Brethren Volunteer Service (BVS) is changing its orientation and placement process. Beginning with the upcoming summer and fall units, volunteers will engage in a process in which they will be pre-placed prior to the start of orientation. Orientation, in turn, will be shortened from three weeks to one week.
On June 7, the NCC signed onto a faith letter to the US Congress regarding US budget priorities. Among our partners in this effort were the Alliance of Baptists; American Friends Service Committee; Church of the Brethren, Office of Peacebuilding and Policy; Friends Committee on National Legislation; Pennsylvania Council of Churches; Presbyterian Church (USA); Presbyterian Peace Fellowship; United Methodist Church–General Board of Church and Society; and United Church of Christ, Justice and Local Church Ministries.
The Global Food Initiative (GFI), a Church of the Brethren fund, has made several grants in these first months of 2022. Funds are supporting agricultural efforts of Ekklesiyar Yan’uwa a Nigeria (EYN, the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria) and La Fundación Brethren y Unida (FBU-the United and Brethren Foundation), a training workshop related to THARS (Trauma Healing and Reconciliation Services) in Burundi and Eglise des Freres au Congo (the Church of the Brethren in the Democratic Republic of Congo or DRC), and a number of church-related community gardens.
In this issue: Remembering Donna Forbes Steiner, personnel note, ULV announces new mural showing “Our Citrus Roots,” Brethren Voices remembers Chuck Boyer, and more.
Zechariah Houser has resigned as the Church of the Brethren’s coordinator of short-term service, effective Aug. 12. He has worked for the denomination for close to a year, having started on Aug. 9, 2021. He will be entering a chaplaincy internship.
Material Resource staff Scott Senseney and Jeffrey Brown loaded three 40-foot containers with a total of 1,120 bales of Lutheran World Relief Quilts, shipping them to the Republic of Georgia. The two men are on the staff of the Material Resources program based at warehouse facilities at the Brethren Service Center in New Windsor, Md.
Six CRC-trained CDS volunteers have been in Uvalde for the past week and to date have had 157 child contacts during their time in the Family Assistance Center.
Part-Time Pastor; Full-Time Church is hosting a 10-week discussion centered on the book How Your 21st Century Church Family Works by Peter Steinke. Based on Family Systems Theory pioneered by Murray Bowen and further developed and applied in the religious context by Edwin Friedman, Steinke discusses emotional systems, anxiety, generational transfer, and the forces that draw us together and keep us apart.
When Afghanistan fell to the Taliban in August 2021, Mechanicsburg (Pa.) Church of the Brethren member Sherri Kimmel worried about the family of a student she’d met through her work at Bucknell University. Her efforts to help that family led her to Church World Service (CWS), one of nine national organizations working with the US government to resettle the 76,000 Afghans lucky enough to reach the United States.
Trotwood Church of the Brethren will host a grand opening celebration for their Little Free Library on Sunday, June 12, from 4-6 p.m. (Eastern time). The celebration is open to the public and will include a ribbon cutting at 4 p.m. followed by a hot dog roast and family-friendly activities, including story times for children. In the event of rain, it will be held in the church fellowship hall.