wfn.org | Newsline - Church of the Brethren news update

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Date: Aug. 2, 2002
Contact: Walt Wiltschek
V: 847/742-5100 F: 847/742-6103
E-MAIL: CoBNews@AOL.Com

NEWS
 1) National Youth Conference 2002 abounds with energy.
 2) Emergency Disaster Fund announces four new grants.
 3) The church remembers the life of LaVon Rupel.
 4) Global Mission director takes part in Middle East
conversations.
 5) Child Care in Aviation Incident Response program holds
training.
 6) Washington Office calls for Sudan Peace Act to move forward.
 7) Brethren bits: Somerset miners, office moves, and more.

PERSONNEL
 8) Barry LeNoir is called as manager of Camp Bethel.
 9) Richard Hanley resigns as Western Plains District minister.

FEATURES
10) Reflections from a Brethren Volunteer Service worker.

NOTE: Due to staff vacation schedules, the next issue of
Newsline--regularly scheduled for Aug. 16--will not be sent until
Aug. 21. Newsline will resume its normal schedule Aug. 30.

****************************************************************
 
 1) National Youth Conference 2002 shook with energy in the shadow
of the Rockies July 16-21, drawing more than 4,100 Church of the
Brethren youth, advisors, and staff to Colorado State University in
Fort Collins, located about an hour north of Denver.

The entire conference rippled with activity and excitement, with
twice-daily worship services, workshops, recreation, concerts, and
more. The schedule began with registration and a supper cookout/
picnic on Tuesday and wrapped up with the closing worship Sunday
morning.

Speakers during the week included guests Tony Campolo and Ted &
Lee, along with a host of Brethren leaders. Susan Boyer of North
Manchester, Ind., gave the opening message Tuesday evening, and
Brethren Witness director David Radcliff spoke at the closing
service. Others during the week included Jim Myer, Paul Grout,
Jaime Diaz, Becky Baile Crouse, and Deanna Brown, along with youth
speech contest winners Hannah Serfling and Amy Rhodes.

Each speaker was greeted with the traditional NYC "Preach It!" wave
rippling across the audience. Humor, drama, personal stories,
images, and videos helped to illustrate the daily themes. Music
also struck a strong chord, with favorites including the "For Such
a Time as This" theme song written by the Bremen (Ind.) youth
group, a chorus from Ghana titled "N'nung yeh dah!," and a
Spanish-language chorus, "Fluye, Espiritu, Fluye." Four spiritual
directors were on hand to bring added spiritual centering to
worship and were available for consultation at other times.

NYCers gave generously to special offerings during the week, giving
more than $57,000 toward the NYC Scholarship Fund, Dominican
Republic ministires, and a medical clinic box project, plus
materials for the boxes themselves and more than 2,500 pounds of
food for area food pantries. Another $27,000 in donations to
support Habitat for Humanity was given to sponsor runners in the
first NYC 5K race.

Participants gave of their time as well, with about 1,500 people
joining in service projects in Fort Collins and surrounding
communities during the week. About 450 of them worked on building
three Habitat houses in nearby Loveland. Another 250 people
traveled to a peace witness at a nuclear missile silo in northern
Colorado.

For those not working on one of the projects or going on the hiking
trips into the mountains, more than 50 different workshops were
offered each afternoon. Topics ranged from backrub techniques to
peace issues to art and drama to gang violence. On Wednesday, all
workshops focused on vocations, with professionals from a wide
variety of fields talking about faith issues and a sense of calling
in their respective careers.

Later afternoons presented numerous recreation options, from more
structured activities like the NYC volleyball tournament--where
Hempfield (Pa.) and Myerstown (Pa.) won the two divisions--to
informal games of ultimate frisbee, soccer, or tennis, or
opportunities to swim or nap.

Early mornings and late evenings also offered options, with
early-morning Bible studies led by Shawn Flory Replogle and
late-night concert and drama presentations featuring groups like
Relient K and Mutual Kumquat as well as blind musician Ken Medema
and a performance of "Godspell" by Western Pennsylvania youth.

Brethren Volunteer Service workers Becky Ullom, Luke Croushorn, and
David Young were the coordinators for this year's NYC, working
along with General Board Youth/Young Adult Ministry coordinator
Chris Douglas and the National Youth Cabinet. 

