Annual Meeting & Lunch Sunday 1/31

Friends,

Please join us for our Annual meeting and lunch, beginning after our 10:45 morning service, around 12:30pm this sunday.  Watershed will follow at 7pm with a service in the spirit of Taize. Hope to see you sunday. 

Take Action for Haiti - FAMILY

Friends,
In addition to Presbyterian Disaster Assistance through the PCUSA, I encourage those who are interested in supporting a more local (out of Boston) non-profit that is doing wonderful work on the ground in Haiti - planning especially for the coming months and years with a focus on education, please see the appeal letter below from FAMILY, and consider supporting. Our friend, and my dear brother, Dr. David Mark is a coordinator for this group.

Dear Friend:

As the tragic magnitude of the earthquake damage to Haiti's capital city is revealed, the world mourns with this beleaguered Caribbean nation, already the poorest in the hemisphere. We encourage all of you to join with the many valiant organizations working tirelessly to mitigate the ongoing profound human suffering. We direct you to our website (www.familysystem.net) for a list of ways you can help organizations whose on-the-ground work is vital in these crucial first days and weeks.

But we also want you to consider the importance of joining with us in continuing a second wave of support, one that will be needed for many more years to come. To prevent a widespread crisis of despair, tangible expressions of hope-- in the forms of schools, jobs, infrastructure and more-- are needed in Haiti. FAMILY is at work to do just that.

In the heart of the Artibonite Valley, forty miles north of the earthquake's epicenter, a quiet revolution has already begun. FAMILY is at work with local and international partners to develop a robust educational system in the commune of Verrettes. And with the fallout from this week's disaster, our work has become that much more urgent.

We anticipate that there will soon be significant internal migration within Haiti, as people depart the capital for the provinces, including large numbers of students whose secondary schools in the city have been destroyed. So we have decided to compress our time line for bolstering the local educational system both in Verrettes and in the region south of Port au Prince. With a new sense of urgency, we will work on three key initiatives:

Build more schools. As a result of our extensive survey of schools and teachers in the spring of 2009, we identified multiple areas within Verrettes-- especially in the mountainous regions on the outskirts of the province-- where kids simply couldn't get to school. Our school-building plan will improve capacity and create local jobs.

Scale up our Teacher Training Academy. Our summer seminar series was a stunning success this year, and provided professional development to hundreds of local preschool and elementary teachers and principals. With support from the Ministry of Education and DePaul University School of Education, we will promote a culture of quality teaching through a two-year, part time, certificate-granting program. This is the first step in the creation of the FAMILY Tuskegee Institute of Haiti – our long-term goal.

Expand youth peer mentoring. As older secondary school youth return from the city, we will integrate them into our network of over forty youth groups, engaging them in projects of community service and peer mentoring in a program patterned after the successful City Year Program in the US.

We strive for local capacity building. Our work in Verrettes is done through partners on the ground-- by Haitians, for Haitians. And we form strategic alliances with relevant government ministries to ensure sustainability and replicability of our efforts. FAMILY is results-driven. We are committed to ongoing monitoring of our programs through a well-developed planning and evaluation infrastructure which involves the community in establishing and monitoring results. And our education program fits into a comprehensive plan for systemic change.

History will regard January 12th as a profound inflection point for Haiti. For now, our world has come together like a family in a heartwarming display of solidarity with our brothers and sisters who are suffering. However, the need for continued support will persist long after the glare of the news cameras has faded. Haiti's future – and ours – depends on the continuing realization that we are one family. Your tax-deductible contribution can help us continue this valuable work. We invite you to join us as we work with others to build a robust and resilient educational system in Haiti.

In solidarity,

Pierre Noel, Riche Zamour, Hal May
and the rest of the team at FAMILY

www.familysystem.net

Watershed on Sunday 1/17 (not monday 1/18) & Haiti Community Meeting & MLK Day

Friends - just to be clear - we have Watershed on Sunday 1/17 at 7pm. On Monday, MLK day, there is an event at Brandeis University honoring the life of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with a special program "A Heart Full of Grace" at the Shapiro Campus Center Theater. All are welcome to attend and seating starts at 6pm.
There is also an interfaith meeting to discuss local relief efforts for Haiti on Sunday 1/17 at 6pm at the New Covenant Church of Cambridge at 527 Main Street in Waltham at 6pm.  New Covenant has a significant Haitian American population and was founded by Rev. Thomas and Esther Saint-Louis.
And here is another specific way you can help Haiti - go to this website of the non-profit FAMILY, a group that my brother David Mark helps to organize. They are on the ground in Haiti doing important work.

Ecuador & Haiti

Thank you for your prayers for our travel seminar re-thinking mission here in Ecuador - all went quite well.   I will bring back more photos and stories when I return. But for now, let us all keep Haiti in our prayers. See Presbyterian Disaster Assistance for additional ways you can help.

Ecuador Epiphany

So, they came from the east. From great distances. They came from Iraq and Iran. Afghanistan? They took their cue from nature.  A star was their first guide.

They were clearly motivated by something deep within them – a great motivation. 

For what does it take leave your own kingdom, your own responsibilities, your own 9 to 5…. Give all that up, and begin a great pilgrimage to a foreign land bringing expensive gifts to a new born?

Epiphany.

a. A sudden manifestation of the essence or meaning of something.

b. A comprehension or perception of reality by means of a sudden intuitive realization:

from Greek epiphaneia, manifestation

On Jan 6^th of each year, the Christian calendar marks as Epiphany to remember this historic trip of the Magi – some 2 years after Jesus’ birth. This January we once again celebrate the Epiphany of our radical  savior who was born into poverty in order that we might all be set free - and for peace to come upon our earth.  As so many places around our world - especially the very same lands from which the Magi first came - are embroiled now in war, we set our hearts to prayer again.  We ask in this new year and decade of 2010 that the Prince of Peace would again be realized, and that we would each get in our hearts the true essence of his coming.  In this new year, may we look to nature for signs of the Spirit, and may we response to the call to bring the gifts we have each been given and use them to help set others free - to help bring more peace on earth. 

I covet your prayers as I am leading a group of Harvard & Yale students to Ecuador on January 4 for a week-long travel seminar Re-thinking Mission, Sustainability and Globalization.  I will indeed bring greetings on behalf of Watershed & FPCW, and look forward to sharing with you all the experiences we will have in Ecuador.  We will be there over Epiphany - so in prayers for peace and gift-bearing from our varied spots on this planet, we will be in communion.  peace on earth, Rob