logo
 
Section of the Americas
September 11, 2015
In This Issue

Like us on Facebook

 donate_now_blue3_btn.gif
 

I am delighted to announce that we have two new staff people in our Philadelphia office. Blythe Davenport will be our new Communications and Administration Coordinator and Hye Sung Gehring will be our new Events and Engagement Coordinator. I wanted to share a little bit about Blythe and Hye Sung, and ask you to join me in welcoming them.

Blythe is also an adjunct professor of writing at Drexel University, author of Second Oldest: A Poetic History of Philadelphia, and comes to us with a background in finance. She is a member of Green Street Monthly Meeting and lives in Philadelphia. In our office, she will coordinate our newsletters and website, and manage our bookkeeping. Specifically, she will work with our Finance Committee and the Correspondence and Communications Program Groups.

Hye Sung just finished a year as a Quaker Voluntary Service Fellow in Portland, Oregon, where he worked with the American Friends Service Committee. Previously, he completed an internship with the Friends of Jesus Fellowship and the Ruth Ellis Center in Detroit, Michigan. Hye Sung he will provide logistical support for FWCC Section of the Americas events and coordinate our orientation and support for Representatives. He will work directly with our Nominating Committee and our Representative Engagement and Convocations Program Groups.

Evan Draper, most recently our full-time Administrative Secretary, has just entered a graduate degree program in audiology here in Philadelphia. We are thankful that he will stay on staff one day a week, as Development Assistant.

I feel blessed to have a new team working together, bringing different skills and perspectives to our work in the Section office. Please join me in welcoming them and praying for all of us as we take up weaving the tapestry of Friends in the Americas.

Robin Mohr in El Salvador


In friendship, 
Robin Mohr 
Robin Mohr
Executive Secretary  


World Quaker Day 
by Hye Sung Gehring

Friends World Committee for Consultation is calling Quakers from every branch and all over the globe to celebrate World Quaker Day on Sunday, October 4th, 2015. World Quaker Day is a time for Quaker Churches and Meetings to remember our shared history and traditions and unite in prayer and thanksgiving for the wider Society of Friends.

As World Quaker Day quickly approaches, we encourage Churches and Meetings to plan their World Quaker Day activities with the 2016 FWCC World Plenary Meeting's theme in mind: Living the transformation: Creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God (Romans 8:19). For creative ideas on incorporating this theme into your celebration, as well as for additional resources on World Quaker Day, you can check out worldquakerday.org.

We would also like to encourage Friends to share what their community did to celebrate World Quaker Day, whether it be a brief description, a poem written for the occasion, any photos or videos taken that day, or anything that can be shared to show others what your Meeting or Church did. These submissions will be posted on the website. You can submit these by emailing us, posting them to the FWCC World Office Facebook page, or tweeting at us. Don't forget to use the hashtag #wqd on all social media!

We hope your churches and meetings explore the power of God's transformation together as a community as well as develop a deeper sense of the global fellowship and communion we share as Friends.

    

Please support the WPM Travel Fund
 
At the World Plenary Meeting (what we used to call a Triennial), Quakers from around the world will share their concerns about engaging young people and newcomers in the Religious Society of Friends; about sustaining life on Earth, environmentally, justly and peacefully; and about preparing the structures of the Friends World Committee to support this work through the 21st century.
 
Please help us make it possible for Friends from the global South to participate in this important gathering by making a generous contribution to the Travel Fund

To apply for an open place or to find more information, visit www.fwcc.world/peru.
   

Friends Helping Friends
by Jeff Keith, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting
               
Mario Colque from the Santidad Amigos yearly meeting in Bolivia described the case of his daughter Imogene, named for a Quaker missionary to Bolivia, in his essay "Dreams of Hope," published in the Wider Quaker Fellowship pamphlet From Encounter to Ministry. It can be found on the Voices of Friends website.
 
Imogene Colque was born ten years ago with a lymphatic cyst that extended from her wrist to her chest. She received some treatment in both Bolivia and Argentina, but it wasn't enough, and her parents tried to arrange for further treatments in the United States. A Bolivian English teacher from their yearly meeting, Emma Condori, was studying at Earlham School of Religion in Indiana and brought Imogene's story to the attention of her hosts Joyce and Josh Brown, then members of West Richmond Friends Meeting. Together they discovered that Shriners International has hospitals that help children from around the world, including one in Philadelphia. One requirement was that someone in a city near the hospital had to offer hospitality to the child seeking treatment as well as an adult from his or her family. 

Emma and the Browns contacted Friends in Philadelphia to see if we could find lodging for Imogene and her mother, Celia. Friends in Indiana raised the funds for the plane tickets, and Imogene had an operation on the cyst on July 22, 2014. She and her mother stayed in the US for six months, first awaiting the operation, and then for the doctors to supervise the recovery period. During this time, local Friends hosted them in their homes, arranged for outings to the beach, baseball games, Quaker meetings and dentist appointments, but it was a very long period of waiting and worrying for Imogene, Celia and their family in Bolivia.

Imogene Colque, Emma Condori, Celia Ayala
 
Her arm had always been so weak from the cyst that the Shriners surgeons suggested that she have an orthopedic operation a year later, and at the same time they could check on the site where her cyst had been removed. So in June 2015, Imogene and Celia came back to Philadelphia, this time with their plane fare donated by the airline, thanks to the long advocacy of the Browns. The surgeons said that her progress looked excellent. Imogene then had the arm surgery on July 28 of this year. We ask Friends to pray that she continues to heal and get stronger.
 
A fitting metaphor for FWCC's mission, the success of Imogene's treatment is due to a collaboration between Friends from four different branches of our world family. The Colque family and Emma Condori are from the Holiness branch (in Spanish, Santidad). The Indiana Friends are members of Friends United Meeting. The Philadelphia Friends who offered them hospitality are part of Friends General Conference. And Celia and Imogene also got a warm welcome and assistance from members of the Philadelphia area Spanish-language Friends churches, which are part of the Evangelical Friends Church International.
 
This is an extraordinary story of individual Friends helping Friends. While we are grateful to be able to share this story, it is not an official project of the Friends World Committee for Consultation and FWCC staff cannot offer advice to anyone seeking similar assistance.