Northwest Yearly Meeting of Friends
April 2015
Three Sundays, Three Continents, Four Meetings for Worship: Scot Headley - Professor, George Fox University
One of the joys I have in traveling is the opportunity to worship with Friends in different countries, cultures and traditions. This past month, I had the opportunity to worship with Friends in Palestine at the Ramallah Friends Meeting, in The Netherlands at the Amsterdam Monthly Meeting, and in Oregon at North Valley Friends Church. In fact, in a three-week span, I attended four meetings for worship in three locations on three continents.
I traveled to Ramallah to visit colleagues and friends at the Ramallah Friends School. Friends in the Northwest are represented well in Ramallah, as we have two Friends who are living and working in Ramallah, supporting the work of the Friends School there. Friends are few in number in Ramallah, but the legacy and values of Friends are evident there. The Ramallah Friends Meeting House is a solid stone building that was built in the early 1900s on the edge of the sleepy little town of Ramallah. Today, the meeting house is right in the heart of a bustling city that is the center of government for the West Bank of Palestine. The silence of this unprogrammed meeting was interrupted by singing and by messages brought by the worshippers in attendance. In addition to the handful of Palestinian worshippers, there were Friends from the United States, Germany and Britain there. The central theme of the meeting seemed to be recognizing God’s call on our lives, and our responsiveness to that call. My time in Ramallah demonstrated to me that when individuals respond to God with faithfulness, love blossoms in very practical ways of service and support, and the work of God’s Kingdom advances in the midst of those whose culture and religion are very different than what I am used to. From Ramallah, I traveled to Amsterdam. The meeting for worship in Amsterdam is conducted in a row house overlooking Vondelpark, a large park in the heart of the city. My host for this meeting, Paul Arora, became a Friend in his native India. As a result of my numerous trips to Amsterdam, Paul has become my friend and has
Scot - Cont. graciously hosted me when I visit there. The silence was deep as I gathered with ten Friends there. I sensed God’s presence in our midst and waited to hear how God would speak. I was surprised at the conclusion of the meeting when I was invited to share about my experience in Palestine. Friends in The Netherlands support relief and peacemaking efforts in Palestine and were curious to know about how the Ramallah Friends School was doing. I was pleased to share the wonderful academic and community-building work occurring there.
On the third Sunday, I found myself at home in Newberg. This was Easter Sunday and I was blessed to participate in two meetings for worship. I have the opportunity to worship in both an unprogrammed and programmed meeting at North Valley Friends Church. I recognized how the joy of the resurrection is closely tied to the pain and suffering of Gethsemane and the cross. While the unprogrammed meeting was as meaningful as ones I had attended in Ramallah and Amsterdam, the joy and exuberance of the singing and proclamation of the words of life in our programmed meeting were also life giving and meaningful.
I am blessed to have the opportunity to worship with Friends from different countries and cultures. It helps me see God’s work and God’s love through different lenses. Seeing through different lenses helps me remember that in Christ, we have unity in our diversity. Please pray for Friends in Palestine and Europe, though different than us in the Northwest, they walk similar paths.
A Rwandan Adventure:
Paul Almquist - Pastor, West Chehalem Friends Church
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In February of this year a group of us from West Chehalem Friends Church embarked on a lifechanging journey to Rwanda, Africa. Lon Fendall, a member of our church, is one of the founders of the Rwanda Friends Theological College (RFTC) in Musanze. In its second year of existence, this school serves a vital role in the training of pastors. We came up with the idea of having a small group take books to donate and spend time cataloging them and also getting to know the wonderful students there. The church responded and helped us raise funds for the trip and good friends donated outstanding books on Bible study, theology and pastoral tools.
