UTO Grant Benefits Diocesan Parish
The United Thank Offering Committee received news that a $15,000 grant was awarded to the Church of the Good Shepherd, Fitchburg, to provide seed money for a part-time mentoring coordinator for the Montachusett Interfaith Hospitality Network (MIHN).
Since 2004, MIHN has served 74 families, which include 278 individuals, among them 132 children. The grant will help the organization forward its mission.
“In order to stop the cycle of homelessness, we need to provide parents with help learning life skills and a back-up support system,” wrote the Rev. Karen Ann Campbell, rector of Good Shepherd, in a letter to the UTO Committee supporting the grant. “The ripple effect will not only affect changes in the parents’ lives, but it will hopefully also help the parents prepare the children so they can avoid homelessness.
Karen said this proven mentoring program is running in many places throughout the United States in conjunction with Family Promise programs. “It is producing successful results in other areas of our country,” she wrote.
The goal of what will be called the Family Mentoring Program is to build committed relationships between the mentors and individuals in low-income families so that those individuals can define and meet goals in order to achieve and maintain greater self-reliance and independence.
The new mentoring coordinator for MIHN will meet with the head/heads of households three times a month. Families will also engage in one monthly family activity together locally. The mentor’s training will be based on the useful input of relationship building, goal setting and action planning around the basic life skills of budgeting, financial planning and peaceful and nurturing parenting, connecting families to community resources.
The UTO Committee would also like to remind everyone of a recent UTO change in our Diocese. In response to the reality that it is difficult for UTO coordinators to attend two Diocesan ingatherings a year, we will invite churches to mail in their spring UTO offering.
The UTO Committee suggests the Sunday after the Ascension, as an ingathering date for parishes. Make checks payable to the Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts, with UTO in the memo, and mail to: The Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts, attention Esther Barker, Diocesan accounting manager, 37 Chestnut St., Springfield, MA 01103.
In other news:
-> This spring the UTO received $4,234 in thank offerings. Many thanks to all the parish coordinators who keep the UTO ministry alive in their parish!
-> There will be a fall ingathering during the Diocesan Convention, Oct. 17 and 18.
- by Susan Howland, a representative for the Diocesan UTO
Church Women to Hold Eucharist/Luncheon
The Board of the Diocesan Episcopal Church Women invite all who are interested to attend a Eucharist and luncheon on Sept. 20 from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at St. David’s, Agawam.
The guest speaker for the day will be Rebecca Scruton, who will talk about her visit to Liberia and Ghana. The Rev. Dee Bright will celebrate the Eucharist. A complimentary lunch will follow the service.
To RSVP, contact Susan Howland by writing to her at 132 Osgood Road, Charlton, MA 01507; calling her at (508) 248-6112 or e-mailing ECW.wma@gmail.com.
In other ECW news, this year the Board of the Diocesan Episcopal Church Women will oversee UTO in the Diocese.
If you have questions or need information or advice about the United Thank Offering, contact ECW.wma@gmail.com with your questions.
- by Susan Howland, president of the Diocesan Board of the Episcopal Church Women
South African Missionary Staying Put
On September 7 Jesse will preach and offer a post-service forum at St. John's Northampton. On September 28 he will preach and offer a post-service forum at Christ Church Cathedral.
- by Jesse Zink, an Episcopal missionary in Mthatha, South Africa.
I am rapidly reaching the end of my first year in Mthatha, and my initial commitment through the church’s Young Adult Service Corps program. Last summer, as I looked ahead to this time, I was pretty intent on going to Mthatha, serving my year and then returning to the U.S. for another, undefined future.
But my plans have shifted dramatically in these last few months, and I’ve recently given notice to the church that I intend to extend my time here another year. In many ways, I think this decision surprised me more than anyone else.
When I look back over my journal entries from this year, I am struck by how frequently I write about my own feelings of ineffectiveness and hopelessness in the face of substantial cultural and language barriers and social and economic problems of daunting scope and complexity. None of that has changed, and, daily, I question just what it is that I am doing here that is contributing in any way to a greater good.
While I would happily leave the frustrations of work, I’ve realized I am not yet ready to leave my new friends and co-workers who have enriched my time here in ways in which I cannot adequately describe. I work at a small community center in a shantytown outside Mthatha and my co-workers are mainly older women who speak very little English as they prepare and distribute food for our feeding program. And yet one of my favorite parts of the day is when I can take a break with them in the kitchen and work on my Xhosa by sharing in the latest gossip. Nothing is accomplished here that I can point to at the end of the day as significant, but the interaction strengthens ties between us, ties which I am not yet ready to sever.
Building these relationships is a pre-condition, I have realized, to any sort of effective mission work. When the school year began in January, I started an after-school English class for some high school students, several of whom were already mothers. I was skeptical of what I would be able to accomplish and how I would get these young women to work with me.
I soon realized, though, that I knew many of their children and that the mothers had seen how I had tried to be friendly and welcoming with their children when I arrived. That allowed them to trust me and immediately broke down several barriers. Over the course of this first semester we were able to work and learn together in ways I had not thought possible. They are another group of people I am not yet ready to leave behind and I look forward to our second semester together.
My time here has been rewarding and perspective-altering in ways I did not realize possible. Yet it has also been intense and overwhelming and I intend to take a break in late August and September to visit friends and family and to raise more money for my next year in Mthatha. I am looking forward to the opportunity to tell many of you the stories of my time here in person and to convey what I cannot in written words alone. God does wonderful things all over the world. It is when we meet and share in the lives of those who are different from us that we begin to comprehend the depth of these wonders.
Jesse writes regularly about his experience at mthathamission.blogspot.com; his e-mail address is jessezink@gmail.com. You can also follow his activites here on the Diocesan website by clicking on the Mission to Mthatha link.