wfn.org | [ELD] CANADA: Bishops moved by refugee's story; PWRDF plans to sponsor 50 additional refugees / CONG

["Matthew Davies" <mdavies@episcopalchurch.org>]

>Episcopal Life Daily
>October 31, 2008

Episcopal Life Online is available at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/elife.

>Today's Episcopal Life Daily includes:

* WORLD REPORT - CANADA: Bishops moved by refugee's story; PWRDF plans
to sponsor 50 additional refugees
* WORLD REPORT - CONGO: Christian aid groups fear catastrophe in North
Kivu province
* WORLD REPORT - ZIMBABWE: Christian students say U.N. sidesteps
country's crisis
* MULTIMEDIA - Video: The Rev. Anne Weatherholt on her latest book
* OPINION - Many mission venues: Opportunities range from working
overseas to engaging political systems
* ARTS - Trinity Choir has 'mass' appeal
* DAYBOOK - November 3, 2008: Today in Scripture, Prayer, History
* CATALYST - Salem Witch Judge: The Life and Repentance of Samuel Sewall

>_____________________

>WORLD REPORT

CANADA: Bishops moved by refugee's story; PWRDF plans to sponsor 50
additional refugees

>By Marites N. Sison

[Anglican Journal] Annie Kashamura-Zawadi arrived in Toronto with her
five children, aged between 9 and 19, on October 6, 1999. She only had
$20 in her pocket, but her heart was bursting with hope and
possibilities.

Before arriving in Canada, Zawadi recalled that she "had nothing left
but my faith." She had fled an abusive relationship and, in response,
her husband had taken their children away from her and had made sure
she was rendered jobless and homeless. This happened while war was
raging in her home, then known as the Belgian Congo (now the
Democratic Republic of the Congo).

Zawadi had been told by the office of the Canadian High Commissioner
for Refugees that she and her children did not qualify as refugees,
but she refused to give up. Her persistence paid off and she was told
that they could emigrate to Canada if someone sponsored them.

"I knew only a miracle could save me," said Zawadi. Her prayers were
answered, she said, "when the Anglican church signed that magic
paper." That same week, they left for Canada.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81808_102083_ENG_HTM.htm

>- - - - - - - -

CONGO: Christian aid groups fear catastrophe in North Kivu province

[Ecumenical News International, Geneva] Christian emergency response
organizations have expressed alarm at a deteriorating situation in the
Democratic Republic of Congo's North Kivu province and about
brutalities innocent civilians are facing in a potential humanitarian
catastrophe.

The Geneva-based ACT International (Action by Churches Together) said
in a statement on October 30 that it had accounts from aid workers of
looted shops and dead bodies on the pavements in Goma, the capital of
North Kivu province.

"It has been a night of horror, but Goma is quiet now," ACT
International quoted one of its aid workers as saying. Emergency work
became paralysed after aid workers themselves were withdrawn from the
field for security reasons, while thousands of people have sought
refuge as rebel leader General Laurent Nkunda has moved towards the
city.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81808_102084_ENG_HTM.htm

>- - - - - - - -

ZIMBABWE: Christian students say U.N. sidesteps country's crisis

[Ecumenical News International, Harare] Christian students in Zimbabwe
have accused the United Nations of taking a soft stance towards their
country's human rights record while insisting that only the world body
can resolve the southern African nation's political and economic
crises.

"The crisis in Zimbabwe is worsening each day. Zimbabwe African
National Union-Patriotic Front dictators are becoming more and more
arrogant and yet the world's biggest institution is not taking any
action," the Student Christian Movement of Zimbabwe (SCMZ) said in a
statement on October 28.

Once a model of economic and political stability, Zimbabwe's rights
record has been tainted in recent years by state-sponsored violence
against opponents of Robert Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party, who have
ruled the southern African country since its independence in 1980.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81808_102082_ENG_HTM.htm

More World news: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81808_ENG_HTM.htm

>_____________________

>MULTIMEDIA

Video: The Rev. Anne Weatherholt on her latest book

[Episcopal News Service] The Rev. Anne Weatherholt, author and rector
of St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Lappans, Maryland, speaks about her
new book, Breaking the Silence: The Church Responds to Domestic
Violence.

