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Note #6670 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

Kenya Partnerships shared
by Newton Presbytery and congregations
13-June-2001
GA01111

Kenya Partnerships shared
by Newton Presbytery and congregations

by Midge Mack

LOUISVILLE, June 13 - The Rev. Charles Ringe, a minister-commissioner to the
213th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has found a
passion. As pastor of Community Presbyterian Church in Chester, N.J. he
first led his Newton Presbytery and later his own congregation and 26 others
into the most exciting aspect of their ministries, partnerships.
The partnerships are a little over five years old.  Ringe, stated clerk of
the Presbytery of Newton at the time partnership documents needed to be
signed, was sent to Nairobi to do the honors. He came home convinced, and
proclaiming loudly that what the partnership really needed to be effective,
was people spending at least six months in Kenya.
 "Since I was the only one saying this," Ringe quipped, "they sent me back
for six months. My congregation gave me a six months paid sabbatical to do
this."  Since then he has been back seven times for varying lengths of stay.
Last July his wife Esther, a retired school teacher, accompanied him.
Nairobi has sent pastors annually for six-week visits, and each May two
other representatives have been sent. One of these, Dorothy Mburia, is an
elder at the Community congregation's special partner church, Dandora
Presbyterian Church of East Africa.
Community Church is one of 27 churches in the presbytery that have
congregational partners within the overall presbytery partnership. In
addition there are individual prayer partner pairings in which members of
the Community and Dandora churches have exchanged pictures, and prayer
partners have been selected. Letters follow; family and cultural information
and concerns are shared, and sometimes personal gifts.
As a congregation, each of the 27 churches is limited to spending only $200
per year for partnership expenses. This is to insure that the relationship
is people-centered, not monetary, Ringe says.
Here at the Assembly, Ringe took part in the deliberations of the Committee
on Ordination Standards, and found the opportunity to talk about his
"passion" a welcome relief.

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