In November 2007, three missioners from the diocese visited the Diocese of Bor, our companion diocese, in Sudan.

By the Rev. Ellen Hanckel

As I look at the photos on a cold winter day, the trip to Southern Sudan last November warms my memory, bringing to life many incredible experiences that transform a lifetime. Six of us from North America joined with two companions from Sudan and together we traveled for two weeks to places whose names roll off the tongue like the names of unfamiliar Old Testament prophets. After leaving the bustling city of Nairobi, our destinations included: Lochichoggio and Kakuma (Kenya); Panyagor and Paliau (Sudan); and ultimately Maar – the most remote place we visited.

By Erin Harden

Those of you in attendance at Council may have noticed a large group of young people sitting at two front tables in the main ballroom. I wish everyone could have seen us because it was the largest-ever group of 18- 30-year-olds for Young Adults@Council. There were thirteen of us from many different walks of our young adult lives—some of us who are still in college, some of us who work full-time.
Our weekend started Friday night at the home of the Rev. Jonathan Harris for dinner followed by Eucharist at St. John’s. On Saturday, we started with breakfast at Ernie’s on the market and then to Hotel Roanoke to participate in Council sessions. Our nights were spent at Christ Church, Roanoke with discussion and fellowship.
Our theme for the weekend was mission. We talked about the ONE campaign to eradicate extreme poverty in the developing world. Sarah Nagy, Grace, Lynchburg, shared a little about her work with the epidemic going on in Darfur. Will Urbanski was unable to make it for the weekend so I did the best I could in sharing his story about his work with orphans who have AIDS in Kenya. These are just two of the many young adults who are passionate about mission throughout the world and the United States. It’s amazing what the young people of this diocese have to offer.   
The weekend was a huge success thanks to the support of Jonathan Harris and the talents of Beth Crow, St. Peter’s, Callaway. Young adults are often overlooked in the life of the church. After youth graduate from high school, there is sometimes little to become involved with as far as offerings targeted specifically at our age group organized by the Episcopal Church. Several colleges have church-affiliated campus ministry but what is there for those who do not go to college or who are out of college? I challenge our diocese not to forget Young Adults when planning church ministry and to please support us in many ways including with prayer.
-Erin Harden is a recent graduate of Radford University and is a parishioner at Christ Church, Roanoke.

Diocesan Youth Coordinator Aimee Bostwick and Interim Youth Coordinator Dick Willis share their reflections on Youth @ Council 2007.

Dick said:

"Even after we have returned home, our lives still contain echoes of Youth@Council. We’ve got our yarn “warm fuzzies” hanging from our rear view mirror, I’m wearing my ONE.ORG wristband, and we are looking for ways to turn a funkily beautiful, spiritually powerful 8-by-4-foot puzzle into a youth altar and T-shirts and postcards.
Several months ago, YMT started planning for Youth@Council and decided on “Jesus’ World Tour” for our theme. We talked about how to build a big puzzle, with each participant contributing a piece, not knowing how the final work would turn out.
Aimee joined us for our final design meeting, and we realized that the thread that would pull our whole weekend together had been found – ONE.ORG . This movement, connected to the Millennium Development Goals, is becoming more and more effective at dealing with global poverty, famine, and improving education and human freedoms. After watching a video about ONE.ORG , we realized that we had found a wellspring of ideas to “power” the weekend.
And we were right! We broke last year’s attendance record (137 participated), we had very successful mission sites and our workshops were really fun (especially the yoga workshop which put several of us in a trance). But it was the Friday night Marketplace of Religions and Saturday night Eucharist services that blew people away.
We picked four religions to explore in a world religious marketplace – Judaism, Hinduism, Islam and Buddhism. The YMT created presentations about the religions, and a “sensory experience” – for Buddhism we drank green tea, for Judaism we wrote prayers and then stuck them into our “Wailing Wall,” for Hinduism we passed around statues of Ganesh and Shiva, and we knelt on prayer rugs during our Islam visit. It was great in a very chaotic and loud and colorful way.
We had each been given one or two puzzle pieces to color, and a scavenger hunt to answer questions on the back. All of the questions were about other countries so we could learn more about them. If we answered the questions correctly then we learned the coordinates for placement of our puzzle piece.
As we came down to worship, we put our pieces together. Then, under darkness, we processed with the puzzle carried high above our heads, singing and wondering what it looked like. As the puzzle was laid down, we saw that we had put together a picture of the world held together by Holy Spirit. The YMT moved from the center of the room outward, speaking prayers in foreign languages, spreading the fire of God from the Paschal candle to others who then spread it around the room lighting everyone’s candles. Singing in the dark, sharing the bread and wine with new friends and old ones was amazing. And, the best part of a weekend filled with best parts, was that someone had written the word “ONE” on their puzzle piece, and that piece just happened to be in the palm of God.
We were tired at the end of the weekend to be sure, but we also realized that we had been part of something very powerful, that will continue to guide us in the months and years ahead.
Bekummawannapiskapaylyan*. "

-Dick Willis was interim diocesan youth coordinator in late 2006.

