Joyful News Notes#406

Episcopal Church in Wichita Falls All Saints – Good Shepherd St Stephens

Recognize the JOY you are finding here today ++ Katharine Jefferts Schori, Feb. 2009

September 6, 2015 V7N41

Sunday‘s Gospel Lesson

Mark 7:24-37 7:24 From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice,

7:25 but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet.

7:26 Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter.

7:27 He said to her, "Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs."

7:28 But she answered him, "Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs."

7:29 Then he said to her, "For saying that, you may go- -the demon has left your daughter."

7:30 So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

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The Episcopal Church of Wichita Falls All Saints ~ Good Shepherd ~ St Stephens’

5013 Lindale at Cypress

HOLY EUCHARIST Rite II 10:30 A.M. Sunday, September 6, 2015

The Rev. Amy Peden Haynie Priest in Charge

Brent Walker, Lay Eucharistic Minister Suzanne Russell, Crucifer/Thurifer Susan Freudiger, 1st Lesson Kipley Parrish, 2nd Lesson Keith Williamson, Prayers of the People Laurie Cruse, Altar Guild

Altar Flowers and Coffee Hour Refreshments Given by Ann Lucas in memory of her parents, Harold and Leona

following Eucharist 2

Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost Year B – RCL Proper 18 – September 6 First reading Psalm Second reading Gospel Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, Psalm 125 James 2:1-10, 11- Mark 7:24-37 22-23 13, 14-17

he itinerary of Jesus is illogical and weird. It’s comparable to a trip from Wichita Falls to Graham by first going through Burkburnett. At T the start Jesus is located at the coastal city of Tyre, but his ultimate destination is the Sea of Galilee, 35 miles to the south. However, Jesus heads some 25 miles to another coastal city, Sidon, and then makes the 60 miles trip south to the Decapolis, a federation of 10 Greek cities near the Sea of Galilee. All of these locations are in “paganland.” Why is Jesus wandering around paganland? Recall that Jesus recently challenged the concept of ritual defilement and uncleanness and opened the way for unity between Gentiles and Jews. Jesus reached out beyond the boundaries of Jewish orthodoxy and changed the lives of poor and marginalized people. Keep in mind that people born blind, deaf, or crippled were considered to be punished by God for some reason. It goes double if the person happens to be a Gentile. This explains paganland, calling attention to the human boundaries and barriers to God, Ephphath! “Be opened,” says Jesus. “Be no longer closed-minded, prejudiced, judgmental. Don’t confuse our comfort zone with the kingdom of God.”—The Vy. Rev. John D. Payne, Rector Emeritus, All Saints Episcopal Church; Dean Emeritus, Northern Deanery, Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth.

Happy September Birthdays 8 Pam Barger 16 Sharon Delaney 17 Ann Coleman and SuzAnn Russell 20 Sharon Devereaux and J.D. Todd 26 Dianne Lee 3

 Please check the Bulletin Board for the Downtown Dinner sign-up sheet. Bring ingredients, help cook, and /or help serve. How is God calling you to serve the homeless at Faith Mission? We will serve the meal at 6:30-ish on Tuesday, September 15.  Bishop Scott Mayer is coming to visit on September 19-20. We will host the Executive Council for the diocese on Saturday, September 19th. The Bishop will stay over to preach and celebrate on the 20th. We will have our monthly Potluck on the 20th to celebrate Bishop Mayer's visit.

Peace, Amy+

This Sunday, the Presiding Bishop and the President of the House of Deputies have asked all Episcopal churches to observe "Confession, Repentance and Commitment to End Racism Sunday" in solidarity with our AME sisters and brothers. We pray in special and intentional ways this Sunday.

I will ask all who are interested in this justice work to read The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander. We will hold a group discussion of the book on Sunday, October 11th during the monthly Potluck. The library has at least one copy and Books a Million had one copy. Mother Amy

Help Needed for Families of MSU Students from Dominica

Bonnie Fieldsend has alerted the Wichita Falls Episcopal Church of the needs for help for families of MSU students from the tiny Caribbean island of Dominica, devastated by tropical storm Erika last week. Several MSU students are from the island. Bonnie writes

―They will still be taking donations of clothing, linens, children‘s and adult diapers, hygiene products, and medical supplies. They will continue to receive contributions at the Clark Student Center, Dillard's college of business, and the Library. The apartment 246 in Colony Park will continue to be a drop off point until the end of the Caribbean Festival the week of September 22nd.‖ Information on how to forward cash contributions is found at http://www.gofundme.com/DA-ErikaReliefFund.

