serving the six-county diocese of los … · ic sta u d e nmal er jan e t kawamoto. the episcopal...

Enter the Lunar

New Year

‘Youth Moving On’ from Hillsides create clothing line aimed at helping othersCompanion relationships emphasized in reading, pilgrimage, remembranceChet Talton nominated for new ministry in San Joaquin

Episcopal NewsEpiscopal Newswww.episcopalnews.com serving the six-county diocese of los angeles

T H e lent 2011

http://www.episcopalnews.com

2 THe ePISCOPAL NeWS Lent 2011

THe

Episcopal Newspublication of the diocese of los angeles. serving readers since 1898.

editorJanet [email protected]

correspondentThe Rev. Patricia [email protected]

art directorMolly Ruttan-Moffatwww.mollyruttan.com

editorial and advertising officeCathedral Center of St. Paul 840 Echo Park Avenue, Los Angeles, 90026213.482.2040email: [email protected]

The Episcopal News (ISSN 0195-0681) is pub-lished be-monthly by the Program Group on Communications and Public Affairs of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, 840 Echo Park Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90026.

Subscription price: $15 per year.

volume 61, number 1

The Episcopal News Update is published by e-mail each Wednesday.

To subscribe, send a request to [email protected]

For weekly news and calendar updates online, visit the Episcopal News website at

www.episcopalnews.com

From the Bishop

J. Jon BrunoBishop of Los Angeles

JOH

NN

Y Bu

zzer

IO

On the cover: Members of the Dan Dance Studio in Torrance entertain at a Lunar New Year celebration at St. Francis’ Church, Palos Verdes. Congregations around the diocese marked the occasion with special events. See story on page 6. Photo/David Gerhardt

Lent: Opportunities for reflection and action

Lent provides us with a season of contemplation and expectation — as well as unique opportunities for action. In the weeks ahead, I invite all of us in this Diocese to reflect specifically in three areas.

Jerusalem and the middle eastAs we look forward to commemorating the pas-

sion and resurrection of Jesus, let us familiarize our-selves more completely with the Holy Land in which he lived. Many of you as individuals and congrega-tions have begun to read Sandy Tolan’s book The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the

Middle East, and parish discussion groups are tak-ing up the topics of what is needed for peaceful rela-tions between Israelis and Palestinians. Please join this effort of “The Diocese Reads.” Copies of the book are available through the Cathedral Bookstore, and study guides are available online through the Bishop’s Commission on the Middle East (http://middleeast.la diocese.org/).

partnerships with public schoolsCreating peace and abundance is also needed in

our own neighborhoods. A key to moving forward in this area is gaining a deeper understanding of local

people and places, especially the local public schools located near our churches. Please consider setting the goal during Lent of meeting with the administrators of these schools and exploring any ways in which helpful partnerships can be created. All Saints, High-land Park, has begun to lead the way in this area. Please also visit the web site of Prepare the Future California (www.preparethefuturecalifornia.org/) to learn more about advocacy for public education against the backdrop of the state’s $25 billion budget deficit.

building interfaith and ecumenical communityThird, let us continue our local work to build in-

terfaith and ecumenical understanding. During Lent let us reach out to neighboring houses of worship and build meaningful forms of study, fellowship, and common cause. I also invite you to save the date for a major gathering on the evening of Saturday, September 10, as the Southern California interfaith community comes together to mark the 10th anniver-sary of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. This will be a large gathering at Los Angeles City Hall, and we will light lanterns to bring back to our congrega-tions for services the next morning. Please plan now to join this important assembly.

At all times, let us be constant in prayer, asking God for strength and guidance as we seek to serve those around us, especially those seeking employ-ment, food and shelter during these hard economic times. Thank you for your ministries in this Diocese. As we join together to Rejoice, Reflect and Renew, may God bless you and those you love. ?

Are you connected?To our readers

W elcome to the second online-only edition of The Episcopal News. Between issues, we offer the weekly email Episcopal News Update. If you’re not on our e-mail list, please sign up by using the “subscribe” button at www.episcopalnews.com, or send your address to [email protected]. We’re on Facebook, too (search “Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles”). Our mission is to keep this diocese connected, and we appreciate your attention and support. —Editor

At all times, let us be constant in prayer,

asking God for strength and guidance as we seek to

serve those around us. Thank you for your ministries in

this Diocese. As we join together to Rejoice, Reflect and

Renew, may God bless you and those you love.

SAVe THe DATeSaturday, Sept. 10

Interfaith Vigil

ReflectRejoiceRenew

mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.mollyruttan.commailto:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.episcopalnews.comhttp://middleeast.ladiocese.org/http://middleeast.ladiocese.org/http://www.preparethefuturecalifornia.org/http://www.episcopalnews.orgmailto:[email protected]

Two major events in coming months will highlight and support the work of the Neighborhood Youth Association (NYA), which serves at-risk young people and their families in the Venice area. Since it was established in 1906, NYA has been an institution of the Diocese of Los Angeles.

scholarship and awards dinnerThe agency will hold its 28th annu-

al Scholarship and Community Service Awards Dinner at the Riviera Country Club on Friday, March 4.

The scholarship event will honor out-standing young people from NYA’s pro-grams, as well as several longtime volun-teers and supporters.

Bishop Suffragan Mary Glasspool will offer an invocation at the event, which will begin with a reception and silent auction at 6:30 p.m. Four young people from NYA’s after-school program will be honored for their achievements. NYA also will award partial college scholarships to 13 of its

most outstanding students and alumni. Also to be honored at the event are Jake

Neuberg and Ramit Varma, founders of Revolution Prep; Sherry and Bob Jason, founders of City Hearts: Kids Say Yes to the Arts; and volunteers Canon Ruth Ni-castro of St. Bede’s Episcopal Church (and editor emerita of The Episcopal News), Adri Butler of the Venice Garden and Home Tour Committee, Melissa Aczon of Arete Associates, and Cliff Stein.

The Riviera Country Club is located at 1250 Capri Drive, Pacific Palisades. Tickets for the event are $175 each (part of which is tax deductible); proceeds will support NYA’s programs for at-risk youth. For tickets or further information, please call 310.664.8893.

garden and home tourNYA’s 18th annual Venice Garden and

Home Tour will take place on Saturday, May 7, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Proceeds from the event benefit the Las Doradas Children’s

Center in Venice, a licensed child care facil-ity that provides full-time, education-based child care to low-income working families. The self-guided walking tour will feature 30 gardens and homes in the secluded Walk Streets neighborhood south of Ven-ice Boulevard. Tickets are $60 per person in advance, $70 on the day of the tour. For complete information and to order tickets, visit www.venicegardentour.org. ?

erIC

STA

uDeN

MAL

erJA

NeT

KAW

AMOT

O

THe ePISCOPAL NeWS Lent 2011 3

A sale of elegant wares and enticing op-portunities will highlight the annual Holy Family Services 200 Associates’ Si-lent Auction on Saturday, April 30, 2 - 5 p.m. at the home of HFS board member Mary Bruno and Bishop Jon Bruno.

The event is a major fundraiser for HFS, which works with birth parents and adoptive parents to place infants and chil-dren in loving, stable, permanent homes. Founded more than 60 years ago, it be-came an institution of the Diocese of Los Angeles in 2007.

