Tuesday, April 30, 2013
2013-2014 Youth Ministry events and resources now online
Jackson-Feild residents share their talents
By Tod Balsbaugh, Jackson-Feild Homes
The children at
Jackson-Feild Homes have been assisting the residents of Emporia Manor
and Greensville Manor in Emporia, Virginia by making a variety of gifts
and delivering them to residents once a month.Theresa Hicks, Program
Coordinator, initiated this effort last fall. She wanted to instill a
sense of community service in the Home's residents. The residents have
made such items as Halloween cup cakes, decorative wreaths, snowman
candy canes, Valentine centerpieces and their most recent gifts of
butterfly treat bags. When delivering these gifts, Hicks encourages the
children to interact with the residents. In doing so, both children and
residents are enriched and changed. Through the simple act of being
kind, the boys and girls are instilled with a sense of pride. The
children look forward to the next trip where they can share their lives
and talents with others.
Bishop Vache Scholarship applications being accepted
Applications for the C. Charles Vache Scholarship are now being accepted. Applications are available on our website. The
Bishop Vache Scholarships provide funds to assist low-income and
minority college students in the Diocese of Southern Virginia. First
year students as well as returning college students are welcome to
apply. Scholarship awards range from $1000 to $5000 per academic year.
Applications must be postmarked by June 30. Notifications will go out
by July 15, and awards will be made by August 1.
Monday, April 29, 2013
Diaconal Ordination Exploration Program application deadline is May 15
The deadline for applications to the Diaconal Ordination
Exploration Program in the Diocese of Southern Virginia is May 15.
Applicants will interview with the Commission on Ministry for postulancy
in the fall of 2013. Those granted postulancy will receive formation
and training in the new cross diocesan school for deacons. The school is
a joint effort of the Episcopal Dioceses of Southern Virginia and
Virginia. For more information, click here.
ECW Annual Spring Meeting will be May 18
The ECW Annual Spring Meeting will be held May 18 at Christ Church, Danville. For further information and registration, please to go ECW News & Events page on the diocesan website.
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
News from Mission of the Holy Spirit
By Keith Josey, Chaplain
Thank you for your
continued support of the Mission of the Holy Spirit; it is through
caring individuals like yourselves that lives are being changed. I would
like to take a moment to share with you some of the amazing
accomplishments that have occurred over the past several months.
Our most recent
achievements have been the development of a Monday evening GED program
and a teenage health and wellness class. We have had several adult
students take and pass the GED test. Our teens look forward to coming
out and learning about health and nutrition as well as participating in
exercise class and enjoying a healthy meal.
Since September,
we have enjoyed helping our young people with their academic studies
through our enrichment and tutoring program. Thank you to all the
volunteers who assist in supporting the educational needs as well as
providing meals for our Tuesday and Thursday evening programs. The
average attendance is around 25 children and adolescents for each
program, and we have seen a steady increase in their overall progress in
school.
We have increased our community outreach and evidence of its
effectiveness has been shown in the steady rise of our attendance on
Sunday. As our worship service has grown, our adult members are
requesting additional services such as Bible study. To meet that need,
we have begun a community conference call Bible study on Wednesday
evenings. This is turning into a huge success as each week more adults
are calling in and listening to a lesson that is reshaping their lives.
None of this would be possible without the support of individuals like
you and the support of our local churches. As we move forward, it is
vital that you continue to support the Mission of the Holy Spirit.
We have partnered
with the Yes! Dare2Dream! program, a faith-based initiative program that
allows many of our members to become trained group facilitators in
areas like career development, abstinence, and self-esteem. As we begin
to market these programs to the community and draw more young people to
the Mission, we will need additional support from you and our partner
churches. Our goal is to find positive ways to impact the lives of the
families we serve and move them forward.
Your gifts go
directly towards the improvement of our programs and the changing of
people's lives. We are counting on you to assist our efforts to relieve
the stressors that our families go through by connecting them to a
strong faith community, and continuing to offer hope through our quality
programs. Thank you!
Learn more about Mission of the Holy Spirit and how you can support their ministry here.
Diocesan news from Episcopal Relief & Development
By The Very Rev. Keith Emerson (St. Paul's, Suffolk) Diocesan Coordinator for Episcopal Relief & Development
During the first quarter
of 2013, congregations throughout the Diocese of Southern Virginia
contributed $13,548.80 to Episcopal Relief & Development. $4,789 was
designated for Hurricane Sandy relief with the remaining amount donated
to the general fund. I am grateful to the following congregations and
groups for their gifts:
- Church of the Advent, Norfolk
- Eastern Shore Chapel, Virginia Beach
- Emmanuel Church, Hampton
- Emmanuel Church, Virginia Beach
- Emmanuel Church, Cape Charles
- Grace Church Women, Yorktown
- Old Donation Church, Virginia Beach
- Church of the Redeemer, Midlothian
- The Diocese of Southern Virginia
- St. James' Church, Warfield
- St. John's Church, Hampton
- St. Martin's Church, Williamsburg
Episcopal Relief & Development has launched a new website. You can find it at www.episcopalrelief.org.