Douglas said it was the most positive and most problem-free group
she remembered out of all the NYCs she has overseen since 1986. She
assessed 2002--the fourth straight time the conference has been
held in Fort Collins--as a "terrific NYC."

NYC was the denomination's largest gathering this year, and Douglas
called it an "incredible privilege" to work with so many youth from
the denomination. She says there is no guarantee NYC will return to
Fort Collins in 2006, but "there is no reason we wouldn't come
back." 

 2) In a blitz of activity, four grants totaling $30,000 were
recently made from the General Board's Emergency Disaster Fund.

One grant will send $5,000 toward a Church World Service appeal in
response to flooding in central Texas. The funds will help provide
seed grants to communities ravaged by flooding in 20 counties, with
about 20,000 homes affected. Another $5,000 will support a Church
World Service appeal for the needs of Burundian refugees in
Tanzania. The funds will help provide water and improved sanitation
in the camps, provide clothing and household utensils, and provide
peace/conflict transformation education.

An allocation of $10,000 will aid an appeal to assist with food
shortages and related needs due to a drought in Ethiopia. The grant
will help to provide seeds, tools, livestock, water access, and
educational workshops on health and sanitation.

And finally, a $10,000 grant will go in support of a Church World
Service appeal for humanitarian assistance in the North Caucausus
region and southern Russia, where floods have left more than
200,000 people homeless. The funds will provide food parcels,
hygiene kits, temporary shelter, bedding, and kitchen needs to more
than 4,200 families.

 3) The church is remembering and celebrating the life of LaVon
Widegren Rupel, a longtime church leader who died July 20 in
Stockton, Calif.

A member of the Modesto (Calif.) Church of the Brethren, Rupel
served on the General Board from 1987 to 1992 (including three
years as chair of the World Ministries Commission), and on the
McPherson (Kan.) College board of trustees for 18 years, the last
six as chair.

She also served on Standing Committee and on several Annual
Conference committees and was a speaker at the 1982 Annual
Conference.

Her death came in the midst of National Youth Conference, an event
for which she had six times previously served on the counseling
team. Her pastor, Bonnie Kline Smeltzer, remarked that it seemed
appropriate somehow that Rupel--who had endured a lengthy
illness--passed away during an NYC since she had given so much time
there. Rupel retired in May 1998 after 20 years on the staff of the
Counseling Center at University of the Pacific in Stockton.

The Modesto congregation held a service to celebrate Rupel's life
on July 27. Lasting about two hours, it included music and singing,
scripture, prayer, and sharing, noting the way that Rupel "created
community" in so many places.

Rupel was 71. She is survived by three children and two brothers.

 4) Merv Keeney, director of Global Mission Partnerships for the
Church of the Brethren General Board, is part of a seven-person
delegation representing Church World Service (CWS) in partnership
conversations with the Middle Eastern Council of Churches in Ayia
Napa, Cyprus, Aug. 1-4. 

Prior to the meeting, from July 27 to 31, he and David Weaver, CWS
staff director of the Mission Relationships and Witness Program,
traveled to Jerusalem to meet with Christian church leaders from
both sides who are caught in the rising Israeli/Palestinian
violence. Keeney and Weaver planned to seek deeper understanding of
the present situation, to bring perspective into the partnerships
conversation.

Keeney was former chair of the CWS Middle East committee and is a
member of the CWS board representing the Church of the Brethren.

 5) A Child Care in Aviation Incident Response (CAIR) training was
held July 28-30 at the New Windsor (Md.) Conference Center,
bringing 25 volunteers from across the United States to learn about
responding as part of the American Red Cross Aviation Incident
Response Team.

This was the last of 10 training workshops held this year by the
Disaster Child Care program. The CAIR team is a specially trained
group of Disaster Child Care volunteers who will provide child-care
services for children experiencing traumatic stress and grief in
the wake of airline disasters.  

Leadership for this training included Jane Morgan and Bev Hoover
from the American Red Cross. Lydia Walker, former General Board
staff and CAIR volunteer; Sharon Gilbert, CAIR volunteer; and Roy
Winter, manager of Disaster Child Care, also made presentations
during the training. 

