wfn.org | [ENS] Haitian bishop briefs Episcopal Relief and Development on diocese's priorities

[<mdavies@episcopalchurch.org>]

>Episcopal News Service
>January 22, 2010

Episcopal News Service is available at  http://www.episcopalchurch.org/ens.

>Today's Episcopal News Service includes:

* TOP STORY - Haitian bishop briefs Episcopal Relief and Development
on diocese's priorities
* WORLD REPORT - CUBA: Metropolitan Council appoints bishop coadjutor  for Cuba
* WORLD REPORT - SOUTHERN AFRICA: Archbishops Tutu, Ndungane, Makgoba
join campaign in support of Haiti
* MISSION - Presiding bishop's visit empowers Liberian girls
* DAYBOOK - January 25: Today in Scripture, Prayer, History
* CATALYST - The Gospel of Father Joe - Revolutions and Revelations in
the Slums of Bangkok

>_____________________

>TOP STORIES

Haitian bishop briefs Episcopal Relief and Development on diocese's  priorities

Headmistress says 'the tragedy was incredible to me'

>By Mary Frances Schjonberg

[Episcopal News Service] Episcopal Diocese of Haiti Bishop Jean Zaché
Duracin and other members of the diocese briefed two Episcopal Relief
& Development officials Jan. 22 about the diocese's relief and
recovery priorities.

The meeting came 10 days after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake decimated
wide swaths of Haiti just before 5:00 p.m. local time Jan. 12.

It was the second time Katie Mears, the agency's program manager for
USA disaster preparedness and response, and Kirsten Muth, Episcopal
Relief & Development's senior program director, have been in
Port-au-Prince to assist the diocese in the last week.

During that time, Mears and Muth have been operating out of the
Dominican Republic, the country that shares the island of Hispaniola
with Haiti. They are assisting the Episcopal Diocese of the Dominican
Republic's efforts to aid its neighbors to the west, as well as the
Haitian diocese itself.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_118749_ENG_HTM.htm

More Top Stories: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/ens

>_____________________

>WORLD REPORT

CUBA: Metropolitan Council appoints bishop coadjutor for Cuba

>ENS staff

[Episcopal News Service] Anglican Church of Canada Archbishop Fred J.
Hiltz announced Jan. 22 that the Metropolitan Council of Cuba, which
he chairs, has appointed the Rev. Griselda Delgado Del Carpio as
bishop coadjutor of the Episcopal Church of Cuba.

Currently the rector of Santa Maria Virger in Itabo, Cuba, Delgado
will be ordained and consecrated on Feb. 7 at the closing service for
Cuba's synod meeting at Holy Trinity Cathedral in Havana, Hiltz said
in a letter to the Cuban church.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81808_118748_ENG_HTM.htm

>_ _ _ _ _

SOUTHERN AFRICA: Archbishops Tutu, Ndungane, Makgoba join campaign in
support of Haiti

>By Matthew Davies

[Episcopal News Service] Southern Africa's Anglican archbishops, past
and present, are joining other church, government, business and civil
society leaders across Africa in a fundraising campaign that will
mobilize support for the people of Haiti following the Jan. 12
earthquake and a series of aftershocks that have caused widespread
devastation and suffering to the country and its people.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81808_118736_ENG_HTM.htm

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

>_____________________

>MISSION

Presiding bishop's visit empowers Liberian girls

>By Lynette Wilson

[Episcopal News Service] Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori's
visit to Liberia in early January inspired hope and confidence in many
of the war-torn West African country's young women, including the
students from the all-girls Bromley Episcopal Mission School.

"She is an example for young women to become leaders in the world,"
said Mo-Anna Jeuroulon, president of the school's student council,
following a special program to welcome the presiding bishop held in
the school's chapel Jan. 5. "She inspired so much in us."

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81799_118746_ENG_HTM.htm

More Mission: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81799_ENG_HTM.htm

>_____________________

>DAYBOOK

On January 25, 2010, the church remembers the Conversion of Saint Paul.

* 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 January 25, 1841, John Henry Newman published
Tract 90 (in a series began in 1833), an argument for a catholic
interpretation of the Thirty-Nine Articles.

>_____________________

>CATALYST

"The Gospel of Father Joe - Revolutions and Revelations in the Slums
of Bangkok" from John Wiley & Sons, Inc., by Greg Barrett, foreword by
the Most Reverend Desmond M. Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus, 321 pages,
hardcover, c. 2008, $25.95

[John Wiley & Sons, Inc.] Three decades ago in a cordoned-off corner
of the developing world an angry Catholic priest armed only with
pencil, paper, and crayons, declared a revolution. From a shanty
school shared with Buddhists and Muslims in Bangkok's squatter slums,
Father Joe Maier began his advance on abject poverty. Today, his Human
Development Foundation and Mercy Centre charity is responsible for
thirty-two preschools that have taught more than twenty thousand
children how to read and write. Despite the crippling neglect found in
impoverishment, he is raising international scholars and injecting a
sense of purpose into shantytowns and squatter camps that used to have
neither.

While extremists and jihadists rant, rave, and wrestle over the first
rights to God, "Father Joe" quietly exudes God's universal, selfless
spirit. The Johnny Appleseed of Bangkok built his preschools in the
city's worst slums without permission or legal permits. He then kept
planting despite orders from the Thai government and Catholic Church
to stop. Whenever police were dispatched to shut construction down,
Father Joe would shrug and say go ahead. "But you'll have to explain
it to them," he'd growl, pointing to the children, "and to them,"
pointing to the grandmothers and mothers.

The people and the priest grew a slum oasis this way and, today, the
Mercy Centre counts forty-two hundred preschool seats in a three-year
program that graduates seven hundred students yearly. It also has
Thailand's largest free AIDS hospice, several orphanages, a school for
older street kids, youth sports leagues, and more.

In The Gospel of Father Joe, journalist Greg Barrett tells the
inspiring story of a remarkable and ecumenical holy man in a way that
will encourage readers to believe that they too can make a world of
difference.

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