It provides great information about various projects and efforts as
well as helpful resources you can use in the parish. Donating is easier
than ever. Please check it out and share the site with friends.
Monday, April 22, 2013
Leadership Program for Musicians announces 2013-2014 classes
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Volunteer Program for churches seeking to participate in Hurricane Sandy recovery
Volunteers are the
key to recovery and renewal for communities along the East Coast
devastated by Hurricane Sandy. Episcopal Relief and Development and the
Dioceses of NY, New Jersey, Long Island & Easton, MD have set up a
Volunteer Program to help your church participate in that recovery.
The Volunteer Program is structured to provide a deep, meaningful
experience that take volunteers beyond just having a hammer in their
hand to a place of better understanding how service, learning and
reflection can truly transform all involved. Through this opportunity of
community service volunteers have a chance to effect change in their
own lives while serving the vulnerable along the Eastern Seaboard.
We have added a Hurricane Sandy Recovery page
to our website to help the churches of Southern Virginia learn more
about the Volunteer Program and to connect with each other in planning
trips to assist with recovery. If your church is planning to
participate in the program and would like to invite individuals to join
you, we will post your upcoming trip on our website. After you return,
we invite you to share your story and pictures to encourage others to
join in this effort.
Convocation II Day of Service: Community Day at Good Samaritan, Virginia Beach
Convocation II churches are joining with
Good Samaritan, Virginia Beach, in presenting a Community Day on May 4
from 1:00 to 5:00pm for the neighborhood surrounding Good Samaritan. The
Western Bayside section of Virginia Beach is a community in which many
residents are struggling day to day and that has one of the higher
crime rates. Neighborhood churches - Good Samaritan, Enoch Baptist and
Heritage Methodist Church - have come together as the Western Bayside
Churches United in order to better reach out to their neighbors in need.
Together they hold a Community Day in May and again at the end of
August. City agencies - police, health, and family services - and
agencies providing financial assistance are all on hand. The churches
provide free food and entertainment for the children. The event requires
many volunteers; the fall Community Day drew 3,000 people from the
neighborhood. For more information about the Community Day, contact the
Rev. Wendy Wilkinson, wendywilk54@verizon.net, or Carol Buckalew, cbuckalew@cox.net.
Monday, April 8, 2013
Convocation III work day at ODU Canterbury Center
Convocation III churches are planning a work day at the Old Dominion
University Canterbury Center, Norfolk, on Saturday, April 20, from 9
a.m. to 4 p.m. Click here
for the event flyer. We hope to see lots of parishes represented! Jobs
range from very simple to slightly more complex, but nothing requiring
exceptionally high levels of skill. Some require getting up on ladders,
others don't. There's lots of landscaping to be done, too, for those who
want to dig in the dirt. And we'll need at least one team to help with
snacks/lunch for the workers.
This will be such a huge
help to Canterbury Center--making the property look much sharper and
saving it a lot of money in its maintenance budget. The Canterbury
Center has spent well over $30,000 on big-ticket deferred maintenance
items since August, so every bit of donated skill and labor and
materials to fix the little things is invaluable.
If your parish is
planning on sending a group, please have someone call the Rev. Gillian
Barr, ODU Canterbury Chaplain, so she can make sure there are enough
supplies and supervisors, 757-351-4513. Workers should wear sturdy
shoes, and bring work gloves if they have them. Additional gear will
depend on which project(s) your team would like to focus on.
Thank you so much for your support of the Canterbury Center!
Belizean beaches, Holy Cross hard work and spiritual sentiments
By William Lee, William & Mary Canterbury
"Toes" by Zac Brown band plays in my headphones, over which
I've pulled my cowboy hat, as I and 23 other Canterburians ride
the Water Taxi from mainland Belize to the island of San Pedro where
Holy Cross Anglican School is located. Fifteen hours of travel total
to our beachside lodgings and hammocks. All last semester,
Canterbury raised $14,000 (which equaled $28,000 in their currency) to
buy the materials to build a palapa, an outdoor classroom with a
thatched roof, and reflective paint for some of the roofs of the
school.
The actual work consisted of painting the roof of the main school
building so as to cool down the classrooms, constructing the
palapa, and moving sand in wheelbarrows from one side of the school to
the other to reclaim the land on which the palapa was being built
from the surrounding mangrove swamp. Most days we also got to spend some
time in the classrooms with the kids, play games with them, talk, avoid
being pushed over by eight or nine five-year-olds all excitedly hugging
you at once. Something that stuck in my mind was a quote that
Lydia, a missionary at the school, shared with us from a book that she
had been reading: "Only the rich measure poverty in possessions." I
certainly witnessed the truth behind this. Several members of the group
received gifts from the children they befriended who had nothing;
some of the gifts were very sentimental for us and for them.
