ECW Women Articles-Poems-Announcements Archives - Page 13 of 24

Episcopal Women’s Ministries Fall Retreat

September 25 and 26 on Zoom – 2020

Living our Call as Disciples – a Virtual Retreat – Led by the Reverend Canon Kristin White, Canon to the Ordinary for Congregational Development and Leadership.

ALL are welcome to participate – women, men, couples, youth; from the Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis or beyond

Registration is FREE! Here is the registration link: https://bit.ly/EWM_Fall20. Call-in, audio-only option available.

Friday Sept 25 – 7:30 PM – 9:00 PM EDT – Opening prayer, meet & greet with Canon White and other attendees, and overview of our Virtual Retreat.

Saturday 8:00 AM EDT – Yoga Session – Optional

Saturday Sept 26 – 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM EDT – Over 2 morning sessions and 2 afternoon sessions including teaching, discussion, prayer and silence, we will reflect on discipleship and learn practices to help us grow as disciples.

Please register promptly. Each person attending should fill out their own registration form even if in the same household as other attendees. For a more detailed description of the retreat, or a biographical note about of Canon White, see the EWM Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/events/303823720781051/

For other questions or if you would like technical assistance, please email Retreat Chair: Louise Boling at copperboling@gmail.com

Submitted by:

Lisa Matucheski
Secretary & Co-Chair EWM
Episcopal Women’s Ministries
Diocese of Indianapolis

Episcopal Church Women2022-09-28T17:37:20+00:00July 29th, 2020|

St. Asaph’s Prays through Epidemic Times

July 19, 2020

Rev. Joy delivers Homily

July 19, 2020

Service in Pavilion

St-Asaphs-Epidemic-Times-July-20,-20120-24-attended-service

July 20, 2020.

Twenty Four attended service

We, at St. Asaph’s Church in Bowling Green, Virginia, are now able to hold services in our pavilion next to the church. We gather each Sunday at 10:30 a.m. following social distancing and wearing our face masks.

The Rev. Charles Joy, officiates at morning prayer. Music is played. Each person has a small water bottle. It has been nearly 100 degrees many mornings in July. But after so many weeks of not having our service it is a joy to be back together thanking God for the brightness of the day and the time we can share with Him and our friends. Bishop Susan Goff has given her blessing for us to meet. We are grateful.

Submitted by: Dale Brittle

Episcopal Church Women2020-07-28T16:23:01+00:00July 28th, 2020|

St George Mask Makers Respond To An Urgent Call for Help

St George Mask Makers Haven House, a domestic abuse shelter in Leesburg, FL, had an urgent need for face masks for the 40 children in its care. Trusting in their longtime supporter, Christine Berti of St George Episcopal Church (The Villages, FL), they reached out for help. Christine sprang to action.

The ECW/Women’s Guild of St George had already distributed about 75 face masks to members of the congregation when it became apparent that every Floridian would need one. Five members of the Women’s Guild made masks and then other members delivered them to needy congregants.

Christine reached out to the Women’s Guild Board for help. The Board contacted all the mask makers (including Christine!) and Christine took it from there. Those that could help: Pat Barry, Jennifer Gore and Christine herself, launched into action and in 3 days had made 64 masks for the children of Haven House. Chris then coordinated pick-up and delivery.

Submitted by: LaVerne Collins

Episcopal Church Women2020-07-27T14:06:07+00:00July 27th, 2020|

A Breathless Moment

It is a breathless moment
when, coming to the edge
Of what confounds me,
I pause and ask myself
if I have courage
To trust completely
and risk failure,
Sometimes I have faltered,
Turned back into the
Wilderness of self-contained
existence and stumbled,
But when I listen to the
beating of my heart
I hear the voice of
My Creator calling me
to step outside myself,
And I am always held
safe and secure.

by C.C. Johnson

Diocese of Lexington
Parish – St. Raphael the Archangel

Episcopal Church Women2020-08-18T14:22:29+00:00July 27th, 2020|

Triennial 2021 Status Update

I wanted to bring you all up to date on the status for Triennial 2021. Basically at this time, we are not certain as to how we will proceed, whether Triennial will be rescheduled, held in a virtual meeting or exactly how it will evolve. We will keep you all informed as we know. Triennial is held in conjunction with General Convention and we cannot determine how we will proceed until their arrangements are confirmed. This has not yet been decided.

To date, General Convention’s Chairs and Vice Chairs, parliamentarians and chancellors of both houses and the executive officer have met to consider alternative plans for General Convention. The task group is working actively to consider various scenarios and will make a report to the Standing Committee on Planning and Arrangements. That body will make a recommendation to the Presiding Bishop and the President of the House of Deputies, who will then ask Executive Council for their advice and consent to their decision about how and when the 80^th General Convention will proceed.