Paul - Cont. As with many of life’s adventures, there are curves in the road. Due to Lon’s health issues, he and his wife, Raelene, were unable to go. Lon knows all of the contacts there and Raelene is a librarian. How on earth could we pull this off? God provided through Nancy Woodward coming along at short notice. She has many years of experience as an international librarian. Gene Mulkey, Carol Van Wagner, Doree Votaw, Kelli Kobs and I went as well. We had the help of an excellent librarian from Kenya, Fred Amwoka, and we were able to sort, catalog on the computer, label and shelve 639 books. Our little group transported 300 lbs. of books which were added to the existing ones in the library. It was a work of God’s grace that we were able to accomplish our goal and it was such a blessing to watch the students be trained in using the software. There were many excited smiles. The library project was not our only purpose for the trip. We were also able to bring back six large pieces of luggage with personal items for the Thomas family. David and Debby and their wonderful kids are moving back to Oregon this summer. Our desire was simply to ease the load of their move. Of course we got to see the sights, shop for hand-crafted items, go on an amazing safari, drive through the beautiful mountains, eat some great food, and most of all be blessed by making new friends. Worshiping in Friends churches in Rwanda was also a huge blessing as the Spirit of God is very apparent in those meetings. We visited George Fox High School, met with yearly meeting leaders and attended a Discipling for Development class as well. We will certainly remember this experience the rest of our lives.
RFTC would love visitors and if you decide to go – we have more books we would be glad to send along with you!
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Different, Yet the Same: Rich Miller - Pastor, Sherwood Friends Church
I had the privilege of traveling to China with Shawn McConaughey and Steven Reid from March 11-28, 2015. Our first priority was to visit and encourage the teachers in Xiogan and Wuhan who are part of our Teaching Abroad program. I thoroughly enjoyed my trip and was completely impressed with the depth of character, the commitment to sharing the love of Christ, and the inherent playfulness and sense of adventure that each of our eight teachers possess. I enjoyed the trip immensely and observed that even though we are from a completely different world, and though it seems that there are immense differences, it was obvious that in our humanity we are very much the same.
I loved observing the deep and abiding love that the Chinese have for their children. It is not uncommon, however, that during the day, you would see scores of grandparents--wizened, grayhaired matriarchs and patriarchs--taking care of their progeny’s progeny. The parents of the little ones are busy working at making a living by day and then would take over parenting duties after hours. It is special to see families living and working together, oftentimes three and four generations under one roof. We, too, love our kids and though we, in our culture, aren’t socially or often times, proximally positioned for our parents and grandparents to be caretakers of our little ones, there still is the same insistence that we remain intact as a loving family whenever possible.
The long and short of it is that family is very important both in China and in America and though our familial structure and interactions are somewhat different, the love and commitment is strong and evident.
I look forward to visiting China again and I look forward to meeting and interacting with more Chinese families. Perhaps it will be because my wife and I may end up teaching with TA.
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Transformation:
Shawn McConaughey - NWYM Associate Superintendent of Global Outreach & Pastoral Care
I met her on campus in the fall of 2013. She was quiet, shy, and wouldn’t look you in the eyes. I’ll call her B. B’s English was poor and since she was Tibetan, even her Chinese was not all that good. Her Tibetan blood, which was a source of pride for her, makes her a marginalized part of China. It was this posture of “keep your head down” that seemed to characterize most of her interactions. In the spring of 2014, I took a NWYM team to visit the Teaching Abroad team. On the first day there we encountered B. Instead of shy and shrinking, she was bold with our group. She walked right up to each one, extended her hand, and in perfect English said, “Hello My name is B, and I am from Tibet.” I almost fell over. This startling change had occurred in four short months. She even took time to thank us for sending these teachers. Early on a couple of the teachers had noticed B. She was very interested in the foreign teachers and began to ask questions. They began to be intentional about investing in her, answering her questions, pointing out her strengths. This school year, one of our teachers even made the long trek to visit B and her family during the Spring Festival break. Because of these teachers’ care, B has blossomed and has become an eager student in the teacher education program even providing leadership of her classmates.
Last month I was a visitor in one of her classes. It was a children’s literature class and each of the visitors was asked to let the class know their favorite children’s book. The class then asked us the usual questions. How do you like China? How many times have you been to China? What is your favorite thing about China? How do you find the food in China? But B raised her hand and asked, “Why are these books you mentioned important?” “What could I learn from them?” What fun! The thing is, this story is repeated over and over as TA teachers invest their lives in students and share about the things that are important to them. Thank you to those who invest and support these teachers! Because of you, stories like this get lived out, not just China, but in places like Russia, Palestine, and Hungary.
If you want to be involved by going or giving, please don’t hesitate to write me at smcconaughey@nwfriends.org.
