Episcopal Life Online Daybook -- Today is Monday, May 7, 2007, in Easter.
* Today in Scripture: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/82457_ENG_HTM.htm * Today in Prayer: Anglican Cycle of Prayer: http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm * Today in History: On this day in 1577, Puritan meetings were forbidden by Elizabeth I of England.
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Mission: Virginia church supports Liberian education
Unique ministry follows legacy of lady who educated former slaves
By Emily Cherry
[Episcopal Life] St. David's Episcopal Church in Ashburn, Virginia, engages in a unique ministry: renewing the legacy of Margaret Mercer, an Episcopal woman who worked for the education of former slaves in pre-Civil War Virginia.
Today, St. David's -- located on the site of Mercer's plantation ruins -- has reestablished the connection between Virginia and Liberia through mission work at a turn-of-the-century schoolhouse in Monrovia called Bromley Mission.
Mercer, the daughter of a Maryland governor, used her inheritance to purchase Belmont Plantation in Ashburn in 1840. She used the plantation to board and educate girls and ultimately included current and former slaves in her list of pupils. Eventually, she used some of her inheritance money to purchase the slaves' emancipation. She helped fund their trips to Liberia, a colony established in the 1820s for freed slaves and their descendants. Mercer, an Episcopalian, viewed slavery as "a direct violation of Christianity" and looked at Liberia as a positive and hopeful opportunity for former slaves.
Education became a crucial priority in Liberia. Bromley Mission was constructed in 1905 by Bishop Samuel David Ferguson, the first black bishop in the Episcopal Church in the United States and the first Liberian bishop. With the oversight of the Episcopal Diocese of Liberia, the secondary school provided young girls with an education in literary and industrial arts.
Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_85654_ENG_HTM.htm
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Catalyst: "Motherhood in the Balance: Children, Career, Me, and God" from Morehouse Publishing, by Catherine M. Wallace, 272 pages, paperback, c. 2001, $14.95
[Source: Morehouse Publishing] Juggling the daily demands of career and motherhood is challenging for many of today's working women. When the question of spirituality is raised they may feel as if they've dropped the ball. In Motherhood in the Balance, Catherine Wallace recounts her ordinary, and often hilarious, endeavors to stay sane as she learns to balance the demands of her career with the needs of her family, while adeptly describing the struggles of her relationship with God. Wallace examines her own encounters with a witty and persistent God who thinks that the real problem is not career-vs-kids, but call. This stand-off begins to crumble when a truce is called and the author realizes that nothing can separate us from the love of God.
"Bright, talented, hard-working, and fiercely determined to raise babies while maintaining a consuming career...Wallace chronicles the toll of trying to achieve it all...Wallace recounts...her ongoing quest to make sense of God and to stay true to parenthood, her prime profession, regardless of the tugs and pulls of modern life." --Library Journal
To order: Episcopal Books and Resources, online at http://www.episcopalbookstore.org or call 800-903-5544.
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