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Mount ,

uite a lot was written this week about President Obama officially restoring the name of the highest mountain in the Western World to the name of Mount Denali, as it had been called by the Native peoples of Alaska for many generations prior to the arrival of the Q white man.

There is a connection between Mount Denali and Episcopalians. A team led by the Ven. , Archdeacon of the Yukon, made the first verifiable ascent to Denali's 20,237 feet summit on June 7, 1913.

Additionally, there‘s a connection between Stuck and the Episcopal Churches of Texas.

Born in in 1863 and educated at King‘s College, Stuck booked passage to Australia at age 22. For unknown reasons he disembarked at New Orleans and wandered westward until finally settling in a small rural hamlet of Junction City, Texas. There he worked as an itinerant cowboy for $10 a month. Soon he was hired to teach school at nearby Cuero and became a layreader and Sunday school teacher at the small Episcopal Church. The Bishop of West Texas, James Steptoe Johnston, ‗discovered‘ the bright young Englishman and sent him to study at the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee. He graduated in 1892 and shortly thereafter was ordained.

In 1896 he was elected dean of St. Matthew‘s Cathedral, .

In 1904 the Rt. Rev. Peter Trimble Rowe, the first bishop of Alaska, recruited the 40-year-old dean to take the challenging post of ―Archbishop of the Yukon,‖ a district exceeding 300,000 square miles. He visited every Episcopal church, mission, or outpost of the region, Hudson Stuck, 1914. traveling some 2,000 miles annually by dogsled in winter and by boat in summer as well as by foot and snowshoe.

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He served as Archdeacon of the Yukon 1904-1920. He brought to the post a first rate mind. He lived an exemplary life of dedication and sacrifice. He built churches, schools hospitals. In the best sense he was a social gospeler and at every opportunity he took the side of the Indian. Stuck wrote and published five books, memoirs of his times in Alaska, in part to reveal the exploitation of the Alaska Native peoples that he witnessed in his work.

His publications included Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled, 1914, and The Ascent of Denali, 1913. Both were reprinted in 1988 and are available as a package through Amazon for $32.98.

Stuck recruited two Alaska Native men to join his crew of six to climb the mountain— and . They departed from Nenana on March 17, 1913 and reached the summit of Denali on June 7.

Harper, of mixed Alaska Native and Scots descent reached the summit first. Fredson, then 14, acted as their base camp manager, hunting caribou and Dall sheep to keep them supplied with food. The crew to climb Mount Denali leaving Nenana

The mountain came to be known as Mount McKinley after President William McKinley in 1896 when a gold prospector heard McKinley had won the Republican presidential nomination, and declared the tallest peak should be named after him to show support. There‘s an irony that President McKinley is best remembered as championing the last outburst of territorial imperialism with US acquisition of the Philippine and other Pacific islands as well as much real estate in the Caribbean. The ―Manifest Destiny‖ credo that claimed the heart of the North American continent from indigenous peoples was thus applied world-wide.

Hudson Stuck was among the early proponents to retain the name Denali. Atha- bascans who inhabited land around the mountain have for centuries referred to the peak as Dinale or Denali, based on a Koyukon word for "high" or "tall" or the ―great one.‖The Alaska Board of Geographic Names changed the name of the mountain to Denali in 1975, which is how it is called locally. One of those long-time supporters is Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who introduced legislation in January to get the peak renamed, but again Ohio lawmakers tried to block it. She posted a video Sunday, applauding Obama‘s decision to change the name.

―For generations, Alaskans have known this majestic mountain as ‗the great one,‘‖ she said in the video, appearing in front of the snow-topped mountain. ―I‘d like to thank the president for working with us to achieve this significant change to show honor, respect and gratitude to the Athabascan people of Alaska.‖

Hudson Stuck died of pneumonia at Fort Yukon in 1920. In the old village of Fort Yukon there are two cemeteries—one for white people and a separate one for Indians. Hudson Stuck, as he wished, is buried in the Indian cemetery. He was only 57.

