Giving a little or a latte

From Episcopal Cafe:

At the Starbucks on 116th Street NE in Marysville, Washington, a chain of more than 350 people bought coffee for the people in line behind them -- either in the drive-through or inside -- starting with a woman who first came in about 8 a.m.


During the holidays, it's not uncommon for customers to occasionally buy coffee for whomever is next in line, said Nix, who used to work at the Starbucks in Lake Stevens.

But she's never seen anything like this.

"I'm really shocked," Nix said. "This makes Christmas so much nicer, knowing people care."

Some customers went above and beyond paying for the next person, giving $15 or $20 to the coffee shop. Any extra money that isn't used to pay for drinks is planned to be used for Starbucks' holiday toy drive, Nix said.

But it didn't stop there: "By Thursday afternoon, a chain of more than 813 customers had bought drinks for the next person in line at the Starbucks on 116th Street NE. The woman started the chain when she bought her regular iced tea Wednesday morning."

Room at the inn

The New Jersey Star Ledger reports on how one Episcopal priest started a homeless shelter in Monclair, NJ - one of the wealthier suburbs of the US.

"You have experienced doors being shut, is that right?" he asked the congregation last month at House of Prayer in Newark, where he is interim pastor. "Doors we thought we should have been able to go into and journey in this direction or that. Only to find another door was opened, and we stepped into that door and realized God opened it for us, and those doors have lead us to where we are today."

The doors through which the 72-year-old Renn walked on his way to Montclair and MESH include ones at Boeing, where he worked as an engineer after getting bachelor's and master's degrees in physics. Another door lead to his work as a missionary in Zimbabwe for six years. Another to Nutley, where he served as pastor of Grace Episcopal Church for 23 years.

But of all the doors Renn has walked though, perhaps the most important was the one he passed through almost a year ago; the one that took him into the bitter cold. The one that made him think: Someone is going to freeze to death.

Last January, as the temperature dropped, Renn's anxiety rose.

Each day, as he felt the wind sharpen, he found himself fearing the same thing -- that some homeless person would freeze to death huddled outside a building in Montclair, where he lived.

'I'll be right up front: My anxiety was for the township of Montclair. What a shame, what a blot for Montclair" if that happened, he said.

And then he had another thought.

"We can't let that happen."

Montclair is a splendid town, with good schools and tree-lined streets of center-hall Colonials. But behind some of those windows, and behind some of its buildings, the story is no different than in many American towns and cities.

Every day a free meal is offered in Montclair, and every day 40 to 60 people sit down to lunch, most of them residents who have difficulty making ends meet. Among them are 10 to 15 homeless men and women who avoid the Newark shelters out of fear of violence or theft. Instead, they spend their nights curled up on roofs, huddled next to buildings or wedged in some small space that blocks the wind.

Fifteen homeless adults in a town of 37,000 residents may not seem like a lot, but what if one froze to death, as seemed increasingly likely to Renn last January. What would that say about a community with so much affluence?

Read it all here

Teens support Amnesty International

Anglican Journal reports:

“Freedom for Christmas” was the theme of a November event supporting Amnesty International that had significant youth participation at St. James Anglican church in Morrisburg, Ont., about 80 km southeast of Ottawa.

Seventeen teenagers and thirteen adults wrote a total of 69 letters urging freedom, fair trials or improvement in living conditions for prisoners of conscience. One letter went to the High Commissioner of Malaysia after the church heard reports that a group of child refugees from Burma were about to be expelled

.

Read it all here.

For more on Amnesty International click here.

Sunday school gives mosquito nets

The Sunday School class at Holy Communion Episcopal Church, Rock Springs, Wyoming raised enough money to buy two treated mosquito nets through Episcopal Relief and Development. Their teacher hoped that they would have enough for one - but the kids really got excited about giving to other kids around the world.

Archbishop Sentamu cuts up collar

John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York in the UK, explains why he cut up his clerical collar. "As a clergyman I am identified by wearing a dog collar. Last Sunday I cut it up during a television interview and will not wear it again until Mugabe has gone. The people of Zimbabwe have lost their identity."

From his essay in The Guardian.

A friend of mine who has just returned from Zimbabwe wrote to me quoting what TS Eliot wrote in The Waste Land in 1922: 'Unreal city/ Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,/ A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,/ I had not thought death had undone so many.'

What strikes those who visit Zimbabwe is how many have been undone by death. Zimbabwe has the highest proportion of orphans in the world (1.3 million), largely due to the devastation caused by HIV and Aids and their related illnesses, which kill 3,200 people each week. Then there are the needless deaths every day which occur because most of the doctors have fled a health system in ruins. Most have no transport to get to hospital, or, in the unlikely event that they reach one, money to pay bills. Added to all of this is hunger and malnutrition. It is no accident that the average life expectancy of Zimbabweans hovers around 35, lower than any war zone.

