Belize Pastors Enroll, Virtually,
at Friends Theological College
FUM's two Belizean pastors-in-training—Clifton Major and Christopher Luben—joined us about four years ago. I was introduced to Clifton by his wife, Athina Major, who taught at Belize Friends School. I had asked Athina for help with organizing a basketball tournament, as part of the Belize Friends Center’s campaign against human trafficking. When Clifton heard about it, he offered to help. I later learned that he was a community organizer who worked with youth groups in the community.
Since then, he has helped with organizing other community events when we conduct projects like the human trafficking campaign or peace building. When Clifton first visited Belize Friends Church, he told Judy Lumb, our presiding clerk, that the Meeting resonated with his spiritual experience, because there is room in Friends worship for people to speak directly with God and not through priests.
Since that first visit, Clifton has continued attending services and volunteering at our community center. He started learning about the Friends church, and later told us about his calling to be a pastor. Clifton felt a calling to be a pastor—but not a priest. He wondered whether one could be a pastor without being a priest. When he started attending Belize Friends Church and interacting with the tradition of Friends, he learned that God had called him to this community to serve as a pastor. Clifton is a police officer whose spiritual journey is towards becoming a full-time pastor among Friends.
We came to know about Christopher Luben when Belize Friends Church was starting. He had been living in California, where he was a member of a Friends Meeting there, and he was returning home to Belize. The presiding clerk of his Meeting contacted FUM asking whether there was a Friends Meeting in Belize, and whether the Meeting would receive Christopher when he returned.
When Christopher first visited Belize Friends Church, he asked me whether Friends in Belize allowed outreach ministry that is centered around inviting people to Christ. He had become a Friend among unprogrammed Friends, and wondered whether Friends sometimes go out to invite people to Christ. I told him that yes, Friends do that, and that our main purpose in Belize was church planting, and I did not see how that could happen without doing outreach work that invites people to Christ.
Christopher Luben, right, hands out flyers during the anti-human-trafficking campaign.
Christopher is our Friends Center warden. He spends some of his time in the community doing outreach, inviting people to come to Christ and consider attending Belize Friends Church.
Belize Director Nikki Holland and Clifton Major at an anti-trafficking event.
Before entering coursework at Friends Theological College, in Kaimosi, Kenya, both Clifton and Christopher went through a ministry discernment process guided by then-Global Ministries Director Eden Grace and FUM General Secretary Kelly Kellum, followed by a year of a hands-on ministry formation course that Nikki Holland and I taught here in Belize. While we were looking for possibilities for providing advanced training for them, the Wayne Carter family and USFW-International provided grants to support their training. Dr. Robert Wafula, principal at Friends Theological College, offered to provide training for them online. FTC will give them professional and academic training while they continue to serve at Belize Friends Church. We have already seen the fruits of their ministry in our church, at Belize Friends School and Center. We are looking forward to supporting their training to completion. We are blessed to have them as the first Belizean pastors, whom Friends will work with to grow the Friends church and ministry here in Belize.
—Oscar Mmbali, pastoral minister for Belize
We were able to enroll the Belizean students in course work at FTC based on our successful experimentation with online learning during the pandemic, and our continuing extensive use of an online learning platform. Christopher Luben was enrolled in the Diploma program, and Clifton Major enrolled in the Degree program, through Moodle, which is our virtual learning management system. Before they enrolled, they were given an introduction on how to navigate the Learner Management System. The LMS is an integration of learning content, learners, and educators. Through this platform, the participants are able to access content upon logging in with usernames and passwords. To make learning more participatory, Moodle includes a component which allows the lecturer to engage students in a virtual classroom. Upon joining the class, participants are able to see each other, as in a real-time, physical class. Assignments, exams, and other activities are done in a specified time frame. Virtual students at FTC are enrolled on Moodle to do three courses per module. In a year, we have three modules of study.
The Diploma in Theology, in which Christopher Luben is enrolled, takes a maximum of three years in a school-based (modular) mode of study. A student is required to cover a maximum of 28 courses, which cumulatively amount to 84 credit-hours. The Degree program, in which Clifford Major is enrolled, takes four years in a school-based (modular) mode of study. A student is required to cover a maximum of 48 courses, which cumulatively amount to 144 credit hours. Before students graduate, they are required to write a project paper and also undertake a two-month practicum (internship) as part of the key course requirements before graduation.