The need for funding for the agency is ongoing, but especially crucial now, ac-cording to Mary Bruno. “January through April are our lean months” financially, she told The Episcopal News. The future of many families depends on the work of HFS, she pointed out.

“If adoption is close to your heart we need your help,” she added.

Due to many factors, including the cur-rent recession, some former sources of

funding for HFS have either ended or been greatly reduced, Bruno explained.

In addition to direct donations, she said, she is seeking donations of new goods and services that can be included in the silent auction, as well as baskets or other festive containers in which to package auction items.

Bruno is also looking for additional members for a new volunteer corps called “Friends of the Family,” to help “work events, soliciting donations for events, data entry, help with mailings and serv-ing as a liaison or contact person for your parish,” she said. Interested persons may contact Bruno at [email protected] or 626.577.7017.

The event is called the 200 Associates, Bruno said, because the original intent was to enlist 200 individuals to give $200 each.

“This event is specifically to raise funds to care for the birth mothers before and after birth,” she said. “This is so very im-portant because we are helping to support

them through not choosing the alternative of abortion. What I love about this agency is that it goes far beyond what is required; recognizing the emotional well-being of the birth mother is so essential.”

Individual tickets for the Silent Auction and garden party are $65 for adults and $20 for children 4 to 12 years old. Spon-sorships are also available at several levels.

To donate funds or auction items, or for information about sponsorships, con-tact board chair Janis Rosebrook at janis [email protected]. For more informa-tion about Holy Family Services, call 213.202.3900 or visit www.holyfamily.org. ?

Garden gala to benefit adoption agency

Diocesan Institutions

NYA events to recognize, support youth

Children investigate a site featured on the Venice Garden & Home Tour, which benefits Neighborhood Youth Association.

Holy Family Services supporters bid on an item at the 2010 200 Associates Silent Auction at the home of Mary and Jon Bruno.

[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

‘Youth Moving On’ from Hillsides create clothing line

aimed at helping others

Additional

line of

urban wear

to feature

‘unsung

heroes’

By Pat McCaughan

F ive emancipated foster youth from Hillsides’ “Youth Moving On” (YMO) have turned an internship into a fashion statement. They have created “Indigenous Peeple” (IP)

(http://indigenouspeeple.com/), an athletic wear com-pany designed to help others.

IP recently landed a contract to supply uniforms for a Los Angeles-area high school baseball team, and co-founders De’Jour Bright, Jack Haggens Jr., Angel Monroe, Victor Pinzon and Sharon Smith say they’re just getting started. Plans are already in the works to launch a second “Unsung Heroes” line of urban wear within a year.

Their message is in IP’s clothing and, for the five emancipated foster youth, it’s deeply personal.

“We chose the name Indigenous Peeple because we wanted something that had a strong meaning. Indig-enous means people of the land … not just California, but America” and because it recognizes the unique backgrounds of all people, especially those affected by negative images, said Haggens, 20.

“We spelled people with two e’s because of peep—for people who haven’t been seen, like foster youth, so everyone can peep them out. I was pretty much raised in foster care,” he added.

“It’s important to bring light to it because some fos-ter youth get neglected, some don’t get proper care, they don’t know they have resources available to them,” he said. “We’re trying to shed light on that, that there’s help out there. It’s how I found YMO.”

Bright, 20, agreed. In the foster care system since age 13, she said she hoped IP would help “change the image of foster youth.

“Everybody has pretty much a bad image of fos-ter youth, that we don’t try to do anything with our-selves,” she said. “I want to show that we have drive and goals, that we want to do something with our-selves and we’re not just trying to get by in life.”

Samples of the athletic wear line—fleece hoodies, polo tees, sweat pants and shirts—hung on a rack Feb. 14 inside IP’s headquarters, which doubles as a classroom, said YMO director Thomas Lee.YMO was created about seven years ago to assist

youth who age out of the foster care system at 18 and have nowhere to go, Lee said. Each year, there are about 1,200 in Los Angeles County and about 20,000 youth nationwide who face that dilemma, he said. About half end up homeless.

Located in Pasadena, YMO (http://www.hillsides.org/site_info.php?siid=77) houses as many as 20 youth for as long as 24 months, he said. YMO offers extensive case management, educational and vocational train-ing and other services to residents, and to another 20 students who have graduated or left the program for other reasons.

The agency is a program of Hillsides (www.hillsides.org) Home for Children, an institution of the Diocese of Los Angeles. With seven employees and an annual budget of about $300,000, YMO operates a 49-unit apartment building. Twelve units are designated for transitional housing; others are rented at market val-ue, and the proceeds used to fund YMO programs, Lee said.

But Lee wanted to offer the youth more employ-ment options, he said Feb. 14 at the Vernon facility.

“From the very beginning one of the challenges we’ve identified for our population of kids is, they struggle with employment,” Lee said. “It was my wish to get kids jobs as soon as they moved in, so they could hit the ground running and we could focus on other things like building trust with them and target-ing whatever life skills need development.”

Too often, when faced with frustrating job searches, “our kids lose confidence and motivation. So I went to the Hillsides board,” he said.

That’s when board member Mark Mertens stepped in. His sportswear manufacturing company, A-4 Moshay Inc., annually supplies 7 million garments to sports teams “from the little leagues to the major leagues and everybody in-between,” he said during a Feb. 15 telephone call from his Vernon office.

He offered both jobs and space for the YMO in-terns. They attend class three mornings a week and work, with starting wages of $8.50 per hour, in vari-ous departments of the plant in the afternoon.

“This isn’t a school that’s run like a business,” Mertens said. “This is a real


(continued on page 5)

Victor Pinzon, 19, Angel Monroe, 20, and Anthony Cooper, 18, take part in a meeting for their business, IP (for “Indigenous Peeple”).

A model shows IP’s women’s

pullover hoodie.

PAT

MCC

AuGH

AN

http://indigenouspeeple.com/http://www.hillsides.org/site_info.php?siid=77http://www.hillsides.org/site_info.php?siid=77www.hillsides.orgwww.hillsides.org

business and so there’s a little more of an edge to it. That’s what makes it important. There’s no limit to how far they can go here.”

A-4 is where the rubber hits the road for many interns, and over time the company has lost a few to the tediousness and rep-etition of the jobs and the disinclination to develop a work ethic, he said.

“Right now we have a fantastic group of kids, and it’s exciting to see them doing something really meaningful for them,” he said. “Most 18- or 20-year-olds want to have fun and explore and live life and hang out with their friends, but these kids have to go to work in order to survive, and they have to accept that reality right off the bat. It’s tough.”

The youth also have to learn to adapt to new environments, he said. “This is a predominantly Latino workplace so some of the youth have to start to look beyond themselves and figure out ways to form work relationships,” Lee said. “The em-ployees here have been really eager to work with our youth and our youth had to take a couple of steps to learn more about other cultures.

“We’re teaching them Spanish in the mornings; they can get a raise if they learn to speak it,” he added.

Monday, Wednesday and Friday morn-ings are spent in classes ranging from lan-guage to mathematics, to writing cover let-ters and resume building. The afternoons are spent working to gain experience to eventually put on those resumes, he said.

Both Anthony Cooper and Victor Pin-zon work part-time in the warehouse,

loading and unloading fabric and other supplies.

