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Friends United Meeting |
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March 2003
News from Friends United Meeting
Commitments
By Retha McCutchen
Sunday School picnics were held at the Milburn farm. Mabel was my Sunday School teacher and she and her husband, Henry, lived far away on a farm in the country! On picnic Sunday Henry and Mabel welcomed the entire church to their farmyard. The men played horseshoes and we ran three-legged races. Softball was also a big part of the afternoon.
But the best part of the annual picnic was ice cream from Mattson's Locker. The ice cream arrived at the picnic in someone's pickup truck—a huge cylinder encased in a canvas, and a thermo jacket with big straps across the top. One of the men dipped cones.
To my childlike eyes, Mabel was an old lady! That was at least 45 years ago.
Today Mabel lives in a retirement center in our hometown. She doesn't hear well and rarely leaves her room. When my mom goes to visit, Mabel talks about her wish to be with God, about how useless she feels. All she can do is pray! Mabel has a long list of folks she prays for daily and I'm one name on that list. I was one of her Sunday School students and she accepts some responsibility for God's continued presence in my life.
My prayer is that Mabel will realize the extreme value of her life today. When Mabel dies, there will be a void in my soul. It may be that these last years in the retirement home are some of the most productive of Mabel's life. God's gift of intercessory prayer is not something to take lightly. I feel the blessing of daily prayer. The world is changed by men and women committed to pray for God's intervention in the lives of people and affairs of the world.
When the Berlin Wall came down, I heard an elderly resident of Friendsview Manor in Newberg, Oregon say she had been praying for that event for 50 years! In our fast food, instant potato society, God calls forth long term prayers—people who don't always see the results, but their lives are marked by faithfulness.
I would encourage every reader of this article to choose one child in your church or meeting, or one world concern and make a lifetime commitment to cover their life or the concern in prayer. God's reward will be eternal.
Wanted: Recipes for a Quaker Cookbook
Quaker Life and Friends United Press are joining together to publish a new cookbook, Plain and Plenty: A Quaker Cookbook. The core of the book is taken from a Quaker Life column written by Avis Rees in the 1980s. Included in each column were recipes from a local meeting/church, a picture of the meetinghouse and a short history of the congregation.
Guidelines for other meetings to contribute to this new cookbook are:
¥ 1 long or 2 short recipes, especially focusing on more healthy guidelines;
¥ a picture or photo of the meetinghouse which will be returned;
¥ a short history of the meeting of no more than 200 words.
Also wanted are short quotations by Quakers that could be inserted as fillers thoughout the cookbook.
Send contributions to: Quaker Life, 101 Quaker Hill Drive, Richmond, IN 47374. For more information, contact Trish Edwards-Konic at (765) 962-7573 or email: quakerlife@fum.org. Deadline for all contributions is July 31, 2003.
Writers Wanted for Quaker Life
2003 Issues... Themes... Manuscript Deadlines:
July/August... Leadership... May 1
September... Stories from Youth Education... July 1
October... Evangelism/Outreach... August 1
November... Simplicity... September 1
December... Advent... October 1
Articles should be between 750-1500 words. Contact the editor, Trish Edwards-Konic for more information or with a query—(765) 962-7573, Fax (765) 966-1293 or E-mail trishek@fum.org.
Belize Friends Boys School Makes a Move
By Mike Cain
The Belize Friends Boys School has for some time been outgrowing its building at #4 Allenby Street in Belize City. We've been researching the possibility of buying additional land and new construction to make additional classroom and recreational space, but God appeared to have another direction for us.
Recently, one of our former students (now in high school) and some of his friends came to me with a need—computer and Internet access to finish a school project. I went with them to the local YMCA for assistance in their project and the YMCA was most gracious in allowing these young men the use of their computer lab. While I was at the YMCA, I became involved in a discussion with the local director and the president of their board about the possibility of our school partnering with the YMCA. They have a mandate to provide an educational element in their programs, and we had a need for more space and better computer and recreational facilities.