—Robert Wafula, Principal, Friends Theological College
|
|
Friends African Board of Missions Meets for Planning Retreat
Friends across FUM have been recognizing a paradigm shift in global partnership, away from a model of North Americans being mission senders and givers—with African Friends primarily being the receivers—to a model in which both groups send and receive missions. Toward this end, several years ago the FUM General Board formed and appointed an African Board of Missions. The group managed to have just one introductory meeting before the Covid pandemic struck, which left their work at nearly a standstill. Over the last two years, the Board has tried to meet by Zoom, but it has been difficult to get work organized.
During the first week of August, the African Board of Missions has finally been able to meet together for several days, in person, for an intensive time of learning, laying groundwork, praying together, and strategizing both next steps and a vision for the future. The Board recognized that this work is both deep and wide, and we frequently used analogies such as “building the bridge while we walk on it,” since we already have Nicholas and Dorcas Otieno in the field in Tanzania, and we are still creating the structures to support their ministry. We were challenged and encouraged by a thorough presentation from Peter Ng’ok, who is the principal of the Africa Inland Church Missionary College, who gave us solid examples of the ways that their Kenyan church is training, sending, and mobilizing cross-cultural missionaries.
Please watch for an upcoming comprehensive report from Africa Ministries Director John Muhanji with more information about the vision for this group, and join us in prayer that we will find a way forward in spite of the challenges of this global pandemic. God is calling African Friends, and we will answer!
—Katrina McConaughey
|
|
|
Renovaré Bible Study to use
Friends United Press book
Friends United Press received word last week that Renovaré—an international organization dedicated to Christian spiritual formation—will be using The Journal and Major Essays of John Woolman for an upcoming Book Club study. With Richard Foster’s input, Renovaré selected the Phillips Moulton edited version, which Friends United Press publishes. This book club will lead approximately 1,800 people through the study, and it will be facilitated by Dr. Jon Kershner.
 FUM’s Communications staff—Dan Kasztelan, Shari Veach, and Kim Schull—have been working on increasing Press inventory to accommodate the influx of sales of the book. We anticipate that many people participating in the Renovaré Book Club will order from Amazon, but we also expect that numerous orders will come through the FUM Bookstore website. The Communications staff routinely fulfill orders through both the FUM Bookstore as well as orders that come through Amazon, and they are preparing to handle the increased workload of fulfilling what may be hundreds of book orders, from the end of August until the book club begins in September.
In email conversations with Dan Kasztelan, Dr. Jon Kershner said, “Renovaré invited me to do the study and we have been conversing about which edition to use. I prefer the Moulton edition. It is by far and away the best. I am really excited to be a part of a reading of Woolman among people who may have never heard of him. He has been a powerful influence in my life.”
It is an honor and an exciting opportunity to have a Friends United Press book chosen for this book study. I’m grateful for the exposure of the Friends United Press version of John Woolman’s Journal—and for the income it will provide to FUM.
— Shari Pickett Veach, FUM Publications Manager
|
|
Letter from Ramallah
The new School Leadership Team meet to prepare for the upcoming academic year.
From Ramallah, Head of School Rania Maayeh writes:
We are eager to return to the vibrant, close community of RFS and our 1500+ student body, and we hope everyone will do their part to help ensure the safety of everyone. Almost 90% of our faculty and staff have been vaccinated against the virus. This will be extremely helpful in ensuring the health and safety of our children. However, RFS will be requiring Covid vaccines of all its students once they become available for their age groups.
Last year, many of RFS’s day-to-day activities, traditions, and events were disrupted on account of the global pandemic. At this time, we anticipate having the ability to restore many of those traditions—with appropriate safety measures—and we are so grateful for that possibility. Nevertheless, despite last year’s disruptions, the Class of 2021 came shining through with their amazing achievements and results in the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme.
Read more here.
|
|
|
Board Members, Mark Your Calendars
The General Board of Friends United Meeting will meet virtually from 30 September to 2 October. The sessions will include both members of the North American and African Region. Given that FUM spans multiple time zones, each session is limited to two hours. The board will meet at the following times:
- Pacific Time - 9:00 am to 11:00 am
- Central / Jamaica Times – 11:00 am to 1:00 pm
- Eastern / Cuba Times – 12:00 pm to 2:00 pm
- Palestine / East Africa Times – 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm
Zoom links and agenda will be emailed to board members.
