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+ Feeding the Homeless
+ Barbados Mission Trip
+ My Experience with Habitat
+ Service Fridays
+ Yokefellows
Several parishioners have written about their use of discretionary time in outreach. These reports are only a small part of the large and vivid picture of our parish at work in the community.
Larry Hart
Jesus asks us to love one another as he loves us. In Matthew 25, Jesus said, "I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink ... As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, so you did it to me." Who "the least of these" are is not spelled out, but one could presume they would include the poor, homeless, outcasts, and prisoners. Thus, if we profess to be Christians, I believe we need minister to the "least of these."
There are two teams of Chapel of the Cross parishioners who prepare and serve monthly meals to homeless guests at the Community Kitchen and Shelter on West Rosemary Street. Our team serves dinner on the third Friday of each month, while the other team serves lunch on a Tuesday. Typically, we arrive at the community kitchen about 4:30 p.m., greet one another, and assess the availability of dinner food, including meats or casseroles, vegetables, salad ingredients and fruit, breads and desserts. The food comes from a variety of sources, especially campus dining halls, restaurants, local supermarkets, and the Carolina Inn. There are funds for buying food if necessary, although in my nearly two years on the team, there has always been enough, if sometimes just barely. Typically, we serve 70 to 80 guests as well as seconds if enough remains. Sometimes there are treats for the guests. Recently the kitchen monitor baked two large pans of peach cobbler just as we arrived! The guests are pleasant and often express hearty thanks to all on our team. In this small way, we serve God and our brothers and sisters.
Currently, the Friday meal team includes Carolyn Rugen, Dina Urquhart, Hugh Tilson, Ann Weller, Jeffrey Cline, Martha Hart, and Larry Hart. Johnson Interns Amy Grizzle and Marsha Hamilton also have recently joined us. Since not everyone can be there every time, we've found that four or five people can manage. We would welcome 'new blood.' If interested in this lay ministry, please call Carolyn Rugen or Dina Urquhart.
Matt Curtis
Sunny beaches, incredible natives, and God's awesome presence -- that's the only way one can sum up the incredible experience had by all on the 2002 Episcopal Campus Ministry spring break mission trip to Barbados. The beautiful people of Barbados challenged us to reexamine truly who we are and what we stood for. Each day we were challenged to take on a new and surprising task, which we gladly undertook.
After a nine-hour plane trip and lost luggage, we started out in true Barbadian style: go with the flow. Thankfully, we received our luggage 48 hours later. Staying in the Cathedral house in Bellville, we were a half-mile away from Bridgetown (the capital city). Here we were lucky enough to live and interact with real Barbadians, in the most un-touristy area possible. These incredible people shared with us their problems, thoughts, and dreams. I have never met a nicer group of people in my life.
Waking up at the crack of dawn each morning, ECMers fanned out over the Bajan Island to do God's work. We hammered, sawed, painted, sang, and even did some evangelical work on the side. It is an experience I cannot even begin to explain. Our work projects can only be summed up in one word: diverse. One work project led us to St. Andrews' Parish, one of the oldest on the island. This beautiful open stone parish and its incredible landscape touched us all. The rector and parishioners fed us an incredible Bajan meal, and their stories to accompany it. In another project, we were sent out in small groups with a Bajan parishioner to minister to the sick. While none of us knew exactly what to expect, it turned out to be one of the most powerful experiences of the trip.
Barbados taught us about life, friendship, and, more importantly, God's incredible and awesome presence. The Bajan people taught us something more than a year at college ever could: real life. We realized that it's not money, success, or that new car that fulfills your life, but true friendship and God's incredible love. Ultimately, we learned things that touched the inner core of our being, things that we'll never be able to explain. The memories and feelings from this trip will stay with us forever.
We sincerely thank everyone for their support and backing on this trip. It means more to us than you could ever know.
George Evans
When Blair and I retired and moved to Chapel Hill, one of the first things we had to do was find a church. Fortunately we found the Chapel of the Cross. Being newcomers we wanted to find ways to become active in the parish. As luck would have it, I read about the new Habitat for Humanity Partnership that was being reactivated through the efforts of Henry and Blanche Clark. Henry and Blanche are big supporters of Habitat, and they wanted to get Chapel of the Cross to work with UNC students to build houses for Habitat. The partnership was in the fundraising stage when I joined, but I told the leadership that my talents were more in the construction phase. As it happened, that was just what they needed for the next step as the fundraising effort had been very successful.
At this time Orange County Habitat was much smaller than it is now. They only had one full time paid construction supervisor and generally built one house at a time. My role was to meet with the supervisor to find out what work was planned for the coming weekend. If there was something that I did not know how to do, he would give me instructions. Our work shifts were Friday afternoon and all day Saturday. My role was to get the students organized and to show them how to do the tasks assigned. Partnership volunteers supplied lunch and snacks on Saturday, and the fellowship was very nice.
It is a Habitat requirement that the family that will occupy the house must work on the construction of the house. One of the pleasures of Habitat work is getting to know the families. For each of our houses we have been blessed to have hard working people who felt that the Lord had a hand in allowing them to be selected. The students have also become involved with the families by taking care of the children while the parents work on the house. I believe that this exposure has been a gift to both the children and the students.