For Cooper, 18, the job is a starting place. “It’s OK,” he said. “I’ve been with YMO since September 2010. When I turned 18 I had to find a place to stay or else I’d be on the streets.”

Pinzon, 19, said the work is important. “To me, you try your best to do your job,” he said. “You never know, some day you might need to come back and you try to have a good name there.”

Other interns work part-time in the office and other

departments. In between they manage IP.A-4 sales representative Mike Hamilton

offered an impromptu business lesson to Sharon Smith, IP’s sales manager, on the virtues of purchase orders and providing a detailed accounting of charges to cus-tomers.

“School districts now say you have to have a purchase order,” said Hamilton, who helped facilitate IP’s contract with Locke High School’s baseball team. “If you choose to start doing things without purchase orders, you better have deep pockets because you’re going to be stuck with a whole lot of things,” he said.

Hamilton said he enjoys working with YMO youth but said IP faces a significant challenge because the program lacks ad-equate transportation.

“You have to go and drive and see cus-tomers face-to-face and build a relation-ship. You can’t do that over the phone and with emails,” he said.

“You have to be able to show up, sit down and wait. If you have to wait for an hour, you wait. But, while you’re there, there are also other people you can go and talk to, to try to get additional business.”

There is a focus on growth, right now “not just for IP but for other youth who are out there on the streets as well, to bring them in, to help keep them out of trouble,” said Pinzon, who lived in a group home before joining YMO.

Angel Monroe agreed. She has been with YMO a year and serves as IP’s marketing director, a role that brings the 20-year-old “out of my shell.

“I go out and try to put our name out

there. I talk to presidents of different clubs at Pasadena City College,” where the youth are also enrolled in classes.

“I tell them I’m part of a clothing line called Indigenous Peeple and, basically, my story behind it and why I’m a part of it,” said Monroe, who lived with her grand-parents much of her young life. Her story, along with those of the other YMO youth, is posted on the IP website. “The story re-ally pulls people in.”

recognizing ‘unsung heroes’Unsung Heroes urban wear is another

reason to be part of IP, she said. “They are basically people throughout history that really didn’t get a lot of recognition for what they’ve done. The person we chose for January (posted on the website) is Bayard Rustin. We really found out that he was a part of Martin Luther King’s main team.”

Rustin counseled King on techniques of nonviolent resistance and is credited with organizing the 1963 March on Washing-ton for Jobs and Freedom. But because he was gay, he maintained a behind-the scenes role, a fact the YMO youth “were taken with,” Lee said.

“They want to focus on people who were overlooked in the past but who did great work. It’s kind of like the culture of foster care. It’s a culture that’s very much blind to many people.”

So one of the new line’s first offerings will be a faux Harvard University crimson and cream T-shirt, bearing Rustin’s image and the words “School of Civil Disobedi-ence,” Lee said.

Also planned is a Dorothy Day T-shirt, he said, in honor of the journalist, activ-ist and co-founder of Catholic Workers (1897 - 1980). “Most people think of a war connection when they think about the name D-Day. But, this particular D-Day T-shirt is going to be about fighting for the most vulnerable.

The Unsung Heroes tagline is ‘clothing, culture and compassion’,” he added.

IP is currently working on a new web-site, and hoping to boost clientele. Monroe said she is working on a marketing plan for the Unsung Heroes debut.

“We want IP to be right up there with Phat Farm and Baby Phat” and other pop-ular clothing brands, she said. “My dream is for IP to go the distance.” ?


Jack Haggens, 20, and De'Jour Bright, 20, join the IP business meeting. A rack of clothes designed by the young entrepreneurs is nearby.

‘Youth Moving On’ (continued from page 4)PA

T M

CCAu

GHAN

Barnabas Ng, 16, was “jubilant” while celebrat-ing the lunar new year Feb. 6 at St. Thomas Church in Hacienda Heights.And for three important reasons: “food, family

and fireworks. It brings back memories of when I was in China and Malyasia,” he said, his plate piled high with fried rice, sweet and sour pork, spring rolls, dumplings, fish, noodles, chicken and beef dishes.

After prayer and singing Gongxi Gongxi to usher in the Chinese Year of the Rabbit, about 50 parish-ioners and friends gathered for a meal, and after-ward, games and spiritual conversation, said the Rev. Joshua Ng, vicar.

The occasion also included a birthday celebration for Ng, who turned 48 on Feb. 7. Ng was born in the year of the rabbit, he said, which signifies alertness and, he hopes, a busy year ahead for the church.

St. Thomas’ was among the Southland congrega-tions who observed the lunar new year, with reunion and thanksgiving, liturgy and music, games and fel-lowship, and, of course, tempting food and lucky red envelopes.

The Lunar New Year officially began Feb. 3. In the Chinese calendar it’s 4708, not 2011, and Chun Jié; the Vietnamese call it Tét and this is the year of the cat; and for Koreans it’s Seolal — and for all it signi-fies family reunions, tradition and new beginnings.

“This is the most important time for Chinese people,” said Lu-cia Liu, a member of St. Edmund’s Church (www.saintedmunds.org) in San Marino who organized the congregation’s Feb. 2 celebra-tion. It included a fashion show, a short play, singing, and games. For the children, there was a dragon dance and red envelopes.

Liu, a local import-export business owner, said about 50 people attended the celebration, which blended tradition and the new, “something very different,” she said.

The envelopes are usually filled with money or a Scripture verse or blessing or even candies, said the Rev. Thomas Ni.

“Chinese New Year is a time for people to get together, fam-ily members get together. The

church is our Christian family, so it’s very important for us to have celebrations like this,” he said. “Es-pecially when people came not too long ago from China, they’re lonely, homesick. It’s a good time to counsel people, to help people.”

The color red means good luck, energy, and love. “It is a very positive color,” said the Rev. Min-Hanh Nguyen, vicar of the Vietnamese congregation at St. Anselm of Canterbury in Garden Grove, which aver-ages about 35 attendees on Sundays, she said.

The congregation ate the customary foods: rice cake, salted fish, meat stew, fresh and pickled vegeta-bles. “I have pictures of them on my Facebook page,” Nguyen added.

The celebration symbolizes the reunion of living family members with their ancestors as one great community, an especially important tradition for the younger generations, Nguyen said. “We talk about our memories and reflections, whatever we inherited from them. We try to keep the memory of the ances-tors in our hearts,” she added.

Red envelopes were hung on trees outside St. Anselm’s for the Feb. 6 noon celebration to recall a tradition where “people go outdoors and pick the new shoots of the trees and bring them into the house because it symbolizes new life.”

The envelopes “contain Bible verses appropriate for renewal, for transformation, for things people could do in the new year, almost like a resolution,” said Nguyen. “We’ll prime them to take some kind of min-istry action they’ve been putting off,” she added.

They also contain money for the children, but first “the children also give the elders wishes and bless-ings, like longevity and health. The longer the wish the more money people give them before they receive the red envelopes,” she said.

But, she added, “Some kids get very smart and they make the wish into like a poem and read it, and they will get the most money.”

At St. James in-the-City in Los Angeles, both school and church joined together

A new year: double luck, happiness, long life

Southland

congregations

greet lunar

new year with

hope, joy and

thanksgiving

By Pat McCaughan

Dancers from a Torrance troupe

entertain at a Year of the rabbit celebration at St. Francis’ Church, Palos Verdes estates.

