In April, Turkana Friends Mission applied to FUM for funding from the COVID-19 Solidarity Fund to begin food distribution to households that were at the highest risk of food insecurity, including the elderly, people with disabilities, and single-parent families with children who were sent home from boarding schools because of the pandemic. They planned to give each household five kilograms of maize flour, three liters of cooking oil, and two kilograms of sugar.
Read MoreRecently, the African leadership of Friends World Committee for Consultation, Friends Church Kenya, and Friends United Meeting made a very unusual stop in their COVID-19 relief effort. They took some time to reach out to drivers who were waiting near where they were distributing aid to a Friends health clinic. Thanks to the generosity of Quakers in East Africa, the UK, and America, the team was able to hand out safety items like masks, sanitizers, and other needed supplies to the truck drivers. They listened to their stories and frustrations. They prayed with and for these drivers.
Read MoreThe story reminds us that we can be the drivers of the bus, or passengers in the bus: drivers because we have leadership positions to help steer the congregations or meetings; passengers because we could be part of those being directed by the leadership...
Read MoreEmily 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.'"
Read MoreThroughout 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.