Summary
Religion News Service – Last North Carolina immigrant to take sanctuary at a church goes home – Juana Luz Tobar Ortega was the first person to seek church sanctuary in North Carolina…
The Dispatch – Return to tradition: St. Paul’s May Luncheon coming back after year hiatus – St. Paul’s Episcopal Church May Luncheon, which resumes May 7 after a one-year hiatus caused by the COVID-19 virus…
Episcopal News Service – Executive Council approves grants up to $40,000 for every diocese, emphasizing revival amid pandemic – The Episcopal Church’s Executive Council, meeting online April 16, approved a resolution allocating up to $40,000 in pandemic relief for each diocese that requests it – no formal application necessary, no strings attached.
————–
Last North Carolina immigrant to take sanctuary at a church goes home
Religion News Service – Greensboro, NC
Juana Luz Tobar Ortega, who spent nearly four years in church sanctuary at an Episcopal church in Greensboro, North Carolina, will be allowed to go home beginning Monday (April 19).
Ortega, 48, is the latest undocumented immigrant to emerge from the network of U.S. churches that harbored people threatened with deportation by the Trump administration. Her Greensboro lawyer secured her a “stay of removal” from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. She expects to get a work permit in the next few days.
A mother of four and a grandmother of three, Ortega took refuge at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church on May 31, 2017, after being ordered to leave the country. She is a native of Guatemala but has lived in the United States for 28 years, most of them in the North Carolina town of Asheboro, about 30 miles from Greensboro. Her husband, Carlos, is an American citizen. […]
Return to tradition: St. Paul’s May Luncheon coming back after year hiatus
The Dispatch – Columbus, MS
Here’s something no one has heard in the past 150 years or so: The St. Paul’s Episcopal Church May Luncheon is back.
“Due to the pandemic, we had to cancel the luncheon last year,” said Gina Thompson, president of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church Women (ECW), which has conducted the luncheon since its beginning. “That is probably the first year since its inception that we haven’t had the luncheon.”
For the church, and especially the ECW, the cancellation was a bitter, if necessary, pill to swallow.
“Everyone understood why the decision was made, but, yes we were all disappointed,” said Bridget Pieschel, the publicity chairman. “The luncheon raises thousands of dollars, not only for our ministries here at the church and for charities throughout the community. So it meant we had to cut our donation budget. Knowing what that would do to those organizations was a huge disappointment.”
For that reason, and many others, this year’s luncheon, set for May 7, is one of the church’s most anticipated luncheons ever. The excitement even weeks before the event is palpable. […]
Executive Council approves grants up to $40,000 for every diocese, emphasizing revival amid pandemic
Episcopal News Service – National
The Episcopal Church’s Executive Council, meeting online April 16, approved a resolution allocating up to $40,000 in pandemic relief for each diocese that requests it – no formal application necessary, no strings attached.
The emergency relief will total more than $4 million if all 109 dioceses and mission areas request the money. The vote at Executive Council’s one-day meeting signaled the culmination of a yearlong deliberation among church leaders about how best to help dioceses and congregations weather the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, at a time when The Episcopal Church remains on solid financial ground.
Though no formal application is necessary, the council invited dioceses to engage in discernment about how the money they receive can best serve the mission of the church. […]