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Rootlessness and Home: Becky Ankeny - NWYM Superintendent
I was a missionary kid in the 1960s and 70s. My parents served among the Navajos and in Burundi, Africa. Such experience places me and others from similar backgrounds in the position of being “third culture kids” (TCKs). There are now studies of us— and it turns out we have some things in common. One is that we are at home and at the same time not at home in several cultures. We tend to respond in one of two ways: determined rootedness or equally determined rootlessness. Christians also are part of two different worlds, the everyday world we sleep, eat, and work in, and the Kingdom where God rules. We have moments where we fit into either of these pretty seamlessly, and perhaps even into both at once, but we have a primary allegiance to the Kingdom where God rules. Because we are first of all citizens of the Kingdom, we are not at home in this world—not truly settled. With regard to this or any human culture, we are determinedly rootless. And that is a good thing, however uncomfortable it is. Thomas Taylor wrote, “I’m but a stranger here, Heaven is my home;…Heaven is my native land, Heaven is my home…I shall reach home at last...” (“Heaven Is My Home,” 1863, alt.). I sympathize with this sense of dislocation. At the same time, I’d like to remind Taylor that the Kingdom where God rules is not our future but instead our present home. We cannot help feeling that we don’t fit in, and we never will, in the culture that surrounds us, even if it is Christian culture.
I’ve been reading Addiction and Grace by Gerald May and find it speaks to my condition.1 When I returned to Oregon from Burundi, Africa, and attended Newberg Friends Church and then George Fox College and eventually Northwest Yearly Meeting, I was a TCK looking for rootedness. And I took root in my church and college and denomination. They became home to me. I have often referred to NWYM as my spiritual home.
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However, Gerald May warns us that “we displace our longing for God upon other things” (93). I think it hurts our relationship with God to find our spiritual home anywhere but in God, in the Kingdom where God rules. It limits our experience of grace and freedom, even if our “church family” or whatever other metaphor we use makes us feel warm and secure for awhile. God has been detaching me from my desire to root myself in this
Becky - Cont. time and place. Thus I have had to try to do what God says— forgive, seek God, trust God. My heart is a deeper place now than before, and the cost is tremendous. I have valued my denomination as a home similarly to how I valued my actual home with my parents. It soothes me when my denomination sees things it values in me and gives me roles to fill—committees, boards, recording. And I am guessing that being approved as superintendent might have enhanced this attachment had it not been disrupted from the start. The turbulence in my denominational home has pushed me hard to live into the freedom of having my home in God.
May says such detachment “…seeks a liberation of desire, an enhancement of passion, the freedom to love with all one’s being, and the willingness to bear the pain such love can bring” (15). Misplaced attachments “impede human freedom and diminish the human spirit” (39. I must be aware of my constant tendency to “naturally seek the least threatening ways of trying to satisfy [my] longing for God, ways that protect [my] sense of personal power and require the least sacrifice” (93).
I hope God is carrying me a little farther up the spiral of my journey toward holy freedom. I pray I will lean into “prayer, meditation, and action,” the three disciplines May advises, and that I will be open to God’s call in “a gentle, openhanded, and cooperative way” (107). I would love to be able, as May puts it, “to face life in a truly undefended and open-eyed way” (107). I hope many in NWYM have the same aspiration. May, Gerald. Addiction and Grace. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1988.
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Updates, News & Announcements PASTORAL AND STAFF TRANSITIONS
Jed Maclaurin stepped down as Pastor from Vancouver
First Friends. He and Lizette are moving to Spokane where he plans to attend graduate school at Gonzaga University. Janelle Garman is the new Children’s Pastor at 2nd Street. Janelle and her husband, Isaac, have three kids, Audrey, Eli, and Zeke. Mackenzie Murray will be finished with her internship at the NWYM office at the end of April. Mackenzie and Mark Almquist will be moving to attend Princeton after they are married in June.
Calendar of Events
22-25 Samuel School II - Quaker Hill Camp
MAY
JUNE 9 - 12 Day Camp - Quaker Hill Camp 27 - July 2 Junior/Senior High Camp - Quaker Hill Camp 28 - July 3 Girls Camp - Twin Rocks Friends Camp JULY
2 - 6 Kids Camp - Quaker Hill Camp 5 - 11 Tween Camp - Twin Rocks Friends Camp 12 - 17 Boys Camp - Twin Rocks Friends Camp 19 - 23 Yearly Meeting Sessions - George Fox University 27 - 31 Day Camp - Twin Rocks Friends Camp
Save the Date
Aug 1-8 Surfside - Twin Rocks Friends Camp
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