Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 15, 1995 TAG: 9501160006
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: FRANCES STEBBINS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
When the Rev. Clare Fischer-Davies became rector of Christ Episcopal Church 10 months ago, it was like a homecoming for her as well as for some in the community.
Her parents, George and MaryLou Fischer, met while students at Virginia Tech after World War II, and she was reared in Clifton Forge. She helped with a service at Christ Episcopal while she was a seminary intern at a Roanoke parish in 1982.
She also remembers a number of people in the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia from her days of aspiring to be a professional singer - before she went north to seminary and her first pastorate in New Hampshire.
Geno Iannaccone, who has attended the church since his student days at Tech 16 years ago and served as a lay reader and member of the vestry more recently, told the recent congregational meeting that it seemed "Clare has been here forever."
And the rector, who wears the hats of wife and mother as well as spiritual and administrative head of a lively parish, said her family is finding the New River Valley "an easy place to live."
One reason for that, she noted, is that there are several other female clergy in the community. She has joined a small group of the women who preach on Sundays and said she enjoys getting to know them.
Discussing the parish with Iannaccone recently, Fischer-Davies said she has focused on learning what's going on before trying to launch any new programs. Some things, like a third Christmas Eve service to accommodate overflow crowds in the small nave, were held in the past; she has reinstituted them.
Other projects, she emphasized, like a developing mission link with a Spanish-speaking Episcopal church in La Ilusion, Guatemala, are really the brainchild of the Rev. Roderick Sinclair, Episcopal campus chaplain who has been on the Christ Church staff for several years.
Sinclair, who is enthusiastic about the leadership Fischer-Davies gives the parish, said the proposed link with Guatemala probably grew out of a chance event that occurred about Easter 1993.
A Guatemalan refugee known only as Alfredo came to Blacksburg in search of a "Central American mission" of which he had heard in his homeland. His plight touched many members of the parish, Sinclair and Iannaccone recalled.
Building on many years of ecumenical interest in Central American churches, a plan gradually has developed that may bring Christ Church members into personal contact with a church in Guatemala.
The refugee went an unknown way after being taken to a Washington shelter, Sinclair said. Twenty months later, with the help of Sister Parish, a Washington agency, the lay leadership of the Blacksburg church and the one in La Ilusion agreed to begin a covenant relationship.
The project promises to involve many members of the church, but Fischer-Davies pointed out that the details are still to be worked out. Sinclair hopes that several church members may go to Guatemala next summer.
Such a mission project is in keeping with what many Episcopal congregations throughout the nation are doing with Third World churches. A national trend of mainstream denominations reducing funds for mission work is being expressed in more grass-roots support, Fischer-Davies noted.
Family adjustments to Blacksburg have not been as difficult as some members might suppose, the rector said. The rector's husband, Gerry, is home part of the day with the couple's children, Andy, 4, and Mary, 3, since he works nights as a professional journalist in Roanoke.
Morning nursery school for the children and careful juggling of schedules have made this aspect of her career easier than it was when she was an assistant at a Manchester, N.H., parish, Fischer-Davies said.
Nor is the transient nature of Blacksburg church membership a great surprise; movings were common in the depressed New England economy, where people frequently lost their jobs, she said. At times the New River Valley seems prosperous by comparison.
Iannaccone observed that the new rector indirectly has encouraged further community involvement among Christ Church members, and that more members are getting involved in such projects as the Christmas Store and Habitat for Humanity.
And campus ministry, too, has taken on new life, Iannaccone thinks, especially since a financial shortfall in the parent Diocese of Southwestern Virginia forced Christ Church to assume more responsibility for keeping Sinclair on the staff. Many students, he said, now teach Sunday school classes and participate in the music program.
by CNB