Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 25, 1995 TAG: 9502280007
SECTION: RELIGION PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FRANCES STEBBINS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The Strawberry Association of Southern Baptist congregations in Bedford County has agreed to erect the first Habitat for Humanity house this year in the county. An open meeting for further planning for Habitat houses is scheduled March 13 at 7 p.m. at the Bedford Free Clinic building on Washington Street in Bedford.
The county Habitat board has scheduled a fund-raising walk for May 20 beginning at 10 a.m.
Galax church staff
Mary Auman of Fries has joined the staff of First United Methodist Church in Galax as administrative assistant. She succeeds Betty Testerman, who served for more than a decade.
Volunteers needed
The Methodist Church of Haiti needs short-term volunteers in mission as dentists, eye doctors and trainers in vocational skills and church leadership. Work teams also are needed to help build or renovate church buildings, parsonages and schools.
The Haitian church also urgently needs money to feed school children and pay teachers as well as to grow and process crops and to upgrade health care and communications, according to United Methodist news service.
Representatives from the Methodist Church in Haiti and the United Methodist Church's Board of Global Ministries are setting up a new partnership to bring Americans with needed skills to Haiti where they are most needed. Call the Rev. Kenneth Rae at 212-870-3862 for more information.
Hunger strike
Mel White, a former ghostwriter for the likes of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, continued a hunger strike in a Virginia Beach jail this week after being arrested for trespassing at the Christian Broadcasting Network headquarters.
White, now a minister in the largely gay and lesbian Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, says he was seeking an appointment with Robertson to try to get him to "acknowledge that anti-gay rhetoric results in violence against the gay community and to denounce those acts of violence."
White, who refuses bail and is in the second week of his fast, contends that "innocent gay and lesbian Americans face suffering and death because of Pat's false and misleading rhetoric."
He was arrested Feb. 15. Each day since, his supporters have gone to the CBN compound seeking an appointment with Robertson, who has refused to meet with them.
Matching grant
The Arlington District in the Virginia Conference of the United Methodist Church has received an $8,000 matching grant from the National Hispanic Ministries Fund of the denomination nationally to expand ministry to a fast-growing Spanish-speaking population. A dozen congregations will use the money to develop and expand English-as-a-Second-Language classes. Mount Olivet Church in Arlington began offering English classes five years ago to a group which is expected to comprise 30 percent of the county in the next five years. Today more than 350 students and 100 trained volunteer teachers are involved in the classes that are held in 12 church buildings.
Music camp
Registration is open for the annual Lutheran Summer Music Camp for talented high school students. It will be held June 25-July 23 on the campus of Augustana College in Sioux City, S.D. Especially for youth considering a church music career, the camp offers intensive study in sacred music for voice and instruments. Scholarship aid is available. Call John Lunde, 402-474-7177 before March 15 for more information.
Lay students
Lay students who are currently pursuing degrees in U.S. Roman Catholic graduate programs outnumber men preparing for the priesthood, according to a report in The Catholic Virginian.
An increasing number of men and women are preparing to take up leadership roles in parishes for education, music, administration or pastoral care, the report of a national survey reveals. It also showed that a high percentage of graduate students want women to be ordained to the priesthood, favor church people trying to change government systems to help the oppressed and expect to get paid positions on church staffs that formerly were held by ordained men or by women with a lifetime commitment to celibacy.
by CNB