Children at St. Thomas’ Church, Hacienda Heights, enjoy a Feb. 6 celebration of the lunar New Year.



PAT

McC

AuGH

AN

DAVI

D Ge

rHAr

DT

www.saintedmunds.org

for a festive Feb. 13 celebration, said the Rev. Aidan Koh.

“This is our 19th year celebrating Ko-rean Partnership Sunday,” he said. During the 10:30 a.m. worship service, the chil-dren’s choir offered anthems and liturgical music in Korean traditional tunes.

After the service, parishioners presented a fashion show featuring both histori-cal and modern Korean dress, along with performances by the St. James drummers, well known throughout the diocese, and a Tae Kwon Do demonstration. Stephanie Kim, a chiropractor and St. James’ school parent who organized the fashion show and buffet luncheon, said the aim was “to share Korean culture with others.”

More than 350 people attended the event, she said. The luncheon featured such food as beef bulgogi, Korean pan-cakes, chicken and noodles, kim chee, and vegetables.

“It’s good to share the Korean culture so … if might be easier to interact with differ-ent nationalities,” said Kim. The event was really hard work, she added, “but to see that everyone enjoyed it was very meaning-ful.”

a new year and a good causeFor St. Teresa’s guild at St. Francis

Church (www.stfrancispv.org) in Palos Verdes Estates, the lunar New Year be-came an opportunity to celebrate and to raise money for Mama Hill’s Help (www.mamahillshelp.org), an after-school study program that aids at-risk children, said Cheryl Gutierrez, an event organizer.

“It’s a safe place for children to go to do their homework, and also for St. Francis

youth, to provide some needs they have,” Gutierrez said during a Feb. 18 telephone interview. About 110 people attended and the effort raised about $1,200.

Entertainment included performances by the Torrance Chinese Dancing Group, an adult group, as well as a children’s dance group from the Dan Dance Studio. The menu was Chinese chicken salad, su-shi and pot-stickers.

“It was a really fun way to raise money,” Gutierrez said. “It’s a real treat for people to be able to see something that is preserv-ing Chinese culture.”

At the Church of Our Saviour in San Gabriel, the Rev. Ada Wong-Nagata orga-nized a dim sum brunch that served more than 100 people following the Feb. 6 ser-vice. Her congregation is Cantonese and Mandarin-speaking and “a lot are from mainland China and are away from home — [it’s] something for them to celebrate.”

Eating dim sum (which, Nagata ex-plained, means “a little snack”) was an-other way to share cultural insights, she said. “We also talked about the lunar new year and what it means that this is the year of the rabbit.”

Parishioners from the Cantonese, Eng-lish and Mandarin congregations at St. Gabriel’s Church (http://saintgabriel.web.of ficelive.com/default.aspx) in Monterey Park worshipped together Feb. 6 and then shared a luncheon, said the Rev. Peter Lo, vicar.

“We played the erhu — it’s like a Chi-nese violin — together and then we had a potluck lunch together in which we [had] Chinese roasted pork, the whole pig,” said Lo. “We had a big meal. We sang Chinese new year folk songs.”

The congregation also held a Feb. 13 dinner at the Top Island Chinese Sea-food Restaurant in Alhambra, attended by about 100. They are hoping for a new beginning at the church, which suffered a devastating fire last year.

The June 25, 2010 fire gutted the church’s sacristy, destroyed vestments and damaged the sanctuary. The cause of the fire is still unknown, Lo said.

But the congregation is hoping to be back in the space by Easter. They are look-ing forward to the new year with hope and excitement, Lo said.

“We have quite a lot of new immigrants from mainland China coming here,” he said. “They miss home very much. This is a good occasion to come together so that they may feel a bit comforted coming to this fellowship.

“It is good for them and for us as a whole, so we can be together, eat together, sing together, strengthen each other, so it’s a very good occasion. I’m happy that they come.” ?

A troupe of Chinese dancers, above, entertains the crowd at a Lunar New Year celebration at St. Francis’ Church, Palos Verdes estates. A group of child dancers (right) also took a turn. The event was a fundraiser for Mama Hill’s Help, an organization that aids at-risk youth in South Los Angeles.


DAVI

D Ge

rHAr

DT

A new year (continued from page 6)

www.stfrancispv.orgwww.mamahillshelp.orgwww.mamahillshelp.orghttp://saintgabriel.web.of ficelive.com/default.aspxhttp://saintgabriel.web.of ficelive.com/default.aspx


Statue of Oscar romero is one of 10

that were installed in 1998 at Westminster Abbey representing

20th-century martyrs

Bishop J. Jon Bruno asked that members of

the diocesan commu-nity read The Lemon Tree by local author

Sandy Tolan.

Episcopalians in the Diocese of Los Angeles are invited to take part in several projects connected to its companion relationships with the Diocese of Jerusalem and the Middle East and the Diocese of El Salvador: reading and pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and remem-brance of Oscar Romero, a Salvadoran martyr.

At its meeting in December 2010, the convention of the diocese renewed both relationships for three years, continuing ties that have grown since the formal com-panion arrangements began some six years ago.

The wider Episcopal Church has designated March 6 as World Mission Sunday, with the theme “Lord, it is good for us to be here.” Resources in English, Span-ish and French are available for the observance, which has been celebrated each year on the last Sunday after Epiphany since a 1997 General Convention resolution established a commemoration to help Episcopalians increase awareness of and participation in global mis-sion. The resources include bulletin inserts, suggested sermons and readings, and information on the Episco-pal Church’s missionaries. For more information, visit www.episcopalchurch.org/110044_126750_eNG_HTM.htm.

reading for understandingAt the 2010 convention, Bishop Diocesan J. Jon

Bruno of Los Angeles asked parishioners to read The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East, by Los Angeles author Sandy Tolan to foster discussion of the political, cultural and religious differences that have shaped the current situation in the Holy Land.

Tolan has produced hundreds of documentaries and features for National Public Radio (NPR) and is a lead producer for “Working,” a monthly series of profiles of workers for the PBS program Market-place. He is a co-founder of Homelands Productions,

an independent production company, and an associate pro-fessor at the Annenberg School for Communication and Jour-nalism at USC.

pilgrimage for young people

The Program Group on Youth Ministries of the diocese invites high school students to take part in a youth pilgrimage

to the Holy Land July 31 – Aug. 12, 2011.Trip leaders will be Deborah Neal and Chris Tum-

ilty, who shepherded groups of young people to Pal-estine and Israel in 2008 and 2009. Bishop Bruno is scheduled to accompany the group as their chaplain.

“The Holy Land is an amazing experience of spiri-tuality, education, and culture,” says Neal. “Jeru-salem is one of the most significant cities in history. Visiting the sites of Christ’s teaching and childhood is a life-changing experience, and the beauty of Israel-Palestine is breathtaking.”

Cost per person will be approximately $3,200, which includes air travel, accommodations, meals, en-try fees, etc. A $500 deposit is required to hold a place. For information, contact Neal at [email protected] or Tumilty [email protected], or call the Cathedral Center at 213.220.5566.

remembering a martyr of el salvadorThe Program Group on World Mission of the Dio-

cese of Los Angeles is encouraging congregations to remember on Thursday, March 24 or Sunday, March 27 the martyrdom of Roman Catholic Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was murdered in 1980 while cel-ebrating the Eucharist.