The very identities of individuals, of families and the nation, are eroded daily by the struggle for life. This is the most tragic part of the history of Zimbabwe, which so successfully struggled to liberate itself from a racist rule that limited the identities of citizens to the colour of their skin. Now racism has returned to haunt Zimbabwe in a different form as the world looks on, cowed by the fear that to criticise those who rule over a land so steeped in death is to enter into the shoes of former colonial masters. Such misplaced fears must be put aside.

It is not colonialism that is to blame, but rather the ruinous policies of President Robert Mugabe. For all his bluster against Britain and those anti-colonial tirades that play well with those former freedom fighters and soldiers who now occupy government positions in Africa, the wail of suffering and the stench of death are evidence enough of the failures of a corrupt and brutal regime, bent on staying in power at all costs.

Read it all here.

Public housing issues in New Orleans

Bishop Jenkins of the Diocese of Louisiana has taken some prophetic stands after the devastation of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina. He has constantly called the government and the church to the task of rebuilding homes and lives. Rather than retreat into the safety of privelege, Bp. Jenkins has stepped out to speak for the voiceless. Here is his latest letter:

December 6, 2007

And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem: (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was not room for them in the Inn. (St. Luke 2.3-7)

One cannot read of the journey of the Holy Family into Bethlehem and fail to see a modern day shadow with the poor of New Orleans. At the behest of the Roman Emperor, St. Joseph and St. Mary journeyed to his home town, Bethlehem, only to discover there was no place for them. So it was that they huddled in a humble manager and there was born the Savior of the world. Alas, as the Christmas hymn notes, Away in a manger, no crib for his bed, the little Lord Jesus laid down his sweet head.

In this holy season, the decision has been made by FEMA that tens of thousands of families or individuals must leave their trailer homes by the spring of next year. Eviction notices are being posted even now. At the very same time, it has been decided by the Housing Authority of New Orleans and HUD that the bulk of the Federal Housing Projects in New Orleans are to be bulldozed to the ground this month. Many of those living in FEMA trailers do not have the resources to find other housing in the notoriously expensive New Orleans housing market. The Case Management system, which is designed to help citizens of the diaspora and those returned home deal with such challenges, is scheduled to end in March of 2008.

As a Christian, I am compelled to speak of the morality of these decisions. The issue is not simply one of housing or even subsidized housing. Rather, the issue before us is primarily a moral issue. The issue before us is not buildings, but people. As the Christ Child had no place but a manger to lay his head, so it is that many children in New Orleans and of the New Orleans diaspora have no place to call home. Shall America by policy treat our citizens as mere statistics or shall we respect the dignity of each person as a child of God? The numbers are huge, but as we were reminded by a thoughtful rabbi in the immediate aftermath of the attack on the World Trade Center, each number represents a human being. It is not that tens of thousands shall be further displaced but that multitudes of human beings shall again be put out - one human being at a time.

Beware the claim that low cost housing is available and going unclaimed in New Orleans. There is more to this than empty apartments. The capacity of the growing homeless population in New Orleans and those of the Diaspora to qualify for these apartments, should they exist, is compromised. Without assistance, without case management, many do not have the ability to qualify for these apartments. So, if FEMA is putting people on the streets, many will decide that if they are going to be homeless, they would rather be homeless in New Orleans than in Houston or Atlanta. We face the potential of an extended situation not unlike that we saw in the Superdome immediately after Katrina.

Community Congresses II and III of New Orleans spoke clearly of the desire to avoid packing the poor into densely populated pockets of poverty. At the same Congresses, the people of New Orleans declared that the residents of the projects should have a voice in determining the future of these homes.

Thus do I call upon the City Council of New Orleans to:

Reclaim and renew existing Federal Housing Projects in New Orleans as temporary and dignified homes for our citizens and our families of the diaspora
Develop alternative sites for the proposed, mixed-income housing rather than utilizing the sites now occupied by the Federal Housing Projects.
Delay the destruction of the Federal Housing Projects in New Orleans until such time as the proposed, mixed-income housing is developed and former residents are invited to move into these homes.
Include residents, especially former residents of Federal Projects in New Orleans, in the planning process for the immediate and long term future of public housing in New Orleans
Renew existing Federal Housing Projects in New Orleans as temporary and dignified homes for our citizens and our families of the diaspora
Provide Case Management Assistance for people in the diaspora, for the homeless of our city, and for those who occupy the Federal Housing Projects
Review our commitment to the dignity of human being in our city
Yours in Christ,

The Rt. Rev. Charles E. Jenkins, D. D.

Bishop of Louisiana

Other work for the kindom going on in Louisiana and ways you can help here.

How beautiful...

Isaiah 52:7 says:

How beautiful on the mountains
are the feet of those who bring good news,
who proclaim peace,
who bring good tidings,
who proclaim salvation,
who say to Zion,
"Your God reigns!"

A blog about the good news happening in the Episcopal Church and other churches of the Anglican Communion. I want to showcase all the good work being done by churches and their members. Places where the Good News of the reign of God is being shown rather than discussed. Send me ideas, links etc. Add them to the comments.