FUM Presiding Clerk Ron Bryan says he prays that the General Board will be able to return to in-person meetings in 2022. For now, it remains our priority to protect the members of the FUM board and community, especially in places where Covid is on the rise and communities don’t have access to vaccines.
|
|
Manny Garcia Appointed Superintendent of Iowa Yearly Meeting
 At their recent annual sessions, held July 29–31, Iowa Yearly Meeting introduced Manny Garcia as their newly-appointed superintendent. Garcia has pastored Friends churches within both Iowa Yearly Meeting (FUM) and Mid America Yearly Meeting of Evangelical Friends Church. His first church was Pratt Friends in MAYM, where he was the youth pastor. He continued as a youth pastor at Middle River Friends Church, in IAYM. Then he was called to Bangor-Liberty Friends, in Iowa, as senior pastor, before taking the role of senior pastor at Northridge Friends Church in Wichita, Kansas. He went to Barclay College for his undergraduate degree in Pastoral Ministry and a Masters Degree in Transformational Leadership and Spiritual Formation. In 2020, he received a DMin from Portland Seminary, focusing on Leadership and Spiritual Formation.
Manny came to the church as a young adult, when he met the daughter of the local Friends Church pastor in Hutchinson, Kansas. He admits that the main reason he came to the church was because of that girl—who later became his wife. He never expected that he would not only have a genuine encounter with Jesus, but that he would be called into the ministry.
At the sessions of Iowa Yearly Meeting, Manny was introduced as the new superintendent on Friday night, and gave an introductory address. He called on the Yearly Meeting to live a life of sacrifice in order for the church to survive. He challenged the church to be the church, and not be afraid of the world because the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Garcia will begin serving as Iowa Yearly Meeting Superintendent on August 16.
|
|
“In peace, a common flag salute”
An Excerpt from Friends United Press
This short excerpt from John Greenleaf Whittier’s celebrated poem, Snow-Bound, presents the hope that both peace and freedom will be accomplished, after the Civil War’s “bloody trail,” through the planting of schools and the work of dedicated, idealistic teachers.
 A careless boy that night he seemed;
But at his desk he had the look
And air of one who wisely schemed,
And hostage from the future took
In trainëd thought and lore of book.
Large-brained, clear-eyed, of such as he
Shall Freedom’s young apostles be,
Who, following in War’s bloody trail,
Shall every lingering wrong assail;
All chains from limb and spirit strike,
Uplift the black and white alike;
Scatter before their swift advance
The darkness and the ignorance,
The pride, the lust, the squalid sloth,
Which nurtured Treason’s monstrous growth,
Made murder pastime, and the hell
Of prison-torture possible;
The cruel lie of caste refute,
Old forms remould, and substitute
For Slavery’s lash the freeman’s will,
For blind routine, wise-handed skill;
A school-house plant on every hill,
Stretching in radiate nerve-lines thence
The quick wires of intelligence;
Till North and South together brought
Shall own the same electric thought,
In peace a common flag salute,
And, side by side in labor’s free
And unresentful rivalry,
Harvest the fields wherein they fought.
Snow-Bound, excerpted from The Poetry of John Greenleaf Whittier, A Reader’s Edition, is available for purchase on the FUM Bookstore website.
|
|
|
August Prayer Focus:
Turkana Friends Mission
The Turkana Friends Mission began in 1970 as a mission outreach of East Africa Yearly Meeting–North. It was a true cross-cultural mission, as the Turkana people are completely different in language and culture from the Luhya people of North Yearly Meeting. The purpose of the Turkana Friends Mission was to bring the good news of the gospel to the Turkana people, and it faithfully continues that effort to this day.
 Turkana County is a vast, arid region on the northwest border of Kenya, and is one of the poorest counties in the country. The people are traditionally semi-nomadic pastoralists who raise livestock such as goats, sheep, and camels. The area is prone to cycles of droughts followed by flash floods, both of which are becoming more severe with the effects of climate change. Poverty is high, and only about 5% of adults have a secondary education. Modernization is happening rapidly, with cell phones, the discovery of oil, and a newly paved road reaching to western Kenya. Still, the people are tough and resilient and have a joy-filled culture that embodies the wisdom and hospitality they are ready to share with others.
Turkana Friends Mission brings the gospel to Turkana in many beautiful ways:
- They have approximately thirty churches in four regional monthly meetings, the newest of which just began last month. Some churches have buildings and some meet under a tree—and all know that the church is the people.