Romero was known as the “voice of the voiceless,” an outspoken advocate for the poor and oppressed, during a long period of government repression and a 12-year civil war in El Salvador. His name was added in 2009 to the Episcopal Church’s calendar of com-memorations by act of General Convention; his feast day in March 24. His is one of 10 statues of 20th cen-tury martyrs installed in 1998 at Westminster Abbey in London.

PGWM has provided Prayers of the People and a form for Stations of the Cross in remembrance of Romero, and encourages congregations of the diocese to use them either on March 24 or on March 27, the third Sunday of Lent in (continued on page 9)

Companion relationships emphasized in reading,

pilgrimage, remembrance

A member of the 2008 youth pilgrimage from the Diocese of Los Angeles to the Holy Land spends some quiet time overlooking the Judean desert.

Diocese

renews ties to

Jerusalem,

El Salvador

by Janet Kawamoto

MO

LLY

KAW

AMOT

O

www.episcopalchurch.org/[email protected] [email protected]


2011. To download the prayers, visit http://ministries.ladiocese.net/elsalvador.html.

“For many who feel connected with El Salvador, Archbishop Oscar Romero is an inspiration, a challenge, and an example,” said George Woodward, chair of PGWM, in proposing the observances. “Sharing Romero’s words and the testimony of his life on and around the Sunday closest to the anniversary of his martyrdom, March 24, is a wonderful way to open the minds and hearts of people in your congregation to the daily reality of people in El Salvador and much of the world.”

Foundation Cristosal, the principal North American advocacy group working with the Anglican/Episcopal Church of El Salvador offfers additional materials, such as bulletin inserts, photo essays, blogs, prayers, and services for observances of the feast of Oscar Romero.

Woodward also suggests two movies that may be of interest: “Romero,” an English-language film, and “Voces Inocente,” a film in Spanish with English subtitles.

“We hope that Romero’s observance will become an annual celebration in parishes and dioceses which stand in solidarity and love with the Anglican/Episcopal Church of El Salvador,” said Woodward. “While thousands gather in the streets in San Sal-vador to honor Romero and commit them-selves anew to his work, thousands more will gather in parishes in North America to share Romero’s witness and to stand in solidarity with our Salvadoran broth-ers and sisters and all who suffer from the yoke of poverty and repression.”

Congregations or individuals who wish to contribute to the pastoral and social work of the Anglican Episcopal Church of El Salvador may contact Woodward at [email protected], or visit the website of Foundation Cristosal at http://cristosal.org.?

The convention of the Diocese of Los Angeles, meeting in December 2010, passed a resolution calling for par-ishes to celebrate Episcopal Relief & De-velopment Sunday on the first Sunday of Lent (March 13 in 2011) or another con-venient Sunday during the Lenten season, in response to a General Convention reso-lution adopted in 2009.

“To help your congregation prepare for this day and for the Lenten journey, we encourage you to order the 2011 Lenten Meditations booklet,” says the Rev. Wil-ma Jakobsen, diocesan coordinator for Episcopal Relief & Development.

“This year’s devotional was co-authored by a group of leaders from across the Episcopal Church. Reflecting a variety of backgrounds and theological perspectives, these meditations offer insights on the dai-ly lectionary readings and how we might apply them to our lives as we face a world in need,” said Jakobsen.

The devotional and additional Lenten materials are available from the Episcopal Media Center (EMC). Materials are free; a minimal fee will be charged for shipping and handling. Large orders or overnight

and second-day delivery will incur ad-ditional shipping costs. Devotionals and other materials come in packs of varying sizes.

To place orders, call 1.866.937.2772, or visit www.er-d.org/2011LentenMaterials.

Downloadable versions in English and Spanish are available on the website. For further information and suggestions, con-tact Kate Jones DeBay at [email protected] or Richard Hoff at [email protected].

Episcopal Relief & Development works around the world to relieve suffering after major disasters and to improve the lives of people in areas stricken by poverty. Ad-ministrative costs for the highly-regarded agency are borne by the U.S.-based Epis-copal Church, so that most of donated funds are used directly for relief and de-velopment projects. As a matter of policy, Episcopal Relief & Development does not build churches, and its work is separate from the Help for Haiti campaign recently launched by the Episcopal Church Foun-dation to raise funds to replace the Holy Trinity Cathedral complex destroyed by earthquake in January 2010 (see story on page 10). ?

Materials for ‘Episcopal Relief & Development Sunday’ now available

Companion (continued from page 8)

Youth pilgrims take time out from visits to holy sites to enjoy a ride on a camel.

MO

LLY

KAW

AMOT

O

http://ministries.ladiocese.net/elsalvador.htmlhttp://ministries.ladiocese.net/[email protected]://cristosal.orgwww.er-d.org/2011LentenMaterialskmjdebay@[email protected]://www.cathedralbookstore.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=SFNT&Store_Code=EDLA1

A fragment of the cathedral’s

famous murals, now undergoing

conservation.M

ArY

FrAN

CeS

SCH

JON

BerG

MAr

Y Fr

ANCe

S SC

HJO

NBe

rG

Haitian school-children play trumpet during a class at Holy Trinity Music School, which is still operating in Port-au-Prince although its buildings in the Holy Trinity Cathedral complex were destroyed in the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake.



For part of every school day trumpets, trombones, French horns and violins compete with honking horns, squealing tires and shouting people in a busy corner of Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti.

The musicians are mostly young students at the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti’s earthquake-destroyed, but still functional, Holy Trinity Music School.

“I have so many dreams for Holy Trinity School,” its head, the Rev. Fernande Pierre Louis, told Episco-pal News Service recently.

The object of her and others’ dreams for the dio-cese, which celebrates its 150 anniversary this year, is to continue and strengthen the work of preaching and enacting what Bishop Jean Zaché Duracin has called “a gospel of wholeness” that serves people in their bodies, minds and spirits.

That attitude of wholeness came to Haiti with the Rev. James Theodore Holly, one of the Episcopal Church’s first African-American priests — ordained in 1856 at age 27 — who founded the Haitian diocese after he brought 100 emigrants from New Haven, Connecticut, to Haiti. Holly, who later became the diocese’s first bishop, went to the countryside first, ac-cording to Duracin, and wherever he went he founded a school. Holly thought people should be able to read the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer, and he believed in education as a development tool.

The music school is part of the Holy Trinity Ca-thedral complex that also once housed Holy Trinity Professional School, primary and secondary schools, and a convent of the Sisters of St. Margaret, as well as the now-destroyed church building with its world-renowned murals depicting biblical stories in Haitian motifs, which were crafted by some of the best-known

Haitian painters of the 20th century.For Pierre Louis, the aim of educating

the more than 900 students who come to the battered complex every day is the same as it has always been. “To be good citizens, to stay in Haiti to develop the country — that’s why it’s important for us to give them high-caliber education,” she said in an interview with ENS Jan. 25 during the diocese’s 114th synod.

