Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, October 8, 1994 TAG: 9410100035
SECTION: RELIGION PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FROM STAFF & WIRE REPORTS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Episcopalians in the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia will conclude the observance of the 75th anniversary of the formation of the regional body on Oct. 22.
A service will be held at 1 p.m. at St. Andrew's Catholic Church in the 600 block of North Jefferson Street in Roanoke. Guest preacher will be Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning of New York, the spiritual and administrative leader of American Episcopalians. Representative church leaders also will be present from the two international dioceses with which Western Virginians work, Bradford in England and the Southern Sudan in Africa.
The service will include banners from each of the more than 50 congregations in the diocese; it dates to 1919.
New Habitat affiliate
A Habitat for Humanity affiliate is being formed in Franklin County.
The ecumenical housing ministry uses volunteers to erect inexpensive homes for the working poor who buy the property with interest-free loans and do some of the work themselves. Start-up funds of $3,000 are being raised to show there is potential for an affiliate.
For more information, call Barbara Garst at 334-5452.
Dream in ashes
HUTCHINSON, Kan. - It took eight days for a Baptist missionary from the Kansas plains to learn that volcanoes had destroyed much of his dream.
Richard Crotts, a native of Hutchinson, was on leave in Kansas when he learned that volcanoes had destroyed his Papua, New Guinea, home and the church, school and Bible college in which he had invested a good part of his life.
He tried to contact the ministry's staff in Rabaul for eight days, beginning Sept. 19 when he first heard about the disaster and realized that his mission, located less than one mile from the volcanoes, was in the path of destruction. But communication lines were down. He finally got through.
``I talked to the administrator of our school,'' Crotts said. ``He told us that everyone at the mission had gotten out safely [but] the church building had collapsed, our house had collapsed, and everything is covered with what the newscasters are calling `mud.' It's really ash and water.''
by CNB