By Lisa H. Towle, NECW President
In January of 2018, 156 years after the then-Hawaiian monarchs personally petitioned Queen Victoria to establish the Anglican Church in their kingdom, the National Board of Episcopal Church Women held a meeting in the Diocese of Hawai’i. During our time in Maui, the Good Shepherd (Episcopal) Women in Ministry along with the Rev. Amy Crowe, Vicar at Holy Innocents Episcopal Church in Lahaina, provided mental, physical, and spiritual nourishment.
In the picture above I’m with Louise Aloy, who’s from Maui and currently serves as the Province VIII ECW president, and Mike White, general manager of the Ka’anapali Beach Hotel where the Board had its meeting. In 1953 and 1954, Mike’s grandmother was treasurer of the Women’s Auxiliary (the precursor to Episcopal Church Women). In 2018, the national ECW drew from its treasury to fund a $1,000 Province VIII grant to benefit the Ho’oikaika Partnership, a coalition of more than 60 Maui County agencies and individuals committed to preventing child abuse and neglect.
Sooner or later, everything connects.
In April of 2018, the Episcopal Church Women marked another first by meeting in Curaçao. Home to Juditta Ellis, who served as Province IX Representative to the national board this triennium, Curaçao is part of the Diocese of Venezuela. The two Anglican Episcopal congregations on the island came together at the Church of the Resurrection, which is led by the Rev. Louise de Bode-Olton, the first woman priest ordained in Curaçao, to welcome and worship with us.
And we had the gift of time to share our stories. One of the stories had to do with the efforts in Curaçao to address Alzheimer’s disease. To this end, the national board offered a $1,000 Province IX grant to an area non-profit focused on the needs of Alzheimer’s patients and their caregivers. The visit created enough buzz to get the attention of local newspaper. That’s certainly one way of addressing the first of the Five Marks of Mission, proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom.
Sooner or later, everything connects.
Seventeen years ago, during his speech at Marquette University’s commencement, Fred “Mister” Rogers, beloved cultural icon and ordained Presbyterian minister, said, “I believe that appreciation is a holy thing, that when we look for what’s best in the person we happen to be with at the moment, we’re doing what God does. So, in loving and appreciating our neighbor, we’re participating in something truly sacred.”
In Maui and in Curaçao and in the Episcopal Church’s seven other provinces where we met over the course of the 2015-2018 triennium, we sought to “GO!” and show in word and deed how much we appreciate and want to encourage the many ministries of the women of the Church.
In July, in Austin, Texas, at the 79th General Convention of the Episcopal Church, which includes the 49th Triennial Meeting of the Episcopal Church Women, thousands of people will be in the neighborhood and we’ll have the opportunity, individually and collectively, to participate in the sacred acts of loving and appreciating.
Key to planning the Triennial Meeting was answering this question: “What does it mean to be part of a beloved community that, as our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry has put it, is ‘committed to living the way of Jesus, loving, liberating, and life-giving.’
• This is why we will be sharing the stories of and fundraising on behalf of two stellar social justice programs based in Austin: Community First! Village and the Trinity Center Shower Ministry, both of which live into the Five Marks of Mission.
• This is why all our workshops will address, in various ways, the Five Marks of Mission and how we “GO!” forth.
• This is why our keynote speakers, the Rt. Rev. Steven Charleston and the Rev. Canon Stephanie Spellers, were asked to bring their prophetic and evangelistic voices to our proceedings.
• This is why our daily BYOB (Bring Your Own Breakfast) speaker series will loop back to the foundational Five Marks and the ways we can be in community.
• This is why the devotions in our gathering space, led by our chaplain, the Rev. Cathy Boyd, and musician, Dr. Linda Patterson, will center us, remind us about whose we are, and what we’re called to be.
All are invited to join us in Ballroom A of the Austin Convention Center. If you can’t be there in person, we’ll share the news of what’s happened in the neighborhood every evening via “Triennial Today” editions of our e-Communique. They will be emailed to subscribers and posted to the Triennial Meeting section of our website, www.ecwnational.org.
We are all connected.