Pierre Louis, who was injured when the Holy Trinity School collapsed dur-ing the magnitude-7 earthquake that

struck late in the afternoon of Jan. 12, 2010 and spent three months recovering with family in Montreal, de-scribed the year since the quake as “difficult for every, every, everybody.”

“My dream is to rebuild stronger,” Duracin told ENS at the diocesan offices on Jan. 29. “We have to build ourselves differently and rebuild the things that we have lost.”

The difference must come not just through the of-ten-stated vow to rebuild physical structures in ways that will help them withstand future hurricanes and earthquakes. There must be a difference in attitude, the bishop said.

During the earthquake and in the initial hours and days afterwards, neighbors helped neighbors without waiting for officials to come to their aid. “We have to maintain that spirit of solidarity with one another,” Duracin said.

working together for recoveryPresiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori’s two spe-

cial coordinators for the Haiti Long-Term Recovery Project, the Rev. Joseph Constant and the Rev. Rose-mari Sullivan, spent Jan. 24-29 in Haiti and saw signs of strength, difference and remaining challenges.

“I think the church really understands its mission to proclaim the word, its mission to lift up the broken-hearted,” Constant said. “There’s a lot of that right now in Haiti — people feeling that sense of broken-ness and thirsting for words of hope. The church is in a unique position especially now to be a leader in terms of bringing that sense of hope amidst the chal-lenges. So I see the church in a tension between really providing that sense of comfort, that sense of pres-ence, and the church spending time rebuilding [its buildings], because the church has to rebuild.”

Sullivan said her visit to

Building a stronger, better church in Haiti

Leaders

vow to

expand

diocese’s

legacy of

holistic

ministry

By Mary Frances Schjonberg

‘Rebuild the soul’ of Haiti, brick by brick

The Episcopal Church launched a fund-raising effort on Jan. 12 to help “rebuild the soul” of Haiti, according to the Episcopal Church Foundation, which is coordinating the project.

The focus of what the ECF release calls the “initial phase of rebuilding” will be the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti’s Holy Trinity Cathedral complex in Port-au-Prince. Nearly all the diocese’s church buildings were leveled by the Jan. 12, 2010 magnitude-7 earthquake.

“The cathedral was a beacon in a land where strength of faith is inversely pro-portional to economic development,” the foundation’s release said.

The Episcopal Church’s Executive Council has challenged the church to raise $10 million to help begin to rebuild the Diocese of Haiti. Haitian Bishop Jean Zaché Duracin asked that the effort be directed to the cathedral complex.

“The people of Haiti have lost the central symbol of their gathering place for the worship of God,” Presiding Bish-op Katharine Jefferts Schori says in a

video posted at www.episcopalchurch.org/ HaitiAppeal. She says the destruction of the cathedral has “destroyed the heart of the church of Haiti.”

“It’s going to take the resources of the entire Episcopal Church to serve the re-construction needs of the buildings of the diocese,” she said.

Even before the appeal’s official launch, the foundation’s press release said, sev-eral dioceses designated their convention offerings for this effort and nearly half of diocesan bishops are planning fund-rais-ing work in their dioceses.

“Individuals can be leaders in rebuild-ing the central pillar of support that once provided spiritual, educational, and medi-cal care to hundreds of thousands of Hai-tians” by beginning to buy bricks for the effort, said the ECF release. Bricks range in price from $10 for one to $1,000 for 100 bricks. Other amounts can be des-ignated. More information, along with ways to donate in any amount, is avail-able at www.episcopalfoundation.org.

—Episcopal News Service

MAr

Y Fr

ANCe

S SC

HJO

NBe

rG


the diocese showed her that “the capac-ity that needs to be built is the capacity to serve the brokenhearted.”

Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere, is numerically the largest dio-cese in the U.S.-based Episcopal Church, with more than 100,000 Episcopalians in 200 congregations, parishes, missions and preaching stations, who before the quake were served by just 32 active priests, nine retired priests, six deacons, three nuns and 17 seminarians.

Prior to the earthquake the diocese ran a network of 254 schools that taught more than 80,000 Haitians from preschool to university level. Other institutions includ-ed a school for handicapped children, a trade school, a two-year business school, a nursing school that granted the first bac-calaureate degrees in the country in Janu-ary 2009, a seminary and a university. A renowned philharmonic orchestra and children’s choir were based at the cathe-dral; both are still performing. The diocese also provided medical clinics, development projects and micro-financing efforts.

In November a report released during a meeting of many of the diocese’s current mission partners predicted that the first phase of post-earthquake reconstruction and development for the entire diocese will cost close to $197 million. The Plan for the Reconstruction and Development of the Diocese of Haiti (Phase 1) said that the $196,861,926 cost estimate includes a $24,319,400 “local contribution,” leav-ing $172,542,526 to come from outside sources.

The first and major dream for this first phase of the plan is rebuilding the cathe-dral complex. The November report put the cost of rebuilding the church structure at $34.7 million and the cost of school complex at nearly $50 million. The wider Episcopal Church recently inaugurated a fundraising campaign for that project called “Rebuild our Church in Haiti” (see story on this page).

Constant, a native Haitian, said that while some people may question why the cathedral is the diocese’s first rebuilding choice, “having a structure like a cathedral to go into for a church service provides that sense of stability, provides that sense of normalcy that I think we all thirst for.”

The cathedral land is within a stone’s

throw of a major encamp-ment filled with some of the more than 1 million Haitians who have lived in tents since the hours after the quake and Constant said that the diocesan leadership is “definitely mind-ful that there are great needs around us, around the cathe-dral.”

Sullivan called on the diocese to advocate for the homeless as they minis-ter to their other needs. “We cannot allow people to continue to live in tents,” she said. “That is a recipe for utter disaster. That has to stop and the church has to say ‘You must stop.’”

Constant and Sullivan said that the dio-cese is making changes in its operations to live out its dreams.

“There’s a real organization going on — a really expansion of the diocesan system to try to build enough capacity to fully function as a diocese as large as it is,” Sul-livan said.

He said that the church needs to know that the diocese is serious about its pledge to rebuild structures with techniques to ensure that “when the next hurricane hap-pens, when the next earthquake happens, that these buildings, by the grace of God, will remain standing.”

The wider church has some responsibili-ties as well in

Haiti (continued from page 10)

Haitian architect Harold Gaspard, right, confers with episcopal Church representatives rosemari Sullivan and Joseph Constant about rebuilding Holy Trinity Cathedral in Port-au-Prince.


www.episcopalchurch.org/ HaitiAppealwww.episcopalchurch.org/ HaitiAppealwww.episcopalfoundation.org

Above: Chet Talton presides over the

ordination of three deacons in

May 2010 at St. Mark’s Church, upland, in his last official act before retiring as bishop

suffragan of the Diocese of

Los Angeles.

JAN

eT K

AWAM

OTOThe standing committee of the Episcopal Dio-cese of San Joaquin has nominated the Rt. Rev. Chester L. Talton, retired suffragan of Los An-

geles, for provisional bishop, according to a Jan. 19 statement posted on the diocesan website.

If elected at a special convention tentatively sched-uled for March 5 in Fresno, Talton would succeed the Rt. Rev. Jerry Lamb, who has served as provisional bishop of the Central California Valley diocese since Feb. 2008.

