Five ladies are gathered in Quetzaltenango with Father Roberto Armas to begin the study in preparation for the institution of the first chapter in Guatemala. Dinah Reed, on a mission team from the Diocese of Arkansas, went in April and introduced the Order.

Your Strategic Planning Committee 2012-2015: Annemarie Delgado, Joyce Pipkin, 

Lana Valenta, Mariana Bauman, Grace Sears, Emily Thrasher, and 

Pam Runyon (photographer)

Of all the definitions for Strategic Planning, the basics are: setting goals, deciding on actions to achieve those goals and then planning how to use available resources to execute those actions.

Our Order is blessed with a goal which was set back in 1885.  Today our goal is found in The Mission Statement of the Order and appears on our website as follows: The mission of the Order is the extension of Christ's Kingdom through Prayer, Service and Evangelism.

Today we are still working on how we can best extend Christ's Kingdom with the resources we have, in the times in which we live.  Our message has not really changed but we are using resources which probably would flabbergast Margaret Franklin! Our Order's leadership, The National Council, now has resources such as email, conference calls and Skype.  None of these were as freely available even 20 years ago as they are today.  We are able to communicate with each other (and spread the news about our Order and our Lord) more economically to more people, faster than ever.  This is good news because our Order is growing faster than ever, not just in the USA but around the world.  

The blessings and issues which have come about because of that growth were the subject of the most recent Strategic Planning Retreat.  A few examples of the accomplishments of that Retreat are: 

• Help our new Daughters develop better discipleship by clarifying the period of discernment as a minimum of three months;  
• Help to share the workload of National Council members by creating committees made up of DOK who may or may not have been on National Council; 
• Help our International Daughters organize themselves by country or dioceses by producing guidelines which are flexible but faithful to the tradition of our Order. We also developed a vision of the relationship between domestic and international Daughters.

The Basics of Strategic Planning will remain for future National Councils and one can only imagine the resources they will have available to them!  However, it is with great confidence that we face the future because, for us, the ultimate resource is the power of the Holy Spirit to guide our Order.  Whatever the work of future Councils will be, we are sure that the gift of our Sisterhood's prayers will be for that divine resource.  

Mariana Bauman

Strategic Planning Chair

CALLING ALL DAUGHTERS AND JUNIOR DAUGHTERS!  

WE NEED YOUR PHOTOS AND VIDEOS NOW FOR NEW DOK DVD!  

A new DOK DVD is in production, and we need photos and videos that show how Daughters and Junior Daughters are praying and serving. We love all the pictures in front of your church altars, but what we need now are ACTION photos!  

Photos and videos should be submitted online at the NEW DVD Video and Photo Submission link.  Look for the movie camera on our website! The deadline for submission is October 1, but please help us out by sending your submissions as soon as possible.  It is more likely that you will see your beautiful faces in the new DVD if you submit your photos early!  Thank-you for helping us to visually portray the mission of our beloved Order.

I love this cross.  In a land of cross-tipped churches, this one stands strong and calls me.  In the flat farm fields of western Ohio, it can be seen forever.  When standing at the foot of the cross, I think of Mary and the other women standing at the foot of the cross of Jesus.  The land feels holy.

Do you have a cross that calls to you in some way?  Maybe the crosses you always see at home have lost their allure because you see them all the time.  Maybe during your travels this summer, you will see a new cross or rediscover one previously seen.  Wherever it is, take a photo of the cross that calls to you and send it to me by September 1, 2014.  Then in the September issue of Cross+Links, we will gather the photos into a gallery of crosses.  

Let the hunt begin.

Susan O'Brien

Editor, Cross+Links

Susan Keith

National Junior Directress

The Mary and Martha Junior Daughters of the King chapter was recently instituted at Holy Family Episcopal Church in Fishers, Indiana, on September 8, 2013.  Since then, the eight inaugural members have been very busy electing officers and getting to know one another, thereby bridging the wide age spread of the girls (age 8 to 17).  They have learned and practiced different types of prayers/praying including Praying in Color on Calendars, the Five-Finger Prayer, JOY Prayer Cards, and Prayer Journals.  They served dinner at the Missionaries of Charity Shelter in Indianapolis in April and plan to serve dinner again in June.  The girls made Christmas cards for troops overseas.  They are learning about outreach as they plant vegetables in the Holy Family Episcopal Church Community Garden, which donates to the local food pantry.  The girls created and presented Mother's Day gifts to their mothers.  Of course, the girls just have to have fun with activities such as icebreaker activities, mini-golf, movie night, and are planning a pool party and an outing to a theme park later this summer.  

Finally, the girls decorated a quilt square for the Triennial Quilt which the Junior Directresses will put together at their National Retreat in August  2014 for presentation at Triennial 2015.  Above is the Triennial Quilt Square created by this amazing group of Junior Daughters. 

Kristine Canter & Ruth Everett, Co-Directresses    

Mary and Martha Junior Daughters Chapter,

Fishers, Indiana

Note from Susan Keith, National Junior Directress:  Has your chapter sent in your quilt square yet to be included in the Triennial Quilt?  Be sure to mail the square to St. Mary's Episcopal Church, Attn: Brandylee Marsh, 15415 N Eldridge Pkwy, Cypress, TX 77429, by August 1, 2015.

Every year at our Retreat/Assembly, our province erects a living altar. Every year some people remember to put things on it and take them off. Every year it sits in a corner of the room with a cross, candles, sometimes flowers and sometimes a water feature, pictures or other items of remembrance of our families or departed ones.  Some years it sat near a window and the candles leaked wax all over the tablecloth so we purchased battery-operated candles.

But not this year! This year I wanted to do something more intentional so I asked Ellen Schrader, a Daughter from Traverse City, Michigan, who works with our Province Chaplain on the weekend's worship and devotion, to create an opening service that would make the living altar the focus of the weekend. We moved the table to the front of the room behind the speakers' area (moving the podium away during times when we wanted to focus on the altar). We waited to build the altar until we were all seated in the room at our first gathering time Friday night. We prayed as we were putting everything on the table. We asked the Daughters to bring their pictures and items to the table, and then we began our weekend.

The Living Altar was the altar for our Litany for the Departed Dead. It remained front and center until Sunday morning when we undressed it before our closing Eucharist, taking the items off the table in the reverse order of their being placed. The candles from the Litany, the pictures, the flowers, the other candles, the cross, and finally the table linen were removed with prayers. 

The weekend was filled with many wonderful moments, but I think making the Living Altar a more focused part of the weekend was a successful highlight.

Pamela Sebura

Province V President

Most awesome God,

women are and have always been among the first to volunteer,

the first to organize,

and the first to use their network of friends in Christ to accomplish good works.

We give you thanks for bringing us together - women who are willing to contribute

their considerable skill to the advancement of your church and to the world.

We ask that you support and guide us, and allow each of us to be strengthened by the inspiration of our sisters.

All this we ask in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

                                                                   The Reverend Peg Williams

ECW Chaplain

Diocese of Chicago