We who have volunteered our time for these purposes offer deep thanks to countless Friends who believe in Releasing Ministry. This campaign and weekly mailings have widened that circle and featured some of the ministries among us. We've presented about Releasing Ministry to Philadelphia Yearly Meeting's Interim Meeting and look forward to other opportunities elsewhere.
We express heart-felt gratitude to the many donors who have contributed the $8,475 raised to date. A portion of these funds have allowed us to move the existing website to a host server, apply for incorporation, and produce a video to further the purposes stated above. We're excited to receive pro bono services from several Friends, also.
You can help us raise the remaining $7,525! Share this e-mail with your meeting or church. Post to Facebook, Tweet, or Google+ the URL releasingministry.org/campaign. Contribute to Releasing Ministry Alliance today. And hold any or all ministries in your prayers, friends!
John Calvi is known to many Friends for his ministry of healing and advocacy against torture. His letters to friends seeking funding to release him to this work are known as “Beethoven letters.” The 31st Beethoven Letter by John Calvi, dated May 2015, follows:
Dear Friend,
Good work continues and I am well used still, after all these years. I have just returned from work with tortured refugees in North Carolina, a stop in Texas for final edits on my 2nd book How Far Have You Traveled? due out next month, and soon will teach near Boston. We celebrate the 10th year of The Quaker Initiative to End Torture- QUIT! ... Our new website http://www.quit-torture-now.org has lots of information. I am the founding convener of QUIT. After several decades of work with survivors, I wanted to speak to the root causes. QUIT continues.
You might wonder, how does the work come- usually, word of mouth...
Can it really be this letter has gone out thirty-one years and I have been working by invitation and living mainly on gifts all this time? It seems to have worked out well enough. The kindness of many people created this special circumstance where I can be of use in lots of places to many different kinds of hurt. Since 1982 I’ve worked in prisons, refugee treatment centers, schools, colleges, massage schools, religious conferences, AIDS clinics, and dozens of Quaker meetings in 4 countries. Financial support essentially comes to mean choice. My choice has been to use your gifts to be of help, to say yes. It’s made a life work and a lifetime of gratitude...
It might be that you’ve been thinking you’d come to one of my workshops, speeches, retreats sometime. Well, I turn 63 May 14th. I’ve been doing this work for 33 years. How much longer do you think this can go on? Neither of us is getting any younger! I’d say come see me while I still make relatively good sense, such as it is. This gay Quaker healer is not to be missed.
I hope you will send a gift. I know times are tight and donations don’t come easy. I trust you understand that each gift is used carefully in a simple life given to service and care. Your support means I can go out and say yes. It means more good work given where it’s needed. Will you help me now? Thank you, for all these years, thank you.