A provisional bishop is nominated and elected to carry out the duties of a bishop diocesan for an in-terim term under special circumstances.

“It was a short retirement,” said Talton, 68, dur-ing a Jan. 18 telephone interview concerning his new role. He retired in May 2010 after serving 19 years as bishop suffragan of Los Angeles.

“I’m excited and looking forward to serving in San Joaquin,” he said. He began visiting congregations Feb. 1, once he was officially recognized by Lamb as a visiting bishop.

“I’m really impressed with the quality of the people, and the quality of the leadership in San Joaquin,” Talton added. “It’s refreshing to see such committed, dedicated people who have been so creative in their thinking. There are good collaborative leaders there who hadn’t even been in leadership roles” before the diocese was reconstituted following a split in 2007.

He and spouse April Grayson Talton also met and greeted San Joaquin Episcopalians at a series of re-gional meetings in February.

energy and enthusiasm for rebuilding efforts Talton said that if elected he hoped to continue

Lamb’s rebuilding efforts. “There is a lot of energy and enthusiasm to grow and expand and develop con-gregations as well as to be a more inclusive diocese of all people,” he said. “There is a great deal of openness and potential. It’s encouraging, I’m looking forward to being with them.”

“He’s a great choice. I’ve known Chet now for 20 years and he’s been a great bishop,” Lamb said dur-ing a Jan. 18 telephone interview from his Las Cruces, New Mexico, home. “He certainly is a person with a

tremendous amount of experience of the wider church but he’s also essentially a Cali-fornia-raised kid, so he understands this area and the church in the west.”

Talton brings to the new role a sense of the state and of the diocese of San Joaquin as well as considerable and varied parish experiences that will serve him well as diocesan renewal continues, Lamb said.

“We had to rebuild the diocese from nothing. No files, no equipment; everything was from the begin-ning” after former bishop John-David Schofield at-tempted to realign the diocese with the Anglican Prov-ince of the Southern Cone in Dec. 2007.

Lamb said an entire infrastructure had to be created, including diocesan committees and councils and other ministries. He said seven congregations remained in-tact after the split and 14 others were started “from nothing, except being a group that refused to break away from the Episcopal Church.”

But, he added, “It’s been a moving experience for me. The people of San Joaquin are so committed to their Christian faith and the Christian faith as ex-pressed in the Episcopal Church.

“On a personal level, it was really time for me to re-tire,” added Lamb, 69, who had also served as assist-ing bishop in the Diocese of Nevada after his 2006 re-tirement as the sixth bishop of Northern California.

The March 5 special convention will also be a day to honor the contributions of Bishop Jerry and Jane Lamb, said Cindy Smith, president of the standing committee, in an email. If Talton is elected, Lamb will transfer ecclesiastical authority and install him as provisional bishop at that gathering, according to the press release.

Talton was born in 1941 in Arkansas but spent much of his life in Oakland, California. He earned a bachelor’s degree in 1965 from California State Uni-versity, Hayward. He received both master (1970) and doctor of divinity (1992) degrees from the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Berkeley. He was or-dained a deacon in 1970 and a priest in 1971 in the Diocese of California.

He has served congregations in Berkeley and Car-mel, California, and also in Chicago, St. Paul, Min-nesota and in New York City, where he was mission officer of Trinity Church (Wall Street) for nine years and rector of St. Philip’s, Harlem. He was elected suf-fragan bishop of Los Angeles in 1991. He has four adult children and several grandchildren. ?

San Joaquin nominates Chet Talton as provisional bishop

‘It was a

short

retirement,’

says former

Los Angeles

suffragan

By Pat McCaughan


People NeWS OF THe DIOCeSAN COMMuNITY

“I’m excited and looking forward to serving

in San Joaquin ... I’m really impressed with the quality

of the people, and the quality of the leadership.”

— Chester L. Talton

Education, inspiration and support for the voca-tional deacons of the Diocese of Los Angeles are the priorities of its new archdeacon, the Vener-able Dr. Joanne Leslie, who was appointed to the post in late January by Bishop Diocesan J. Jon Bruno.

Leslie, who was ordained a vocational deacon in 2002, succeeds the Rev. Canon Frederick Erickson, who recently retired from the archdeacon’s post. She will be installed at a celebration on Saturday, May 14, 11 a.m. at the ProCathedral of St. John in Los Angeles at which Erickson will also be recognized for his ser-vice. The diocesan community is invited to attend.

The archdeacon works with the bishops of the dio-cese to oversee and support the ministry of vocational, or permanent, deacons.

A deacon leadership team appointed by Bruno will assist Leslie in her ministry. Team members in-clude Erickson as well as deacons Katie Derose (St. Augustine’s Church, Santa Monica), Larry Steele (St. Alban’s Church, Yucaipa) and Jamie Hammons (St. Barnabas’ Church, Eagle Rock).

“I like to think of myself as ‘Joanne Appleseed,’ go-ing and planting the seeds of new diaconal calls,” the new archdeacon told The Episcopal News. Her first task is “educating the larger diocese about the diacon-ate, so that members of congregations, the clergy who lead those congregations, and especially potential dea-cons within those congregations will know what the vocational diaconate is.

“One of the things we hope to do is to have myself

and other people go out and serve as guest deacons or guest preachers or conduct forums about the diacon-ate in as many parishes and missions as are interested throughout the diocese.”

Leslie is especially concerned with the formation of deacons. She and the leadership team will work with Sylvia Sweeney, dean of Bloy House (The Episcopal Theological School at Claremont) to develop oppor-tunities for discernment and training.

Her third top priority, Leslie says, is creating and maintaining community among deacons already or-dained. There are some 40 deacons in the diocese, she says, but they are spread far and wide, and would benefit from meeting with their colleagues in what she calls “geographical clusters.”

a passion for service in the world

“The heart of the vocational deacon’s ministry is their ser-vice in the world, and this takes a vari-ety of forms,” Leslie said. “We have peo-ple doing jail ministry and public health ministry and working with the homeless.”

Deacons have a leadership as well as a servant role, she says. “We look for someone who really has a pas-sion to both help those who are marginalized, but also a passion to inspire and enable congregations to find ways to live out their baptismal vows, especially in the way of being Christ’s hands and hearts in the world.”

A deacon’s liturgical role, she said, connects direct-ly with this work. “For me, probably the most im-portant role of the deacon in the liturgy is to do the dismissal at the end of the service; that’s the deacon sending people back out into the world to be a healing force for a hurting world.”

Leslie currently serves as deacon at St. John’s Pro-Cathedral, where her work includes parish health ministries and feeding programs. She is coordinator of pastoral care and eucharistic visitors, and chaplain for the Daughters of the King chapter. She also chairs the board of the Jubilee Consortium, a network of service and outreach organizations. A lead partner in the Consortium is Holy Faith Church in Inglewood, the congregation that sponsored Leslie for ordination, and which she previously served as a deacon.

She also is a board member of Community Health Councils, Inc. For some 15 years beginning in 1991, Leslie was an adjunct professor in the Community Health Sciences Department of UCLA’s School of Public Health. Previously, she spent about 20 years engaged in health and nutrition work in western and central Africa.

Leslie holds both master and doctor of science de-grees in public health from Johns Hopkins University. She earned a bachelor’s degree in English and French literature from Reed College in 1966, and received a certificate of theological studies from Church Divinity School of the Pacific in 2001. Leslie is married to Wal-ter Johnson; each has three adult children.