Those connections we made are what really made the trip as
emotionally overwhelming as it was. Not just with the kids, but with
each other too. After nightly Compline, most of the group would
go and sit on the dock and hang out and inevitably have a D&M (deep
and meaningful conversation). We became an incredibly cohesive group; we
couldn't go to dinner in groups of fewer than eight, and three was the
minimum number needed to be in any group going somewhere. I was warned
that the trip would have a powerful emotional effect, I didn't realize
how much until we left.
During one of our last dock conversations, someone asked,
"What was the most emotional experience you've had this trip?" I'm
not normally an emotional person, but this question took me awhile
to come up with a clear answer. The more I thought, the more
experiences I came up with. Everything from a sense of accomplishment as
I watched my effort translate directly to progress on the palapa, to
worry as I waited to hear whether the Town Council would
permit us to continue work and frustration at being unable to
finish what we started. I guess that means we have to go back now.
From excitement the first time I walked into a classroom, to sadness at
having to say goodbye to new friends. From the aliveness I felt
while watching the sunrise, to the tiredness I felt while watching the
sunset (both were gorgeous). The short answer I gave was the frustration
of leaving a job unfinished and the difficulty I had leaving the kids
at the school with whom I had bonded. The long, and probably more
accurate, answer I came up with after reflecting more on the trip is
"the entire thing." For the first time in a long time, I felt like the
work I was doing had meaning, and it felt good. I had a sense of real
contentment about where I was in my journey.
United Thank Offering Spring Ingathering
By Rosalyn Neal, UTO CoordinatorAs we enter into the Spring Ingathering time for United Thank Offering, we might take the time to look into a few of the examples of Grant giving throughout the world. The following is just a sample of the Grants List from 2011:
- $18,700.00 to the Diocese of Pittsburgh for Youth Arts and Film Project, a project of Neighborhood Youth Outreach Program at St. Stephens Episcopal church in Wilkinsburg, Pa.
- Grant of $8,000.00 to the diocese of Southwest Florida for Solving Homelessness in the Florida Keys through Empowerment Programs.
- Grant of $40,000.00 to the Diocese of Colombia toward purchase of a used dwelling to construct a chapel, Mission Cristo Rey in Quibdo.
Our Offerings can, and
do help in more ways than we can ever imagine. This is why it continues
to be so necessary that we keep our Thank Offerings coming during the
Ingatherings. April is already here, and now begins our Spring
Ingathering time! Hopefully, you will continue to respond and give as
generously as you have in the past.
As promised, a new
Diocesan UTO Coordinator is taking the reins, and your Parish Contact
UTO Coordinator will work with your parish, as always, to receive the
Ingathering Collections. Your church Contact Person or Coordinator or
Representative for United Thank Offerings should then send a check
representing the total collections from Ingathering, to the new
Coordinator: Ms. Joyce Douglas, 4608 Coronet Avenue, Virginia Beach, VA
23455.
Thank you for all the
support you have given during my short term as Diocesan Coordinator, and
I do leave with sincere regrets. Other responsibilities dictate,
however, that I relinquish this position. I am most confident that Ms.
Douglas will serve you and our Diocese with great competence and
enthusiasm.
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Sustainable landscapes for churches
God's Earth
Ministry (GEM), a Peninsula-based interfaith creation care association,
is hosting a lecture on Sustainable Landscapes for Churches at
Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Hampton on April 21 at 2:00 p.m. Diane
Rosilius, an award winning certified Landscape Designer and
Horticulturist, will be speaking on "Sustainable Landscapes for the
Church: A Guide On How to Work With the Environment to Improve It, Not
Destroy It." This talk will teach how churches can work with the
environment, not against it, when designing landscapes, columbaria and
social areas. We hope that you can join us, and spread the word on to
others you think should be interested. It's free and open to anyone!
Chanco Open House
Visit us
on Sunday, April 7 from 1 to 5 pm (394 Floods Drive, Spring Grove, VA
23881) and meet our new Executive Director, take a tour of our property,
learn more about our camp programs and fly along a zip line if you
dare! All our welcome, no charge. Bring a friend! (Remember you receive a
$50 tuition discount for every new registered camper you refer to us!)
We hope to see you on April 7!
Take the Chanco Challenge! Anonymous donor will match up to $30,000
Chanco
is pleased and blessed to report that we have been offered a donation
of up to $30,000 to match funds raised in our Restoration Fund this
year! Chanco is seeking to execute the complete exterior renovation of
Conference Center lodges B and C among other major property renovations
and is challenging our friends to prayerfully consider matching their
Annual Fund donation (still needed for scholarships and to offset
operating costs) with a donation to our Restoration Fund where this year
your dollar will have double the impact! Make your donation by April
16th and the Chanco Board can move forward with Lodge renovation plans
for this summer! Checks should be made to Chanco on the
James with Restoration Fund in the memo line and mailed to Chanco at 394
Floods Drive, Spring Grove, VA 23881. Thank you for your support - you
are making a difference in Chanco's future!
Province 3 ECW Annual Meeting April 27-28
Easter: 50 Days of Fabulous
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