In this issue: a retirement celebration for Dave Shetler, On Earth Peace offers another webinar in “Children as Peacemakers” series, WCC shares information about new volume on Contemporary Ecotheology, and a recent Brethren college vs. Brethren college basketball game.
Brethren Disaster Ministries staff have directed a grant of $15,000 from the Church of the Brethren’s Emergency Disaster Fund (EDF) to help Church World Service (CWS) distribute relief kits and blankets and give support for unaccompanied minors following the December 2021 tornados.
Brethren Volunteer Service (BVS) will be hosting an in‐person orientation at Camp Bethel in Fincastle, Va., from Jan. 18 to Feb. 4, 2022. This winter Unit 330 will have four volunteers, three of which are coming through EIRENE, a partner organization in Germany.
The Church of the Brethren’s Office of Peacebuilding and Policy has signed an interfaith letter calling for the closing of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The office was one of 29 denominations and national faith groups that signed the letter sent to President Biden and all of the leaders and members of Congress on Jan. 11
“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” –Article 1, Universal Declaration of Human. On Dec. 9, 2021, the NGO Human Rights Committee gathered to Honor the 73rd anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was my first United Nations in-person meeting since the COVID-19 March 2020 shutdown.
Church of the Brethren membership in the United States and Puerto Rico is more than 91,000, according to the most recent statistical report in the 2021 Church of the Brethren Yearbook from Brethren Press. The 2021 Yearbook–published last fall–includes the 2020 statistical report and the 2021 directory for the denomination.
The Church of the Brethren’s Emergency Disaster Fund (EDF), Global Food Initiative Fund (GFI), and Brethren Faith in Action Fund (BFIA) announced final grants for the year 2021. Included were an EDF grant to a humanitarian partner organization in Burundi, a GFI grant to a pig project in Rwanda, and BFIA grants to a church in Maryland and a camp in Colorado.
The following letter was shared with all of the pastoral leaders in Pacific Southwest District by district executive minister Russ Matteson. The Church of the Brethren’s Office of Ministry provided it for use in Newsline
Registration for FaithX (formerly workcamps) events in the summer of 2022 opens online next Thursday, Jan. 13, at 8 p.m. (Eastern time) at www.brethren.org/faithx.
Midland (Va.) Church of the Brethren was one of two locations opening their doors as warming facilities after a blizzard brought as much as 14 inches of snow to parts of Fauquier County, Va.
