|
|
|
Section of the Americas
| January 9, 2013
|
|
|
|
|
Greetings!
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thanks for your encouraging words, for your financial donations, your participation in FWCC events and your commitment to the future of the Religious Society of Friends.
I look forward to seeing many of you in person at the Section Meeting in March or at one of our upcoming "Living Water" events. And to staying in touch through our E-newsletter, Facebook page and committee work throughout 2013. If you would like to connect in other ways, please see our How You Can Help list on our website.
In friendship, 
Robin Mohr Executive Secretary 
|
|
"Living Water in a Desert Time": February 2 in Wilmington, Ohio
 The New Year brings with it a new slate of events from Friends World Committee. Under the theme "Let the Living Water Flow! Friends Serving God's Purposes", events across the United States will take place starting February 2 and will run through April. Wilmington Friends Meeting in Ohio will welcome Jonathan Vogel-Borne and Minga Claggett-Borne of New England Yearly Meeting to lead a half day program on their interpretation of the theme:
Centuries ago, in deserts of the Middle East, a cup and a cistern of water would be placed in front of a house to provide water for thirsty travelers. In Arabic the name for the cistern is Sabeel. With time, the word also took on another meaning, "the way," since pilgrims would journey from one cistern to the next. Aren't we each on a journey? How can we be channels of water for one another as we journey on the way? Jesus and the Samaritan woman shared the water of life. Can we offer the radical hospitality of a cup of water to a world where deserts are increasing?
 | |
Jonathan & Minga
|
Join us on Saturday, February 2 at Wilmington Friends Meeting.
Learn more here.
To register for the Wilmington event click here or contact Julie Rudd, pastor at Wilmington Friends Meeting.
Keep checking our website to learn about other events coming soon:
- March 1-3: Wichita, Kansas. With Karen Patricia & Jose Luis Calderon (Guatemala Holiness YM)
- March 8-10: Middle River Friends Church, Carlisle, Iowa and other locations. With Karen Patricia & Jose Luis Calderon
- March 8-10: Miami Friends Church, Miami, Florida and Miami Friends Meeting, Coral Gables. With Ramon Gonzalez Longoria (Cuba YM)
- March 21-24: Denver, Colorado. First Denver Friends Church and Mountain View Friends Meeting. With Ramon Gonzalez Longoria
- March 23: Portland, Maine. Portland Friends Meeting. With Simon Lamb and John Fitzgerald (both from Ireland YM)
- March 25-31: Southern California. With Ramon Gonzalez Longoria
- April 5-7: Oregon/Washington. locations tba. With Esther Mombo (Nairobi YM Kenya)
- Additional locations now being planned.
  
From l: John Fitzgerald, Simon Lamb, José Luis and Karen Calderón Photo, top right, from E. Claggett-Borne |
|
Section of the Americas Meeting coming to Indiana
Want to reconnect with Friends you met at the World Conference? Want to hear how the Spirit is moving around the world? Would you like to celebrate the Friends World Committee's 75th anniversary?
Then register now for the Section Meeting that will take place March 14-17 at Waycross Episcopal Camp and Conference Center in Indiana.
All Friends are welcome to attend the Section Meeting. This year's program includes
- presentations on how the Spirit of the Sixth World Conference is moving among Friends throughout the world
- news from FWCC's World Office offered by new General Secretary Gretchen Castle
- a celebration of Friends World Committee's 75th anniversary
- information on activities such as the Quaker Youth Pilgrimage, the next International Representatives Meeting (IRM, formerly called the Triennial) and our programs.
iIf you live in the area, even if you are not an official representative to Friends World Committee, you are invited to come to an engaging, full day workshop on Saturday, March 16 on the theme "Let the Living Water Flow: Friends Serving God's Purposes." This program will be directed by young adult Friends from several continents. You can register here to attend.
For questions consult our website or contact us.
See the draft program here.
Read about some of the Central Executive Committee members who will be coming to Indiana in the article below. This month we profile Friends from the Africa Section.  | |
Incoming and outgoing members of the Central Executive Committee, posing at the Sixth World Conference last April in Kenya
|
|
International visitors coming to Section Meeting: African Friends
Among the visitors to the Section Meeting in March will be the members of the Central Executive Committee (CEC) - representing the four FWCC Sections - to do business for the Friends World Committee between International Representatives Meetings (formerly known as Triennials). We'd like to share a little about the Friends who will be coming from beyond the Americas. In this E-newsletter we'll start with the Africa Section.
 | |
David and Rachel Bucura
|
The Clerk of the Africa Section is David Bucura from Rwanda Yearly Meeting. He has a Bachelor's degree in Theology from the Universite Libre de Grands Lacs in Goma and a Master's Degree in Leadership Studies. He has been a teacher, a pastor and worked in the administration of the Friends Church in Rwanda. He works with the Alternative to Violence Program, Friends Peace House, the Children's Peace Education Network, and the Africa Great Lakes Initiative, helping people who have been traumatized by violence in their home communities. David is married to Rachel and they have six children.
Dorothy Selebwa from Kakamega Yearly Meeting is an At-Large Member of the CEC. She is President of the United Society of Friends Women-Kenya and the founder and director of the Kakamega Orphan Project and Care Centre, a feeding program, home, and scholarship program for children who have been orphaned by the AIDS epidemic. She is the mother of seven, four boys and three girls, and grandmother of 22 children of which the oldest three are now at university. As she says, "I enjoy caring, counseling and ministering to the needy in the society."
 | |
Churchill Malimo and family
|
The Executive Secretary is Churchill Malimo from Nairobi Yearly Meeting. Prior to the Africa Section, he was employed by Friends Church (Quakers) Nairobi Yearly Meeting as a Pastor in 2002, and later moved to the Secretariat of the Yearly Meeting from June 2006 to June 2012. He still assists with pastoral duties at Buruburu Friends Church. He is husband to Miriam and a father to two teenaged children. He believes all people are created in the image of God and every person has something to contribute to his life, so he values friendships. He is looking forward to graduating with a Masters Degree in Transformational Urban Leadership from St Paul's University in Nairobi at the end of this year. He also does voluntary work in the slums of Nairobi whenever he has some free time.
|
 Want to know where Quakerism is growing? The 2012 map "Finding Quakers Around the World" is now available online. Click here to receive an electronic copy of this statistical map that lists yearly meetings, independent groups and emerging yearly meetings. We hope you will enjoy finding where the number of Friends has grown or declined by comparing it to the 2007 statistical map.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
