As the world is suffering from the impacts of the COVID-19 virus, FUM is deepening our commitment to connect the global family of Friends and we are increasing our support for our most vulnerable communities. In response to this commitment, all of our field staff are serving in various ways. Concurrently, in a normal year, Field Staff would be using the North American summer traveling to our Meetings and Churches to raise funds to support their ministries. Of course, they cannot do that this year. Most importantly, the three-year terms of Oscar Mmbali and Robert Wafula are scheduled to be renewed in September 2020. The COVID-19 threat and associated travel restrictions are preventing them from traveling to raise their support.
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On Thursday, June 17, Belize Friends School was able to host a small, in-person graduation ceremony while still complying with the Covid-19 public health directives for Belize.Six students graduated from the special Belize Friends School program, which is a small remedial alternative school for at-risk inner-city youth who have been unable to succeed in a traditional classroom setting. The school has been operating by remote learning since the middle of March. Since our students are among the most disadvantaged people in Belize, this involved loaning each student a smart phone with cellular data so that they could access the lessons being posted by their teachers. We praise God that this rapidly-deployed experiment in technology assistance within an impoverished setting has proven so successful, and that six of our students have graduated!
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Emily Provance writes about how Quaker communities might begin to think about caring for parents and families, based on the second year of the Quaker parent mutual support groups co-sponsored by Friends United Meeting, New York Yearly Meeting, and Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. Chief among her findings: Quaker parents feel profoundly isolated. "Some parents are literally alone...Other parents feel isolated despite not being literally alone. Parents in the group talked about the isolation of being the only Quaker in their geographic area or the only Quaker family in their meeting. They talked about the difficulty of developing deep friendships in modern society. They talked about their hunger for connections with parents in similar circumstances: other disabled parents, other single parents, other foster parents, other parents with shared custody arrangements. Facilitators heard it repeated again and again: 'I feel so alone.'"
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One of the conversations we have had this year at Belize Friends Church is about creating multiple sacred spaces for people with various needs within the church. I find that the Spirit is in this conversation. . . . Creating multiple sacred spaces can be an alternative to, or can supplement, the more traditional mobilizing of people to know and experience God by focusing on a sermon.
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Throughout our history, the people known as Friends (or Quakers) keep rediscovering an essential and enduring truth: There is one who speaks to our most basic needs and most significant hopes—Christ Jesus the Lord. Both individually and communally, we are learning to know and follow the Voice that guides us in the way we should go. Together, we seek to understand and obey that truth which sets us free. As a people, we share in the experience of that powerful life which makes all things new. Maybe you are searching for an authentic and transforming faith and community to call home—if so, come in and join us as we seek to know and follow Christ.
Friends United Meeting commits itself to energize and equip Friends through the power of the Holy Spirit to gather people into fellowships where Jesus Christ is known, loved, and obeyed as Teacher and Lord.
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