All of this sounds very detailed, I know, but we must take so many factors into consideration. As many of you know, Pat Wellnitz and I serve on the Standing Committee on Planning and Arrangements. The Committee, as well as others, are exploring new ways to seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit as we go forward.

Karen Patterson Episcopal Church Women President 2018 to 2021 Karen O Patterson
Episcopal Church Women
President 2018 to 2021

Episcopal Church Women2020-07-25T19:59:46+00:00July 25th, 2020|

St. Francis Episcopal Church Sews Masks for Local Hospital

When shortages of PPE were reported throughout the nation as the pandemic took hold in mid-March, the women of St. Francis Episcopal Church in Eureka, Missouri mobilized to offer their services to St. Luke’s Hospital in Chesterfield. The volunteer coordinator at St. Luke’s asked if they could make cloth masks for the support staff giving the quantity thought to be needed in the near future. Overwhelmed with the number given them, Donna Bernert, a member of St. Francis contacted the Diocese of Missouri ECW Board, asking if they could mobilize volunteers across the diocese to sew cloth masks.

The ECW Board approved the appeal and Deborah Caby, current president of the ECW Board, Dio.MO, made sure all logistics and safety protocols were in place and put out an appeal to the women of the diocese asking for help in sewing masks. Within the hour of being published, the phone began to ring with dozens of women from the various parishes in the diocese offering their time and talent in sewing cloth masks. The diocesan ECW Board acted as liaison between individual volunteers and the women of St. Francis, and took over the administrative details.

Donna Bernert and Sally Hader, members of St. Francis, spearheaded this pickup ministry. They designed a system where sewing materials were prepared, assembled into kits complete with all materials needed to make 25-30 masks. Delivery of kits followed stringent safety protocols to keep everyone safe during this project. Several men assisted with driving and member Charlie Coleman made meals for the women at St. Francis so they could utilize their time assembling kits and sewing masks. Not a detail was skipped. In a few short weeks, over 3100 masks were delivered to St. Luke’s.

This was all accomplished without members from St. Francis or members throughout the Diocese of Missouri leaving their home. Social contact was perhaps a wave from a window, but many times, no one saw each other’s face. While the work was solitary, the bonds of sisterhood and friendship grew.

Blessings seem to overflow when doing the work of The Lord. St. Francis is a very small parish but met the challenges of shortages of materials as businesses shut down and lack of funding for the ministry, with the belief God would provide what was needed to do the work. They found friends along the way who donated materials and money to make sure the support staff at St. Luke’s had cloth masks. There were several volunteer sewers who did not attend church, but hopefully will remember the seeds of Love planted through this ministry.

With thanksgiving, the women of St. Francis acknowledge the outpouring of love from women around our diocese. The women of St. Francis have now turned their attention to sewing cloth masks for the Episcopal churches in the diocese, as they begin opening their doors for worship. Over 500 masks were delivered to various parishes with an additional 25 specially designed masks by Sally Hader were delivered to St. Thomas Deaf Episcopal Church with clear plastic inserts added, allowing worshipers the ability to read lips.

Submitted by Deborah Caby, President

ECW Board, Diocese of Missouri

Episcopal Church Women2020-08-18T14:20:16+00:00July 18th, 2020|

ECW Province 5 news – New Website

I am pleased to inform you that the ECW of Province 5 has a new website! You may reach us at www.ecwprovince5.org Our intention is to have the most up-to-date information about programming across the region. As so many events will be held via videoconferencing, we’re seizing the opportunity to share events that otherwise would be more local in attendance. Our annual meeting was held online in April and our attendance was a bit higher than our previous year’s meeting, but it also included women who would not have attended an in-person meeting.

The Diocese of Chicago also has a website, www.ecwchicago.org. The fall programs are still in development so it’s not as updated as it will be later this summer.

And the third news item is our Province 5 video on the women in the Episcopal Church. “Connecting with History, Shaping the Future” is our 4 ½ minute video including historical information about women in the church, affiliated women’s organizations and current/recent service projects from several dioceses in the province. We presented the first version of this program last summer at the Province V “Big Provincial Gathering” as part of the ECW workshop but it has been improved and background music has been added. You may link to it with this link as well as find it posted on YouTube. https://youtu.be/-Rthbg2JwPs

We’ve been busy and we have no plans to slow down!

