Episcopal Life Online Newslink May 17, 2007
Episcopal Life Online is available at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/elife.
Today's ELO Newslink includes:
* TOP STORY - Presiding Bishop joins call for federal budget to address poverty and disease * DIOCESAN DIGEST - FORT WORTH: Diocese renews its oversight request, proposes new structures * DIOCESAN DIGEST - SOUTHWEST FLORIDA: Bishop Lipscomb announces retirement plans * FEATURE - In harm's way: Church seeks to support chaplains and those left behind during deployments
_____________________
TOP STORIES
Presiding Bishop joins call for federal budget to address poverty and disease
[Episcopal Church Office of Government Relations] Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and four leaders of Protestant denominations wrote to the U. S. Congress May 10 to urge budget negotiators to preserve important investments in federal domestic and international programs that fight poverty and disease at home and around the globe.
On May 16, House and Senate negotiators announced that it they had reached agreement on the Fiscal Year 2008 federal budget that funds the government and programs that touch the lives of nearly every American.
The letter was signed by Jefferts Schori and the Rev. Mark S. Hanson, Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; the Rev. Dr. Clifton Kirkpatrick, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.); Bishop Beverly Shamana, President of the United Methodist General Board of Church & Society and the Rev. John H. Thomas, General Minister and President, United Church of Christ.
Full story and text of letter:
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_86046_ENG_HTM.htm
_____________________
DIOCESAN DIGEST
FORT WORTH: Diocese renews its oversight request, proposes new structures http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81803_86057_ENG_HTM.htm
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA: Bishop Lipscomb announces retirement plans http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81803_86055_ENG_HTM.htm
More Diocesan news: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81803_ENG_HTM.htm
_____________________
FEATURES
In harm's way
Church seeks to support chaplains and those left behind during deployments
By Jerry Hames
[Episcopal Life] A blast in the dead of night tossed Chaplain (LTC) John Weatherly from his bed at the Al Azad Marine Air Base near Baghdad. In Mosul, Chaplain (CAPT) David Sivret of Maine saw only a white flash before he was thrown 10 feet by an explosion that killed 22 people.
Weatherly and Sivret are two of 55 Episcopal chaplains who since 2001 have stood alongside men and women in the armed services in Bosnia, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq -- ministering to these soldiers "in harm's way," as Bishop George Packard, the presiding bishop's director for chaplaincies, aptly describes it. Five chaplains currently are deployed in Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq; others have been notified that their units are on standby for possible deployment.
Sivret, Army National Guard chaplain, had just finishing praying over a noonday meal when the blast threw him to the floor. He picked himself up 10 feet from where he had been sitting and, despite leg and head injuries, "I just started doing what God has given me to do: minister to soldiers and civilians alike," he said.
Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_86051_ENG_HTM.htm
More Features: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/78936_ENG_HTM.htm
- - - - - - - - -
To SUBSCRIBE to Episcopal Life Online, send a blank email message, from the address which you wish subscribed, to join-enslist@epicom.org and include "subscribe" in the subject line.
Send QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS to news@episcopalchurch.org
ELO provides information and resources which we consider to be of interest to our readers.
However, statements and opinions expressed in the articles and communications herein, are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of ELO or the Episcopal Church.