Multimedia files are available at

http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81231_ENG_HTM.htm

>_____________________

>OPINION

>Many mission venues

Opportunities range from working overseas to engaging political systems

>By Katharine Jefferts Schori

[Episcopal Life] I had just left the subway on my way back to the
office in New York when a young man stopped me on the sidewalk. His
name is Jesse Zink, and he turned out to be a YASC volunteer, soon to
be on his way back to South Africa. YASC, Young Adult Service Corps,
sent him to Mthatha (em-ta'-ta), where, he told me, learning to "be"
rather than "do" is the hardest part. He actually lives and works at
the Itipini medical clinic with HIV-infected children, particularly in
the after-school programs offered there. Read more about his being
(and doing) at http://mthathamission.blogspot.com.

YASC is an example of mission in this church. It sends adults under
age 30 to work for a year in some part of the Anglican Communion
beyond this church. It engages the passion many young people have for
service to others, while at the same time inviting them into
vocational discernment. Go to www.episcopalchurch.org/agr.htm and
click on Young Adult Service Corps under Offering Our Gifts to learn
more.

Mission takes many forms, from working with sick children to engaging
the (Lutheran) Church of Sweden in conversation about the possibility
of greater partnership and even full communion.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/80050_102067_ENG_HTM.htm

More Opinion: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/80050_ENG_HTM.htm

>_____________________

>ARTS

>Trinity Choir has 'mass' appeal

>By Nicole Seiferth

[Episcopal Life] Three masses in 13 days. That's what the Trinity
Choir, Trinity Wall Street's professional choir in New York City,
undertook in September to complete its Haydn recording project -- that
relied on the extraordinary resources of the choir, guest conductor
Jane Glover, Rebel Baroque Orchestra, producer Bettina Covo, and
staff.

The choir's boxed set of Franz Joseph Haydn's complete masses is
scheduled for release on the NAXOS label in May 2009 on the 200th
anniversary of the composer's death. The choir began recording the
Haydn Masses in 2000 under the direction of Owen Burdick. Over the
past seven years, they have learned, performed, and recorded nine
masses as part of each season's choir concert series.

Jane Glover, an internationally renowned conductor and Mozart and
Haydn scholar, conducted the Trinity Choir and Rebel Baroque Orchestra
in March. Two of the masses recorded in September are those she
conducted at that concert. The choir learned the remaining mass,
Harmoniemesse, at a three-day retreat with guest choirmaster Andrew
Megill, associate organist Robert Ridgell, and music associate Richard
Lippold.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81827_102078_ENG_HTM.htm

More Arts: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81827_ENG_HTM.htm

>_____________________

>DAYBOOK

On November 3, 2008, the Church calendar remembers Richard Hooker, priest,
1600.

* 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 November 3, 1534, British Parliament passed the
Supremacy Act, whereby Henry VIII and his successors to the English
throne were declared "the only supreme head in earth of the Church of
England."

>_____________________

>CATALYST

"Salem Witch Judge: The Life and Repentance of Samuel Sewall" from
HarperCollins Publishers, by Eve LaPlante, 352 pages, hardcover, c.
2007, $25.95

[HarperCollins Publishers] America's nefarious 1692 witch trials in
Salem, Massachusetts were made famous in a novel by Nathaniel
Hawthorne (himself a descendent of one of the judges) and a play by
Arthur Miller. Here is a carefully researched, historically accurate
biography of the one judge on that infamous witchcraft court who
repented -- by one of his own descendants, acclaimed biographer Eve
LaPlante.

What separates Judge Sewall from the others is his famous public
repentance, immortalized in a mural in the Massachusetts State House.
Yet his courage to admit his wrong and atone for his sin led to other
inspirations. He penned a reflection on the New England landscape some
scholars point to as the beginning of American literature. He authored
America's first antislavery tract, which set him against every other
prominent man of his time and place. Then, in a revolutionary essay he
wrote not long after the scene in the State House mural, he portrayed
Native Americans not as savages -- the standard view -- but as
virtuous inheritors of the grace of God, and personally paid for
several promising young Indian men to attend Harvard. Finally, in a
period when women were widely considered inferior to men, he published
an essay affirming the fundamental equality of the sexes. To put these
ideas into historical perspective, at Sewall's death, in 1730, the
widespread belief in the equality of races and genders in America was
more than two centuries in the future.

Though the witchcraft trials would make him infamous, there is much,
much more to Judge Samuel Sewall. Drawing on documents not available
to the public, based on Sewall's extensive personal diaries and
letters, as well as archived public documents, this biography offers a
fascinating look into daily life in Colonial America, and tells the
intimate story of a remarkable figure whose influence on American
history cannot be ignored.

To order: Episcopal Books and Resources, online at
http://www.episcopalbookstore.org, or call 800-903-5544 -- or visit
your local Episcopal bookseller, http://www.episcopalbooksellers.org

More Catalyst: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/83842_ENG_HTM.htm