*"Become a ONE Episcopalian."

By Bill Lindsay

The Rev. Christopher Webber, a noted author of books on the Episcopal Church, was the guest speaker at the annual dinner of the Legacy Society of the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia on January 25th. Bishop Neff Powell hosts this dinner each year on the evening prior to Council to honor Society members, now numbering about 150. Members have indicated that they are remembering the church in their estate planning.

Participants share highlights of some of the educational opportunities at Council.

Get Connected

Alan Boyce, II presented tips and techniques for website development during a Saturday afternoon session attended by six aspiring parish webmasters.
The theme of the workshop was “SAS,” or “Software as Service” – the use of software and websites to facilitate collaboration on projects, to streamline communications between interested parties, and to allow team members to access and update websites using simple website editors that do not require knowledge about HTML tags or uploading of files.
A list of tools, many of them available at no cost, may be viewed at a website prepared by Alan at:
http://del.icio.us/alanboyce/getconnected2007 . To link to existing parish websites, browse through parish pages at:
www.dioswva.org/parishes .
-Dick Litton is a member of Trinity, Buchanan.


Booker T. Washington and Slave Religion

In a very interactive workshop with Park Ranger Timothy Sinclair from the Booker T. Washington National Monument, discussion centered on Washington’s life and the dichotomy of slavery and religion.
The first question posed to us was “What is a slave?” Answers included “someone no longer in control of their lives,” but Sinclair narrowed it down to “a piece of property that can be utilized, abused, destroyed and sold.”
Booker T. Washington was born as a slave in 1856. He, his mother (the cook) and two siblings lived on the Burroughs farm in Franklin County. Sinclair described Booker’s earliest memories as a working 5-year-old. Two of his jobs were to take water to the slaves in the field and to operate a pulley/paddle system which kept flies off of the food at the Burroughs dining table. At the same time, he may have had only a half of a potato or the last bits of corn from the pig trough to eat.
In the early years of slavery, many went to the same churches as their owners. However, when they heard preaching that declared all Christians created equal, slaves started to question whether baptism would help them to be free. Once the owners got wind of this, the slaves were no longer allowed to attend the same churches.
Much of slave religion was a mixture of their traditional polytheistic beliefs and Christianity. Sinclair described Washington’s conviction that the “old negro spiritual” was one of the most original and beautiful products of this merger during a most tragic time in history. These songs expressed the anguish, joy, hope, trials and tribulations of slavery. They were sung in the fields to let the overseer and the owner know of their hope for freedom when they died.
Washington recalled awakening in the middle of the night to his mother on her knees weeping in prayer for Lincoln to win the war. In 1865, when a man in a blue uniform read the Emancipation Proclamation, he saw those tears again but this time, they were tears in thanksgiving for answered prayers.
Booker T. Washington eventually went to college, became president of the Tuskegee Institute and was one of the most influential African-Americans during the first part of the 20th century.
-Dr. Teri Dunton is a member of Christ Church, Big Stone Gap.

New by diocesan authors 

•Dr. Peter Crow, a professor of English at Ferrum College, has written a book describing the relationship between two towns in Appalachia. “Do, Die or Get Along” weaves together the voices of people with connections to Dante and St. Paul and reveals how a confrontational “do-or-die” past has given way to a “get-along” present between the two towns. The publisher writes about the book:
The story of Dante and St. Paul, Crow writes, “gives twenty-first-century meaning to the idea of the good fight.” This is an absorbing account of persistence, resourcefulness, and eclectic redefinition of success and community revival, with ramifications well beyond Appalachia.
Books can be ordered through most major online booksellers.


•The Christ Church, Martinsville youth group has written a children’s book to help support a scholarship fund. The book is called “Journey for Faith” and was inspired by the story of Morgan Dunnigan, a seven-year-old Martinsville girl who had a life-threatening tumor removed from her spinal cord.
The story follows the adventures of a teddy bear that travels the country looking for her owner. About 20 middle and high school students and youth advisor Rives Coleman spent weeks writing, editing and debating which details to include. Illustrations were done by Tina Sell, a Christ Church parishioner.
The books are $15 and proceeds will be added to a scholarship established in honor of Dunnigan. To purchase a book, contact Coleman at 276-732-2859.