wfn.org | [ENS] Executive Council vows long-time support for Haiti, gives church $10 million challenge

[<mdavies@episcopalchurch.org>]

>Episcopal News Service
>February 22, 2010

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

>Today's Episcopal News Service includes:

* TOP STORY - Executive Council vows long-time support for Haiti,
gives church $10 million challenge
* TOP STORY - A summary of Executive Council resolutions
* TOP STORY - A Message to the Church from Executive Council
* WORLD REPORT - JORDAN: His Majesty King Abdullah greets archbishop
of Canterbury, Jerusalem bishop
* DAYBOOK - February 23: Today in Scripture, Prayer, History
* EBAR PICK - A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom

Editor's note: ENS Weekly bulletin inserts for March 7, outlining the
work of Anglican Women's Empowerment and the 54th session of the
United Nations Committee on the Status of Women, meeting March 1 - 12
in New York City, will be published later this week.

>_____________________

>TOP STORIES

Executive Council vows long-time support for Haiti, gives church $10
million challenge

Council also deals with lengthy agenda on last day of Omaha meeting

>By Mary Frances Schjonberg

[Episcopal News Service - Omaha, Nebraska] The Episcopal Church's
Executive Council
(http://www.episcopalchurch.org/13299_19849_ENG_HTM.htm?menu=menu19848)
pledged Feb. 22 to stand by the Diocese of Haiti
(http://www.egliseepiscopaledhaiti.org/) as it continues to minister
to earthquake survivors and plans its long-term rebuilding efforts,
while challenging the church to raise at least $10 million to help pay
for that rebuilding.

The council said (via Resolution WM011) that "Haiti's recovery and
reconstruction must be directed by the Haitian people" and affirmed
"the authority of Bishop [Jean Zaché] Duracin and the leaders he
appoints to request and direct the resources required to rebuild the
damaged institutions and impacted congregations of the diocese."

Meanwhile, Executive Council also issued a message
(http://episcopalchurch.org/79901_119662_ENG_HTM.htm) to the church,
saying that during its meeting it was "was exhorted to humility and
patience, inspired to action in the cause of justice, and reminded of
the importance of the seemingly mundane."

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_119666_ENG_HTM.htm

>- - - - -

>A summary of Executive Council resolutions

[Episcopal News Service] During its Feb. 19 - 22 meeting in Omaha,
Nebraska, the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church adopted
several resolutions, which are summarized below.

Executive Council

Approve engagement of Grant Thornton, LLP to audit all accounts under
the management or control of the Council and the Domestic and Foreign
Missionary Society for 2010-2012 triennium (EC005).

Challenge the Episcopal Church to raise a sum of up to $10 million for
the long-term rebuilding of the Diocese of Haiti with the final amount
and the eventual disbursement of the money to be done in partnership
with the bishop of Haiti (EC007).

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_119667_ENG_HTM.htm

>- - - - -

A Message to the Church from Executive Council

[Episcopal News Service] The Episcopal Church's Executive Council
released the following message to the church Feb. 22 at the end of its
four-day meeting in Omaha, Nebraska.

Additional Episcopal News Service coverage will follow.

A Message from the Executive Council of The Episcopal Church,
meeting in Omaha February 19-22, 2010

The Executive Council was exhorted to humility and patience, inspired
to action in the cause of justice, and reminded of the importance of
the seemingly mundane during the course of our four-day meeting in
snowy Omaha, Nebraska, February 19-22, 2010. Meeting in the beginning
of Lent we were constantly reminded of the Power of God in Jesus
Christ to redeem and save, in the moment and for all time.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_119662_ENG_HTM.htm

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

>_____________________

>WORLD REPORT

JORDAN: His Majesty King Abdullah greets archbishop of Canterbury,
Jerusalem bishop

[Episcopal News Service] Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and
Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem Suheil Dawani were received by His
Majesty King Abdullah II of Jordan at the culmination of the
archbishop's two-day visit to the Kingdom Feb. 19-21.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81808_119616_ENG_HTM.htm

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

>_____________________

>DAYBOOK

On February 23, 2010, the church remembers Polycarp, bishop and martyr
of Smyrna.

* 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 February 23, 1455, Johannes Gutenberg published
the Bible, the first book ever printed on a press with movable type.

>_____________________

>EBAR PICK

"A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom" from Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co., by David W. Blight, 315 pages,
paperback, c. 2009, $14.95

[Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co.] Slave narratives are
extremely rare; very few are first-person accounts by slaves who freed
themselves. Now two newly uncovered narratives, and the biographies of
the men who wrote them, join that exclusive group. Wallace Turnage was
a teenage field hand on an Alabama plantation, John Washington an
urban slave in Virginia. They never met. But both saw opportunity in
the chaos of the Civil War, both escaped north, and both left
remarkable accounts of their flights to freedom. This book is more
than their narratives: working from painstakingly acquired records and
sources for the lives of heretofore unknown former slaves, the
historian David W. Blight has discovered and reconstructed their lives
-- from slave childhood to black working-class stability in the North.
These are the untold biographies of two ordinary men, but they are
also new answers to how four million people moved from slavery to
freedom. A Slave No More is a major addition to the canon of American
history.

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