Beth Petti

VP Province 5

Episcopal Church Women2020-07-17T15:12:16+00:00July 17th, 2020|

St. Gregory’s ECW Awards Scholarship

Three years ago the Episcopal Church Women of St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church in Boca Raton, Florida started a scholarship program that we offer each year assuming we are blessed with successful ECW fundraising efforts which include the generous donations of our greater church parishioners. We started this program in support of the National ECW organization. We were particularly interested in aligning to the mission’s goals of bringing aid to women to help them become equal partners within their communities; and to provide an opportunity for women to improve life for themselves, their families, and their communities. This scholarship was created to support all women aspiring to complete an education in whatever training/academic program they choose and women of any age can apply.

Our scholarship initially began with an award of $500.00 and then we were able to raise the offering to $1,000.00 for 2020. Each year potential award winners complete an application and send supporting documentation to our committee and chair for review and consideration. If an applicant is selected, the recipient is notified and we arrange to award the scholarship in church. This year, however, due to Covid, we were still able to provide an award in a virtual Town Hall via facilitated by Reverend Andrew Sherman.

Thank you! Please let me know if you have any questions.

Blessings,

Kathryn (Kathy) Cottrell

Boca Raton, Florida

Episcopal Church Women2020-07-17T15:06:11+00:00July 17th, 2020|

Annual Province V ECW Meeting on May 2020

I attended the Zoom meeting of the Annual Province V ECW Meeting on May 1st and 2nd. The presidents met on May 1st. We had 57 members for the May 2nd Zoom meeting. It started with the Business Meeting, where we elected the 2021-2024 Reps. To CPC, NECW and UTO. Then we had 15 minutes of music between our speakers. Our speakers were The Rev. Rosalind Hughes, “Responding to Gun Violence”, Church of the Epiphany, Euclid, Ohio; for more information about gun violence you can go to Bishopsagainstgunviolence.org; Ms. Shelby Kretz, “Little Justice Leaders”, littlejusticeleaders.com, she creates books for children; and the Rev. Kay M. Houck, “Her Way of Love”, herwayoflove.com. I highly recommend you look at their websites. Ms. Kathy Mank, Province V ECW President and Ms. Beth Petti, Province V ECW Vice-President did a great job putting this meeting together.

On June 10th, the Diocesan ECW had a Zoom meeting titled: “Diocese of Missouri Zoom Connections Event”. The Rev. Dr. Maria Evans is interim rector at Christ Church in Rolla, MO and is also a pathologist, a laboratory medical director, and has served on hospital infection control committees for more than 30 years. Her topic title is “Living Life on the Fly: Holy Humor & Absurdities”. She showed us where there is humor in the Bible. We participated in 2 break-out groups and discussed the humor we have experienced during the pandemic. They are planning more of these “Zoom Connections Event”.

Jan Goossens

Province V Rep.

Episcopal Church Women2020-07-17T13:47:24+00:00June 25th, 2020|

Announcing our New Website

Over the past three months we have rebuilt our website. We’ve included a lot of upgrades that allow us to share what our members are accomplishing and provide you with timely news about the Episcopal Church Women. One of the lessons we’ve learned during this pandemic is that our members want to feel connected with each other and learn about the trials and successes of our ministries.

It’s been a daunting task to take the old website and upgrade it to modern standards but in this process, we’ve learned so many wonderful things about our past.

We are also creating a weekly Women in Action – News Blast email. This allows us to keep everyone informed about ECW news. We’ve been doing this for several months with our Facebook page and the response is overwhelmingly positive. As we send out these news blasts, we are also including articles, poems, prayers, and other stories that speak to our desire to serve Christ.

Our goal is 3000 monthly visitors to the website by the end of this Triennial. At present, we average about 600. This is a bold challenge and one we’ve discussed for several months. Can it happen? Yes, and here’s how…

We need your stories: short articles, poems, prayers, photos from your weekly meetings.

Are you making masks—we want to hear about it.
Did your group raise scholarship money—tell us and we’ll post the story on the national website.
Did your local newspaper do a story on your group—send us that too.

*******************

Tell us what you’re doing and we’ll share your accomplishments around the world.
Send stories, poems… to editor@ecwnational.org

Are you ready to see the new website….

National Episcopal Church Women
ecwnational.org

Karen Patterson Episcopal Church Women President 2018 to 2021

The NECW Board hopes that each of you will enjoy the new website and our weekly news blast.

You all amaze me in all that you do and try.

Never forget that there is no failure in trying, you come out a better person in the end for it. I am so proud to be your National President. It is a joy and a pleasure to serve!

Ms. Karen O Patterson

Episcopal Church Women2020-06-03T20:37:57+00:00June 4th, 2020|