It Was a God Moment
By Samar Fay
It almost didn’t happen. A minute or two either way and two women would never have reconnected threads that were about 50 years old.
Mary Hansen Wolfe, pictured right, and her niece were traveling in the fall of 2016, heading back to Mary’s home in Salida, Colorado, after a painting trip to the Vermilion Cliffs in Arizona. On a whim, Mary suggested they detour a bit to Navajoland in the northeastern corner of the state to visit the school where she had been a guidance counselor and head of the dormitory back in 1967-68. Nazlini is still a tiny community of about 500 people, home to a Bureau of Indian Education boarding school. The dormitory housed about 140 children in Mary’s time, kids who lived too far away to travel back and forth every day.
It took them a while to find the school because the roads and landmarks had changed. The school building and dormitories were replaced in the 1980s. They walked around the buildings, aware that they would immediately be seen as strangers and hoping not to be intruders. When a door opened and a woman stepped out, Mary identified herself as the one who had run the dorm 50 years ago.
“You wore a leather bracelet,” the woman said. “You played the guitar and sang ‘The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night’ and you took us on wonderful hikes. You’re Miss Hansen.”
This woman was Lorraine Nells, who was a second-grader when Mary was at Nazlini School.
“It was a God moment,” Mary said later in an interview. “One minute sooner or later and we wouldn’t have met.”
Lorraine, who works at the dormitory, and Mary chatted for a while about the changes in the K-6 school, which boarded about five students last school year, now that the district has school buses. Mary later received a letter from Lorraine, asking for prayers for the school.
Mary related this experience at a mid-week healing service at her home church in Salida, the Episcopal Church of the Ascension. Ascension’s rector, The Rev. Melissa George, asked if the church could help – and so a campaign began. During the winter of 2022 and into the spring, the church collected donations of children’s clothing, shoes, books, toys, games and art supplies, plus bedding and shelf-stable food. Donations and help also came from Ascension’s mission church, Little Shepherd in the Hills, in Crestone, Colorado. Volunteers sorted and boxed the donations in the church undercroft.
In early April, the boxes were blessed and loaded into three vehicles, and the caravan made the three-day round-trip to Nazlini.
The donations will help not only the children in the dormitory, but also their classmates in school. Perhaps when they put on a warm winter coat or read a story book, they will remember that their teacher has a friend from a long time ago, and threads of friendship last a long time. They can grow, too, and encircle new people in a church who learned about Navajo children and care about them. The church hopes to maintain a relationship with the school.
El segundo piso del edificio “La Colaboración Renacentista” en Chicago, IL. tiene un portal al pasado. El antiguo edificio de la YMCA ha renacido como servicio de apoyo y lugar de vivienda asistida para los habitantes de Chicago que lo necesitan. Como ocurre con todos los edificios antiguos, algunas cosas funcionan y otras no. El ascensor de entrada no es una excepción y forma parte de los aspectos que no funcionan en los proyectos de renovación de edificios antiguos. Sin embargo, cuando la Junta Nacional visitó el lugar en la primavera de 2023, erigieron alegremente las antiguas escaleras de mármol y, al hacerlo, se sumergieron en un edificio que irradiaba historia y un legado imperecedero.
Hablar del edificio como una entidad singular ilustra la dedicación de la comunidad por la estructura, pero aún así, los cambios culturales provocados después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial cambiaron la sociedad de muchas maneras. En la década de 1960 se sintieron tiempos difíciles y en 1969, la entidad del YMCA fue cerrada. En 1982, Wabash YMCA se vendió a la iglesia episcopal vecina de Santo Tomas por un dólar.
La Junta Nacional recientemente aprobó una subvención para las vacas. Las Vacas Lecheras para niños en el Sur de Sudan. La Señora Kate Jacobs, encargada de la Justicia Social para la Junta, anunció la subvención vía correo electrónico: 
Cristianos Unidos por el Evangelismo, Educación y Desarrollo (Siglas en ingles CUEED) es una organización sin fines de lucro, y apolítica fundada en el año 2010 y actualmente operada en el condado de Rual en Awan Pajok, diócesis de Gogrial en el Sur de Sudan.
Mira Washington from Church Women United, CWU, spoke to the board this past Saturday while they all met in Syracuse for a board meeting. She went on to visit with the board members for the rest of the weekend and shared many delightful stories about the lives of Christian women and how their dedicated service is honored around the world.