A group of Brethren Disaster Ministries volunteers from the Church of the Brethren’s Mid-Atlantic District served in Somerset County, Md., this week to help restore a home before Christmas.
The Church of the Brethren’s Mid-Atlantic District has called an interim district executive minister team of four people to care for the duties of the district executive minister role, beginning immediately.
Gene Hagenberger retires as Mid-Atlantic District executive minister on July 15, with compensation continuing through Nov. 30. He has served in leadership of the district for more than 13 years, beginning in the role on Aug. 1, 2009.
“Please lift in prayer families of Grossnickle Church of the Brethren who were directly affected by the shooting in Smithsburg, MD on Thursday, June 9,” said one of a series of prayer requests from the Mid-Atlantic District leadership. Three people were killed in a shooting at Columbia Machine on that afternoon, and at least one first responder, a Maryland state trooper, was among those wounded.
Brethren Disaster Ministries staff have directed a grant of $15,000 from the Church of the Brethren’s Emergency Disaster Fund (EDF) to the Rwanda Church of the Brethren. The grant will be used to help families who have been displaced by the eruption of the Mount Nyiragongo volcano. In related news, an EDF grant of $20,000–representing a donation from The Meat Canning Committee of the Church of the Brethren districts of Southern Pennsylvania and Mid-Atlantic–has been given to Proyecto Aldea Global (PAG) in Honduras for a chicken-raising project to aid survivors of Hurricanes Iota and Eta.
The 50th annual Dunker Church Service at the old Brethren meetinghouse on the Antietam battlefield will be virtual this year, and available to view online. Brethren Press and “Messenger” magazine publisher Wendy McFadden is the featured speaker and will share a message on “The Wounds of War and a Place for Peace.” The Dunker meetinghouse
—Brethren Benefit Trust through the Church Workers Assistance Fund has created a COVID-19 Emergency Grant Program. The program has a streamlined application process to provide financial support to church workers (pastors, office staff, etc.) whose financial situation is adversely affected because of COVID-19 related issues. This would include help for bi-vocational pastors whose non-church work
— Annual Conference seeks nominations for open positions on the ballot in 2020. “You can help shape the future of the church!” said an announcement. “Each member of the Church of the Brethren is invited to recommend possible nominees for the 2020 Annual Conference ballot. As you pray about this, who comes to mind? Whom will the
— Remembrance: Leon Miller, a former longterm Brethren Press employee, passed away on Sept. 12 after a long illness. He worked in “pre-press” for almost 30 years, from 1957 to 1986, when the printing presses were located at the Church of the Brethren General Offices in Elgin, Ill. For many years after retirement he and his
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.
