About 80 people gathered at Camp Mardela in Denton, Md., on May 19 to mark the 150th anniversary of the first Brethren arriving on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. In 1869, Jacob Kline and his family settled in Caroline County, near where the camp is now located. Brethren built their first meeting house about a decade later, in 1880, near Easton. Seven Mid-Atlantic District congregations are located on the Eastern Shore today.
In this issue: Remembering Monroe Good, personnel notes, job openings, Pentecost Offering, workcamp in China, Candlelight Vigil on Family Separation, African Dialogue Series at the UN, continued prayer for Nigeria, action alert on civilian casualty reporting, letter on Cuba, more.
About 150 people from peace churches, peace organizations, communities, friends, and guests–from 10 denominations and Christian traditions and 14 countries–met to mark the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the European ecumenical network Church and Peace. They gathered on May 18 for a ceremony in the Reformation Church of Moabit in Berlin to celebrate the network’s past, present, and future with the theme, “‘I will give you future and hope’ (Jeremiah 29:11): 70 years of living nonviolence and resisting militarization.”
NEWS 1) Children’s Disaster Services responds to Missouri and Iowa tornadoes2) Southern Ohio and Kentucky Brethren begin tornado response3) Eastern Shore Brethren celebrate sesquicentennial4) Faith leaders gather in Flint for environmental justice tour, plan for ecumenical water justice action5) Church and Peace celebrates 70 years of active peace work in Europe PERSONNEL 6) Lamar Gibson
Members of the Church of the Brethren’s Southern Ohio and Kentucky District have begun responding to those affected by the tornadoes that hit west-central Ohio, in and around the city of Dayton, on Monday, May 27.
Children’s Disaster Services (CDS) has begun a response to the tornadoes that devastated areas of Missouri and Iowa in recent days. CDS is a program of Brethren Disaster Ministries that since 1980 has been meeting the needs of children and families by setting up child care centers in shelters and disaster assistance centers. CDS volunteers are specially trained to respond to traumatized children by providing a calm, safe, and reassuring presence in the midst of the chaos created by disasters.
— Remembrance: Dr. Paul Petcher, former medical mission worker in Nigeria, passed away on Sunday, May 12, at the age of 96. He was a medical missionary with the Church of the Brethren mission in Nigeria from 1951-1960, serving in both Garkida and Lassa. Memorial services include visitation on Saturday, May 18, from 5-8 p.m. at
New resources of note from Brethren Press include new quarterly materials from the Shine curriculum, which is jointly produced by Brethren Press and MennoMedia; new quarterly materials for A Guide for Biblical Studies; new Covenant Bible Studies titles; a Spanish-language version of “Another Way of Believing” by Dale W. Brown titled “Otra Manera de Creer”; Living Word Bulletins for the next church year; and the Advent devotional for 2019 titled “Ready” by Frank Ramirez.
“Look at Life: A Conference Where Faith Meets Science” started with a big bang. No, not the Big Bang, although that came up in discussion over the course of the three-day event April 25-27 at Bethany Theological Seminary in Richmond, Ind. Isaac Wilhelm, a graduate student at Rutgers University, spoke on “The Big Bang, Fine-Tuning, and the Existence of God,” with an overwhelming energy and enthusiasm that helped dissipate all the travel weariness of the more than 100 participants.
The Christian Citizenship Seminar gathered 47 high school youth and advisors from Church of the Brethren congregations throughout the US, beginning on April 27 in New York City and ending in Washington, D.C., on May 2, focused on the theme “Creative Solutions to Violent Conflict Worldwide.” The event was led by five Church of the Brethren staff from the Youth and Young Adult Ministry and the Office of Peacebuilding and Policy.