We had many discussions with the boards of both institutions, and also asked the students and their parents for input on the proposal. With general consensus that this would be a good move for the school, we entered into an agreement with the YMCA to house the school at the YMCA for the remainder of the school year, beginning in January 2003. At the end of the school year, we'll evaluate the situation to see if this partnership has been a success.
The move was made in January, and initially it appears to have many benefits. Attendance has been much better. The classrooms are well lighted with good ventilation. It's much quieter here which helps a great deal with the students' concentration. The students can go outside during breaks, and they aren't immediately on the street as they were when they went outside the building on Allenby Street. There are computers with Internet access available for use. Also, the teachers can now arrange the students into small groups for better instruction.
It's been a very successful partnership so far, and one that has great possibilities for the future.
Some facts about Belize:
¥ More than half of the population of 205,000 are children.
¥ Only half of the children of Belize will complete primary school
¥ÊOf the children who complete primary school, only 38% will begin a secondary
school education.
¥ Only 1% of the entire population of Belize will receive a Bachelor's
degree.
The National Committee for Families and Children and UNICEF Belize describe the problem as being due in part to the "growing numbers of children, particularly in urban areas, (who) are deprived of the love, guidance, security and positive role models that caring, committed parents can provide."
(Source: The Right to a Future: A Situation Analysis of Children in Belize by the National Committee for Families and Children and UNICEF Belize, copyright 1995.)
Inside World Ministries
By Maxine Nash
Did you ever wonder exactly what we do with the donation you send to World Ministries? Or how a work team is planned? Or how we find the right people to serve as field staff? We often get questions on these issues and so I thought it might be helpful to give you the "inside scoop" on how it's done here at FUM. This column is here to do just that, addressing one issue at a time for clarity.
The topic I get the most questions on concerns donations. What happens to my check or credit card payment when it comes to FUM? How does it get allocated? How do I get my receipt? How does the mission I designated the money for know I sent it? To answer these questions, let's follow a donation through the process. First of all, you send a check or give us your credit card information to make a donation. You do that by sending it to us in the mail or donating via credit card over the Internet from the FUM website. If you send a check or credit card information to us in the mail, it gets routed first to our Business Office where it's recorded and then deposited into our bank account. If you make a credit card donation via the Internet, the donation will be posted to your credit card within two working days. Once a week, the business office prints receipts. Then I review them, put my note of thanks on them, and have the receipt mailed to you, the donor. You should receive a receipt within three weeks of your donation depending on where you live, or if a holiday interrupts the schedule.
Now that your money is here at FUM, how does it get allocated to the right mission or fund? This is where it's important to know what you want us to use the money for and to make sure we understand. The best way is to note the purpose of your donation on the memo line of your check, or with the credit card information you send. (If there is no specific mission designation listed, we allocate the money into the World Ministries administrative account.) Once a month I review the donations for all the missions and field staff that have been received, and then send the money to each person or mission. The money is usually sent via wire transfer for which we pay a fee. At about the same time each month that the money is sent, a report is also sent to each mission site and field staff telling them who has donated to their ministry efforts during the month.
Once the money arrives at the mission, it is deposited into local accounts. The missions are generally managed by governing boards that determine priorities for how the money is to be spent. The exception to this would be when funds are received for a particular FUM approved project. In that case, the money is used for that purpose exclusively. The FUM board has set a policy that 5% of donated funds be used to cover administrative costs. We strive to keep that administrative fee low to enable the maximum amount of your donation to be used in the actual ministry. We keep administrative costs low by adhering to our established process. Compared to other non-profit groups and church organizations our fee is low, with some other groups charging as much as 15% of each donation to cover these costs.
If you have additional questions on donation procedures and policies, please send them to me at maxinen@fum.org. I would encourage you to keep this information handy for future reference.
Copyright (c) 2003 Friends United Meeting
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