Brethren bits: Remembrance, job openings, and more.

• Mary Beth Bieber, a missionary in Nigeria along with her husband, Charles, from 1950-63, died July 20 at her home in Lancaster, Pa. Originally from the Pottstown, Pa., area, she grew up in Royersford Church of the Brethren. The couple had marked their 60th wedding anniversary in June. The two met while both attended Juniata College in Huntingdon, Pa. Bieber graduated from Juniata in 1943. As a missionary, she was a teacher and school principal and helped develop a district-wide organization for women. Two of the couple's five children were born in Nigeria. Her legacy lives on in that country: 10 different phone calls of sympathy came from Nigeria in the two days after her death.
  
  
• The Brethren Home Community, New Oxford, Pa., is seeking to fill two job openings. The retirement community seeks a Public Relations/Communications Director who will be responsible for a program designed to build and strengthen its reputation and role as a leader in the healthcare industry. The community also seeks a Marketing Manager who will be responsible to establish objectives, organize, and manage the marketing functions of the organization. Both positions require a bachelor's degree in a related field and 3-5 years of related work experience. Send resumes by Sept. 30 to The Brethren Home Community, Attn: Christine Daoularis, Human Resources, 2990 Carlisle Pike, P.O. Box 128, New Oxford, PA 17350.
  
  
• A wrap-up video of National Young Adult Conference 2004 is available. The video runs about 20 minutes and gives viewers a taste of the NYAC spirit, according to Becky Ullom, who served as coordinator. To order your copy, contact David Sollenberger at lsvideo@comcast.net. A DVD or a VHS tape costs $15.
  
  
• The Church of the Brethren's next Cross Cultural Consultation and Celebration will be held April 21-24, 2005, in Richmond, Ind. A preliminary schedule for the meeting begins with worship at Richmond Church of the Brethren the evening of April 21, said organizer Duane Grady, Congregational Life Team staff of the General Board. April 22 will be spent at Bethany Theological Seminary interacting with students and faculty and in conversation with the Multi-Ethnic/Cross Cultural Study Committee. Participants will worship with the community at Bethany and adjacent Earlham School of Religion. Stephen Reid, Bethany's academic dean, will preach. On April 23 Fumitaka Matsuoka, former academic dean at Bethany, will address the meeting and there will be sharing with the Cross Cultural Steering Committee. Congregations in Indiana and Ohio will be invited to the evening worship service, which will feature the choir of Harrisburg (Pa.) First Church of the Brethren. The consultation will end with a 9:30 a.m. service at the Richmond church on Sunday April 24. For more information call 800-505-1596 or e-mail dgrady_gb@brethren.org.
  
  
• Haruun Ruun and Emmanuel LoWilla of the New Sudan Council of Churches (NSCC), and Phil Jones of the General Board's Brethren Witness/Washington Office, completed a first week of lobbying and visits on Capitol Hill. In a meeting with David Smock of the US Institute of Peace they learned of the Institute's support of NSCC work in interfaith dialogue. A significant grant was offered by the Institute. In State Department meetings Charles Snyder, special director for Sudan Affairs, confirmed recent developments in regard to the signing of the Southern Sudan Peace Accords and reassured the NSCC leaders that all efforts were being made to move the final signing forward. Meetings with Senator Brownback (R Kan.) and other congressional staff afforded opportunities to express thanks for resolutions naming the violence in Darfur, Sudan, as genocide. Ruun encouraged members of Congress to continue to keep pressure on Sudan to bring the genocide to an end through targeted sanctions on the Khartoum leadership. The three will spend next week in New York at the United Nations and ecumenical agencies. Ruun and LoWilla will conclude their US visit at the Brethren Service Center, New Windsor, Md., Sept. 23 when Brethren are invited to a program beginning at 7 p.m.
  
  
• On Earth Peace and Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) invite Church of the Brethren peacemakers to join a Delegation to the Middle East Nov. 22-Dec. 4. On Earth Peace co-director Bob Gross will lead the group. The delegation will meet with Israeli and Palestinian peace and human rights workers; join the CPT Hebron team in daily street patrols, accompaniment, and documentation; and join in a public witness. CPT, a project of Brethren and Mennonite congregations and Friends meetings, has maintained a team in Hebron since 1995. Cost is $1,800. On Earth Peace will assist Brethren in raising funds. For more information call 260-982-7751 or e-mail bgross@igc.org or see www.cpt.org.
  
  
• The fall orientation unit for Brethren Volunteer Service will take place Sept. 26-Oct. 15 at the Brethren Service Center, New Windsor, Md. A total of 27 volunteers will take part from the US and Germany. Ten are members of the Church of the Brethren. During orientation they will explore peace, justice, nonviolence, cultural differences, and other political and social issues facing society. The volunteers also will spend time in Baltimore doing service projects. Following orientation, volunteers will begin one- or two-year terms of service in the US, Europe, and Central America.
  