 6) The Church of the Brethren Washington Office this past week
issued an alert after the government of Sudan and the Sudan Peoples
Liberation Army (the lead rebel group), long locked in a civil war,
came to a peace agreement in Machakos, Kenya.

"While this is a positive sign," the alert said, "it is only one
very small step toward a just and peaceful Sudan. It's fair to
remind ourselves that Sudan has been down this road before only to
see promises and peace accords unravel."

The office is urging Brethren and others to contact their
congressional representatives and call for final passage of the
Sudan Peace Act--especially in the US Senate, where some senators
have blocked the calling of a conference committee to work out a
compromise version of the act, already passed in some form by both
houses.

World Council of Churches general secretary Konrad Raiser, recently
returned from a trip to Africa, is also urging the ecumenical
community to take the complexity of interfaith relationships in the
greater Horn of Africa region, including Sudan, "much more
seriously" to work toward a lasting peace. 

 7) Brethren bits: Other brief news notes from around the
denomination and elsewhere.
 *The Church of the Brethren had a close connection to a national
news story in recent weeks, as miners were trapped underground near
Somerset, Pa. Two of the miners--all of whom were rescued this past
weekend--were members of the Church of the Brethren in Western
Pennsylvania District. A community prayer service for the miners
was held at the Maple Grove Church of the Brethren near Somerset.

 *Brethren Colleges Abroad has completed the move of its main
offices from North Manchester, Ind., to Elizabethtown, Pa. The new
mailing address is PO Box 407, 50 Alpha Drive, Elizabethtown, PA
17022-0407. Phone is 717-361-6600 (or toll-free 866-222-6188), and
fax is 717-361-6619. All e-mail addresses remain the same. . . .
The Shenandoah District office recently completed a move from
Dayton, Va., to its new location in Weyers Cave. The new address is
PO Box 67, Weyers Cave, VA 24486 (shipping address: 1453 Westview
School Road, Weyers Cave, VA 24486. Phone is 540-234-8555 or
888-308-8555 and fax is 540-234-8333.

 *Church of the Brethren members Cliff Kindy and Rick Polhamus took
part in a Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) 170-mile walk from
Chicago to Peoria, Ill., in July, marching from Boeing headquarters
to Caterpillar's main office to protest that the equipment
manufactured by those companies is "being used to kill children,"
according to Kindy. Another group of CPTers dumped red dye into the
Chicago River to protest Boeing's production of military weapons
systems. Three people were arrested.

 8) Barry LeNoir has been called as the new manager of Camp Bethel
in Virlina District effective Aug. 19.

Lenoir is a 1992 graduate of Virginia Tech University and had been
teaching and coaching at a middle school in Vinton, Va. Described
by the district as having "a wealth of camping experience," he
previously served for nine years as program director at two
Methodist camps.

LeNoir and his family will be living at the camp, located in
Fincastle, Va.

 9) Richard Hanley has announced his resignation as district
minister of the Western Plains District effective Dec. 31.

Hanley previously served as a pastor and was also district
executive in West Marva District. He was instrumental in creating
a cooperative arrangement with the Southern Plains District and
Area 4 Congregational Life Ministries to serve the two districts,
which was put into place in 1999-2000.

Hanley plans to continue serving as district minister of Southern
Plains District.  

 10) Carsten Neumann, who is serving through Brethren Volunteer
Service at the Bread and Roses Catholic Worker House in Olympia,
Wash., recently shared these brief reflections in the BVS
"Volunteer!" newsletter:

"There has been no day yet that I wake up in the morning and don't
know why I would do this work. Especially in tough times, it is
really important for me to know that God has planted me here for
this year, with these people, doing this work.

"It is God's work, and the homeless people are God's people that
are forgotten by so many others. That gives my work sense, and it
keeps me going more than anything else."

Newsline is produced by Walt Wiltschek, manager of news services
for the Church of the Brethren General Board, on the first, third
and fifth Friday of each month, with other editions as needed.
Newsline stories may be reprinted provided that Newsline is cited
as the source. Danielle Hart and Janis Pyle contributed to this
report.

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