Today Orange County Habitat and our partnership are much bigger organizations so that several houses are under construction at all times. This means that our partnership has more support to allow us to make a wonderful contribution to the affordable housing needs and to grow our association with the students and the Habitat families.
Caroline Alexander, Chaplain's Assistant for Service and Outreach
For the past couple of years the Episcopal Campus Ministry (ECM) has been dedicated to doing public service in the community. We have worked with EmPOWERment, Inc., and the UNC-Chapel of the Cross Partnership of Habitat for Humanity. We've also taken mission trips to Ashe County, NC, and eastern NC after Hurricane Floyd. The students, however, have recently sought more opportunities to help their neighbors. Last summer the past three student leaders in charge of service and outreach, in an effort to take advantage of this energy and enthusiasm, developed a weekly service program affectionately titled "Service Fridays."
As Christians, God has commanded us to love our neighbors (Luke 10:27). Jesus calls us to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, take care of the sick, visit those in prison, and receive strangers (Matthew 25:35-40). In the Gospel of John, Jesus asks, "Do you love me? Feed my sheep." Our program sets aside time every week to actively serve God's people. We began with the same traditional service activities and through the help of the Social Ministry Committee have expanded to volunteer for more than 10 organizations. Our service times have also expanded, sometimes taking over the whole week with the Special Service for the Developmentally Disabled on Monday night; Yokefellow Prison Ministry at the Orange County Correctional Facility on Tuesday after ECM; playing with the six children of the Parish Host Family on Thursday evening; working on a project with EmPOWERment, Habitat, or Orange Congregations in Mission on Friday afternoon; and then leading the music at the services at Carol Woods or Carolina Meadows on Sunday!
Our service program has included more than 50 activities and involved 60 members of the ECM community. Together we've given over a thousand hours of service, not including our recent 10-day mission trip to Barbados and other continued service to the parish by becoming acolytes, serving as Lay Eucharistic Ministers or leading EYC. As the program grew, one of my personal goals was to give 40 student hours of work each week so that ECM would be, in effect, sponsoring a full-time position. This semester we have achieved that goal more weeks than not.
The variety of service projects has allowed students to find a place where their greatest passions and the community, needs coincide. Peter has become a master of soffit, while Lauren loves to shingle. Henrietta will sing for any group and Becky draws intricate artwork for inmates. Hayward, Carolyn, and Steve excavate cars from neighborhood dumps, and Laura Cole helps inmates with their fiction and autobiographies. At the end of the season Ben will go 'pro' at swinging the incense. It is a hope of this program that each student has found a permanent way to serve God through serving others.
You too can create your own service Friday program. Pick a time of the week that you usually have free (On Fridays all the students I know take naps Š) and decide to dedicate it to God's people. Searching out a worthy project is the easiest part. The Social Ministry Committee and the ABC Sale Committee have a list of a hundred organizations to help. Call them up. One of our favorite ECM songs sums it up: "Won't you let me be your servant, let me be as Christ to you: Pray that I may have the grace to let you be my servant, too."
Fran Finney
For some years I had thought I would like to look into the prison ministry, but it wasn't until my last child started college that I gave it serious thought. Or, to be more exact, serious impulsive discussion. One evening while leaving the church I thought, "This is the week I'll start going to the prison." And on the following Tuesday I started on the first of many evenings at the Orange County Correctional Unit. It was and continues to be a satisfying, frustrating, sad, joyful, and fulfilling journey.
In the winter the meetings take place in the over-heated mess hall, with the acoustics of a rock concert, and in the summer in an outdoor visitor's area with picnic tables. In either location you sit and talk with one or more of the inmates and listen, really listen, to what they want to talk about. It's not about Bible study or giving good advice or offering your opinion but about making yourself quiet so you can hear what is being said to you. I am grateful for this opportunity to listen and share. .
And sometimes it's heart breaking. Children growing up with a father in jail and a mother or grandmother trying to make it on her own. Their realization that this is their story playing out again in their children's lives. The plans for "when I get out" that you (and they) know are more dreams that reality. (Prison tends to make you a realist.) But often it's joyful. The sister that had given up on them coming to visit and offering her home when they get out. A course they're taking and doing well in, a book they're reading that says something to them. "You should read this, Fran, it's got some good things in it." And sometimes it's just talk between friends -- looking at a picture a child has drawn, sharing the photos of a family, memories of good times. And sometimes funny. "If God watches over me, why didn't He say, 'Run, Willie, look who's coming up the street behind you!'?" It is watching the faces of the men as they come in searching for someone they want to see, anxious, ready to be disappointed and then finally that huge smile of recognition and relief. And the litany that follows you as you leave: "Drive carefully"; "Come back next week"; "God bless you"; accompanied by touches on the shoulder and embraces.
And particularly I am grateful for the company of the other volunteers who come each week bringing and receiving the gifts of caring, listening, and companionship. They come with willing hearts so that we can all share the yoke of Christ.
© 2002: Chapel of the Cross
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