- Water is literally life. Turkana Friends Mission has been able to help bring stability to life in the form of some boreholes and hand pumps. Women and children expend much time and energy looking for and carrying water for their families, and men take their herds long distances looking for water and pasture. A safe, reliable source of water, sometimes followed by a church meeting and school building, often mean that families can be settled enough for their children to go to school.
 Education. Turkana Friends Mission sponsors several schools from tiny pre-schools up to grade eight, and even some adult literacy classes. They also nurture and manage Girl-Child Education sponsorships that allow, annually, twenty-eight girls to attend secondary schools. Without these sponsorships, the girls would not be able to attend school, and would most likely be married off by their families. Girls who receive education not only change their own lives, they improve the long-term standard of living for their whole family and village. Turkana Friends Mission also conducts leadership development and training of pastors and other lay leaders. - During times of extreme drought, Turkana Friends Mission has had an important ministry of relief food and helping people to restock their herds when they have lost many animals.
- Refugee ministry. Turkana County is home to the Kakuma Refugee camp,
 one of the largest in all of Africa. They have many forms of ministry there, including job training, income generating activities, and two Friends Churches that serve Friends from several countries who have had to leave their homes for various reasons.
Pray together with us:
- For Kalongolomoe, the newest church plant to flourish and grow and be a blessing of light and hope in their community.
- Even though the region is remote enough not to have suffered many cases of Covid-19, the Turkana economy has still been seriously affected by the pandemic and the many restrictions that are in effect nationwide.
- Turkana Friends Mission had planned for a large celebration following the 2020 Triennial to celebrate fifty years of God’s faithfulness. Please pray that this dream will be realized, and the Mission will be able to have this celebration in conjunction with a 2023 Triennial.
- John Moru began as a pastor with Turkana Friends Mission in 1994. In 2002, he became the first Turkana director of the Mission and has been a very effective leader. After twenty years as the director, he has asked to be released to follow a strong leading to reach out in mission to South Sudan. At the end of 2021, with the blessing of Turkana Friends Mission, John will hand over many of the administrative duties to Peter Loteng'an, who is been nurtured and prepared by Friends for this new calling. Please pray for John, Peter, and for the leadership of the Board as they navigate through this major transition.
- Turkana Friends Mission has had a dream of establishing a mobile medical clinic in their long-range plan. Medical services are sparse in Turkana, even for basic first aid. In remote areas, having access to a person with some medical training, common medicines, and emergency transportation can make the difference between life and death. Please pray for guidance and discernment as we develop a proposal for the clinic, and look for local partnerships and giving partners.
|
|
|
In Case You Missed It:
WCC Launches Bible study series on violence against women
Part of an exhibition organized by women’s rights group POWA (People Opposing Women Abuse) inspired by the 16 Days of Activism awareness campaign and the scourge of gender-based violence in South Africa. [Photo:Hymie Sokupha/WCC]
Thursdays in Black, an initiative of the World Council of Churches, is organizing a series of Bible studies, beginning 5 August, that will help people reflect on and respond to gender-based violence. The first series of six reflections is being launched to recognize National Women’s Month in South Africa, and particularly Women’s Day in the country—August 9.
The reflections will address critical topics that arise in societies and Christian communities that contribute to or respond to gender-based violence. The reflections will also provide diverse perspectives from the global ecumenical fellowship. The hope is that they can be used by individuals and churches, and will help people listen to the word of God, and apply their faith and vision of justice, peace and love in their contexts today.
The first in the series, by Susan Mark Zira from the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria, will be on the theme “Speak Out Boldly,” based on Numbers 27:1-11. A reflection will be shared each week and upon its completion, the series will be compiled into a book available online for group study.
The start date of 5 August is four days before National Women’s Day in South Africa, a national public holiday on 9 August commemorating the 1956 march of approximately 20,000 women to the Union Buildings to protest the Apartheid Pass Laws. The whole month of August is also declared Women’s Month.
“The significance of Women’s Day therefore is in celebrating and honoring those women from all walks of life—who came together to fight for their undiminished humanity,” states Bishop Purity Malinga, Methodist Church of Southern Africa. “It is those 1956 women on whose shoulders we as South African women stand.”
The first Bible study can be found here, and more about the series can be found here.
|
|
|
|