  
• East Nimishillen Church of the Brethren, North Canton, Ohio, will hold an all-day celebration of its 200th anniversary on Sept. 25. The event will begin with a pancake breakfast and include a historic video, Communion bread-making demonstration, sharing with former pastors, a scavenger hunt, music, and a catered buffet supper among other activities. Northern Ohio District executive John Ballinger will speak in the evening. Events will continue on Sept. 26 with Sunday services and a carry-in dinner.
  
  
• Jackson Park Church of the Brethren, Jonesborough, Tenn., celebrates an 80th anniversary on Sept. 18-19. The weekend will begin with a 7 p.m. service Sept. 18, and will conclude with an old-fashioned ice cream social on the front lawn of the church. The congregation is encouraged to dress in the style of 1924.
  
  
• A Cross Cultural Music Tour in Kansas and Iowa Sept. 29-Oct. 3 will give the flavor of worship in the African-American, Mexican, and Haitian traditions. Tour members are Gilbert Romero, pastor of Bella Vista Church of the Brethren, East Los Angeles, Calif.; James Washington, Sr., pastor of Faith Center Fellowship, Whitehouse, Texas; James Washington, Jr., of Faith Center; Jennie Nichols, of First Central Church of the Brethren, Kansas City, Kan.; Michaela Camps, of First Miami (Fla.) Church of the Brethren; and Duane Grady, General Board Congregational Life Team staff and organizer of the tour. The group will be at First Central in Kansas City on Sept. 29 at 7 p.m.; Panther Creek Church of the Brethren near Adel, Iowa, on Sept. 30 at 7 p.m.; Eldora State Training School in Iowa, a juvenile detention facility for young men, on Oct. 1 at 3 p.m.; South Waterloo (Iowa) Church of the Brethren Oct. 2 at 7 p.m.; and Ivester Church of the Brethren, Grundy Center, Iowa, on Oct. 3 at 10:30 a.m. for worship and love feast. For more information call 800-505-1596 or e-mail dgrady_gb@brethren.org.
  
  
• Three Church of the Brethren districts meet for conferences this weekend, Sept. 17-18: Northern Indiana at Camp Alexander Mack, Milford, Ind., with Dan Snider as moderator; Southern Pennsylvania at Elizabethtown (Pa.) College with Terry Smith as moderator; West Marva at Moorefield (W.Va.) Church of the Brethren with Dorman Williams as moderator.
  
  
• The 28th Annual Brethren Disaster Auction will be held Sept. 24-26 at the Lebanon (Pa.) Area Fairgrounds, sponsored by Atlantic Northeast and Southern Pennsylvania Districts. The event raises money for disaster relief with heifer and livestock auctions, a pole barn auction, a quilt auction, and auctions of numerous other goods, as well as the sale of food and arts and crafts. A special feature this year is the blitz-build of a modular house to be donated to a disaster survivor in need. The build starts at 7 p.m. Sept. 23. A Treasury of Great Hymns Festival presented by a several-hundred voice choir and orchestra will conclude the event on Sunday Sept. 26 at 5:30 p.m. For more information visit www.BrethrenAuction.org.
  
  
• Elizabethtown (Pa.) College has secured a $500,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, to create an endowment for the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies. Professor Donald B. Kraybill has been named as the first scholar to hold an endowed faculty chair in Anabaptist and Pietist Studies to be created with the endowment. The endowment will enhance the center's visiting fellows program, expand the collection of books and archival material, and help develop a website. David B. Eller is director of the center. The grant requires a four-to-one match and the college will need to raise an additional $2 million for a total endowment of $2.5 million.
  
  
• Alaska was the destination for two Learning Tours in August sponsored by the New Community Project (NCP), a Brethren-related nonprofit. A delegation of 13 people from five districts spent six days in Denali National Park and four days along the southeastern coast of Alaska to explore God's creation and Christian responsibility as stewards of the earth. A second group spent eight days in Arctic Village, a native American community 150 miles north of the Arctic Circle, where they were hosted by the Gwich'in people and learned about the Gwich'in way of life, including their dependence on the Porcupine Caribou Herd. The 130,000-strong herd's calving grounds are along the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, an area under constant threat of oil drilling. A list of 2005 tours is at www.newcommunityproject.org.
  
  
• Church of the Brethren historian Donald F. Durnbaugh will speak at an event sponsored by the Valley Brethren-Mennonite Heritage Center, 7 p.m. Sept. 25 at Harrisonburg (Va.) Mennonite Church. The title of Durnbaugh's presentation is "Like Precious Faith: Brethren and Mennonites Through Light and Shadow." A reception will follow. The event launches a membership plan the center is offering for individuals and congregations. For more information call 540-438-1275 or see www.vbmhc.org.

Source: Newsline 09/17/2004
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