunteering with the American Jewish World Service (AJWS), and had also been on an alternative break during the winter of her senior year with Hillel & AJWS in Samulali, Nicaragua. In college, she was Coeditor-in-Chief of the Queens College Journal of Jewish Studies and an editor with The Knight News, the college's official student newspaper. During her undergraduate years, she was also a writing tutor in the college's Academic Support Writing Center, and spent time interning with Amnesty International and with the district office of Congressman Anthony Weiner. Before entering college, Faigy spent a year in an intensive Jewish Studies program in the Old City of Jerusalem at Midreshet Harova.

Faigy is incredibly excited about working at this interfaith experiential organization, and would love for you to get in touch with her at faigy@faithhousemanhattan.org with any questions, comments, connections, and even just to introduce yourself.


"Faigy's Favorites" is the newest page on our Faith House Book Store
CALLING NYC VOLUNTEERS
Kitchen Table Group Gathering
Kitchen Table OAK RETRO
Wednesday, July 14

7 - 9 PM

Samir Selmanovic's Apartment
We'll send address when you RSVP
 
RSVP required to samir@faithhousemanhattan.org

Sadie Rosenthal, one of the Kitchen Table coordinators calls it: "a conversation and coordinating hub for those dedicated to the support and process of Faith House." 

Is that you? Yes or maybe? Come to our gathering next Wednesday to meet others and get involved. 

We'll discuss the growth and direction of the Kitchen Table. Start preparing for fall 2010. PLUS meet our new Community Development Administrator, Faigy Abdelhak. Spend time together with friends, food, and good conversation! We will order pizza. Salads, desserts or beverages welcome (but not required).

Email Samir Selmanovic if you have any questions or would like to attend.  All interested are welcome! 
FAITH ART
Tree of Life by Linda Witte Henke
Tree of Life






TREE OF LIFE (triptych)
~ by Linda Witte Henke

This work employs the stylized image of a tree to envision the breadth of God's love for humankind.  It was fashioned from commercial and artist-dyed cotton, linen, silk, and synthetic fabrics and embellished with machine appliqué.
 
See all Faith Art on our website, including additional work by Linda Witte Hende, art by Melissa Hefferlin and Deborah Risa Mrantz

ARE YOU AN ARTIST?  Please email info@faithhousemanhattan.org if you would like to share your faith art with the Faith House community.  
In Faith,
 
Bowie Snodgrass, Executive Director
Samir Selmanovic, Founder & President of the Board
Faigy Abdelhak, Community Development Administrator
WHAT'S HAPPENING?
New Community Development Administrator:
Faigy Abdelhak
Kitchen Table Gathering July 14
FAITH ART
Tree of Life by
Linda Witte Henke
Mid-Year Fundraiser Donors
Support Our Growth this Spring
FIND US ONLINE

Mid-Year Fundraiser
Donors
ATR
Rod & Yolande 
Colburn
*
Raj & Chandra Attiken
Sylvia Hordosch
Mairim Pina
Christoph Silber
Thomas J.
Snodgrass
*
Duane & Ruthita
Fike
Sieghard Frischmann
The Rev. Suzanne Gutherie
Marcia Kelly
Tonya Lane
Greg & Suzi Loewen
Sam & Sarah McCash
Khabir John McGeehan
Molly Schuster
Samir Selmanovic
Mary Stuart
*
William Grassie
Hans Gueldenzopf
Melissa Hefferlin
Moez Kaderali
Marcia Kannry
Paul Knitter
Sean McGinn
Richard Ruane
Jenny Smith
The Rev. James Snodgrass & Patty Parsley
Dennis R.M.
Teall-Fleming
Hal Weiner
What People Say
Experiencing my neighbor's faith has inspired me to deepen my own.
~ Russell Chin

In the short time since its founding as a creative, courageous experiment in delight for deep differences, Faith House Manhattan has become a respected model for the enterprise of broadening interreligious understanding. 
~ Lucinda Mosher

Faith House means that people of all faiths have a spiritual home to encounter each other, inspire each other, and join hands to heal the world together.
~ Rabbi Justus N. Baird

A shared hope that in coming together we preserve our unique selves, multiply our possibilities, and by gazing deeply into the Other, nurture the divinity within oneself.
~ Rathi Raja

Read more endorsements from the Faith House Community
Support Our Growth this Spring
SEND A CHECK
for "Faith House Manhattan" to:
PO Box 552
NY, NY 10028

GIVE ONLINE
through our Fiscal Sponsor (Adventist Metro Ministries)
to "Faith House"

We are an experiential inter-religious community who comes together to deepen our personal and communal journeys, share ritual life and devotional space, and foster a commitment to justice and healing the world.