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A Letter to The Episcopal Church From the Presiding Bishop, President of the House of Deputies

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and President of the House of Deputies the Rev. Gay Clark Jennings have issued a letter calling on Episcopal congregations to participate in ―Confession, Repentance, and Commitment to End Racism Sunday‖ on September 6.

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ:

On June 17, nine members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, were murdered by a white racist during their weekly bible study. Just a few days later at General Convention in Salt Lake City, we committed ourselves to stand in solidarity with the AME Church as they respond with acts of forgiveness, reconciliation, and justice (Resolution A302(link is external)).

Now our sisters and brothers in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church have asked us to make that solidarity visible by participating in “Confession, Repentance, and Commitment to End Racism Sunday”(link is external) on Sunday, September 6. We ask all Episcopal congregations to join this ecumenical effort with prayer and action.

“Racism will not end with the passage of legislation alone; it will also require a change of heart and thinking,” writes AME Bishop Reginald T. Jackson. “This is an effort which the faith community must lead, and be the conscience of the nation. We will call upon every church, temple, mosque and faith communion to make their worship service on this Sunday a time to confess and repent for the sin and evil of racism, this includes ignoring, tolerating and accepting racism, and to make a commitment to end racism by the example of our lives and actions.”

The Episcopal Church, along with many ecumenical partners, will stand in solidarity with the AME Church this week in Washington D.C. at the “Liberty and Justice for All” event, which includes worship at Wesley AME Zion Church and various advocacy events.

Racial reconciliation through prayer, teaching, engagement and action is a top priority of the Episcopal Church in the upcoming triennium. Participating in “Confession, Repentance, and Commitment to End Racism Sunday” on September 6 is just one way that we Episcopalians can undertake this essential work. Our history as a church includes atrocities for which we must repent, saints who show us the way toward the realm of God, and structures that bear witness to unjust centuries of the evils of white privilege, systemic racism, and oppression that are not yet consigned to history. We are grateful for the companionship of the AME Church and other partners as we wrestle with our need to repent and be reconciled to one another and to the communities we serve.

“The Church understands and affirms that the call to pray and act for racial reconciliation is integral to our witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to our living into the demands of our

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Baptismal Covenant,” reads Resolution C019(link is external) of the 78th General Convention. May God bless us and forgive us as we pray and act with our partners this week and in the years to come. In the words of the prophet Isaiah appointed for Sunday, may we see the day when “waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water.”

Faithfully, The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church

The Rev. Gay Clark Jennings President, House of Deputies of The Episcopal Church

PARISH PRAYER LIST. . . Your prayers are asked for those who are ill or in need of support: The Charles Salter family, Joan, Roberto, Janet, victims of Erika in Dominica, Douglas, Oscar, Jerome, Luke, Allen, Tiffany, Dana, Mary, Linda, Larry, Brian, Buckley, Beverly Peggy and Cindie.

 In Thanksgiving for ... this church family

 We pray for those who have died: Lassie, Gloria, Harold, Elmer, Carol, Ruby, Nancy, Charles, John, Leona, Henry, Doug, Helen, Susan, Brett, Blair, Robert, Harry, David, Sharon, Virgil, Carrol, Michael, Mary Jane, Dawn and Charles III.

OK – So you think the first Monday in September is simply a time for the last fling of summer – backyard barbecue, beer and burgers! Think again! Labor Day in the United States is a public holiday to honor the American labor movement and the contri-butions that workers have made to the strength, prosperity and well-being of their country. Amidst strife and strikes, the history of labor disputes in America substantially precedes the Revolutionary period. In 1636, for instance, there was a fishermen‘s strike on an island off the coast of Maine . Enjoy your picnic, but make a toast to the blue collar workers, the muscle of this nation.

JOYFUL NEWS NOTES Weekly publication of EPISCOPAL Churches of Wichita Falls The Rev. Amy Haynie - Priest in Charge Cell Phone: 214-695-2627 The Rt. Rev. Scott Mayer– Bishop, Diocese of Fort Worth Owanah Anderson and Ann Coleman - Co-Editors Keith Williamson - Webmaster: http://www.wichitafallsaintsepiscopal.com/

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