To schedule a visit from the archdeacon or a repre-sentative to a congregation or organization, contact Leslie at [email protected] or 213.747.6285.

New archdeacon works to support diaconal ministries

Bishop Bruno

appoints

Joanne Leslie

to oversee

work of

vocational

deacons

By Janet Kawamoto

Above: Archdeacon Joanne Leslie will

oversee the ministry of vocational deacons

in the diocese.

JAN

eT K

AWAM

OTO


People NeWS OF THe DIOCeSAN COMMuNITY

“I like to think of myself as ‘Joanne Appleseed,’

going and planting the seeds of new diaconal calls.”

— Joanne Leslie

[email protected]

People NeWS OF THe DIOCeSAN COMMuNITYconnections

u The rev. Susan Dell Hathaway Bek and the rev. Cynthia Lynne Jew were ordained to the priesthood Feb. 12 at St. Stephen’s Church, Santa Clarita, by Bishop Dioc-esan J. Jon Bruno.

u The rev. Michael Scott Bell was ordained to the priesthood Jan. 8 at Grace Cathe-dral, Topeka, Kansas, by Bishop Dean E. Wolfe on behalf of Bishop Bruno.

u The rev. robert Gaestel, rector of Church of the Angeles, Pasadena, recently gradu-ated from the eight-week FBI Citizen’s Academy and from the Basic Mediation Course at Loyola Law School.

u Jeffrey Jackson Martinhauk will be or-dained to the transitional diaconate by Bishop Jon Bruno at 4 p.m. on Saturday, March 12 at Christ Chapel, Seminary of the Southwest, Austin, Texas.

u The rev. Canon Hank Mitchel is assisting at All Saints, Santa Barbara.

u The rev. James Sprague began serving as interim rector at St. Paul’s Church in Ventura on Feb. 1. ?

Bishop Suffragan Mary D. Glasspool (center back) ordained five to the priesthood on Jan. 8 at the ProCathedral of St. John in Los Angeles. Pictured from left are ordinands Sarah Lapenta-H, Jonathan Sy, Michelle Baker-Wright, Mary Marjorie Bethea and Philip DeVaul. Also participating in the service were, at back left, Deacon Jamie Hammons and Bishop J. Jon Bruno and, at back right, Deacon Nicholas Carpenter.

DO

N A

ND

erSO

N

Bishop Suffragan Diane Jardine Bruce, left, was a participant in “One in the Apostles’ Teachings,” an event for the Week of Prayer for Christian unity, on Jan. 24 at St Cecilia Church, Tustin. Shown with Bruce are the bishop of the Assyrian Church; roman Catholic Bishop Tod Brown; and Bishop Murray Fink of the evangelical Lutheran Church in America (eLCA).

Evening of prayer for Christian unity

Ordination at the ProCathedral

Above: Dennis Gibbs and Greta ronningen, left, residents of the Community of Divine Love in San Gabriel, watch as Michael Battle, right,

rector of the adjacent Church of Our Saviour performs a Native American blessing at the Jan. 29 dedication of the community. Left: Bishop Mary D. Glasspool, who presided at the dedication service, refers during her sermon to an icon that she presented to the new monastery.

Dedication of a monastery

CHrI

S Tu

MIL

TY


Tutu visits PasadenaDesmond Tutu, retired archbishop of Capetown, South Africa and justice advocate, paid a rare visit to the Southland, stopping on Feb. 20 to preach at All Saints Church, Pasadena. At right, Tutu goes over service details with rector ed Bacon. The archbishop’s sermon may be viewed online at www.allsaints-pas.org/sermons

SuSA

N r

uSSe

LL

www.allsaints-pas.org/sermonshttp://www.judsonstudios.com/http://www.mount-calvary.org/

800-366-1536ext. 254

www.efcula.org

Did you know?The Diocese of Los Angeles has a full-service Credit Union.

The Episcopal Community Federal Credit Union has been in existence for 14 years, and any Episcopalian in the diocese can join.

ECFCU offers a full line of financial products:Savings AccountsChecking AccountsHoliday Club AccountsDebit/ATM CardsOn-Line BankingBill Pay24-Hour Telephone Information

Auto LoansSignature LoansBusiness LoansWire TransfersIndividual Credit CounselingFinancial EducationFree Income Tax Preparation


DIO

CeSe

OF

CHrI

STCH

urCH

LOS ANGELES1701 James M. Wood Blvd.

213/385-3366

LONG BEACH1960 Del Amo at Cherry

562/424-0963

its desire to help Haiti realize its dreams, according to Sullivan. “There is an intense need to collaborate among all of the do-nors,” she explained. “Parishes, schools, hospitals — any organization or institution that wants to help in Haiti needs to work in coordination so that their efforts are more effective and that the energy of the diocese is not siphoned off on small projects.”

Lastly, Sullivan said, Episcopalians must understand the context within which the diocese is rebuilding. Its diocesan staff is stretched thin and its clergy and lay lead-ers, having suffered trauma and loss of their own, face tremendous work. Most clergy, who earn an average annual sal-ary of $1,000, are responsible for multiple congregations to which thousands of Hai-tians belong. They are often running medi-cal clinics and schools with thousands of students —all with very little money.

She said “Haiti is a very different cul-ture, climate and when we say poverty we mean poverty that is almost unimaginable for an American without really seeing, and that that is the situation that the church is working in.”

The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg is national correspondent for the Episcopal News Service.

Haiti (continued from page 11)

New Zealand quake

A deadly and devastating earthquake toppled the spire of Christchurch Cathedral in Christchurch, New Zealand, on Feb. 22. Although all cathedral staff and volunteers escaped unharmed, as many as 22 people, most of them probably tourists climbing the tower, were feared crushed in the wreckage. An estimated 113 people in the quake area were killed, and another 200 are missing. Other churches suf-fered significant damage; several more have offered their facilities as pastoral care centers and funeral sites for those killed in the quake. For extensive coverage of the quake and its effect on Anglicans in Christchurch, visit the website of Episcopal News Service at www.episcopalchurch.org/ens. ?

u Canon Wesley J. Hartley, a long-time lay leader and director of the Corporation of the Diocese, died Jan. 28 at the age of 87. A retired

Security Pacific Bank vice president, he was active in credit and banking and civic organizations.

u Longtime diocesan volunteer Carlotita Mann, wife of Canon Peter Mann, former treasurer of the dio-cese, died on Jan. 8 after a long illness. Mann was a

dedicated volunteer in numerous initia-

tives of the bishop’s office, beginning under the leadership of Bishop Robert C. Rusack, and continuing through the tenure of Bishop Frederick Borsch and Bishop Jon Bruno.

u Nellie Anne Daniels Saville, widow of the Rev. Canon J. Kimball Saville, died on Jan. 7 at age 93. She was active in many ministries, particularly in

partnership with her late husband during his years of parish ministry as longtime rector of St. Michael’s, Anaheim, and more recently at Trinity, Redlands, and St. Alban’s, Yucaipa. ?

Obituaries may be read in full at www.episcopalnews.com

reQuiescant

www.episcopalchurch.org/enshttp://www.efcula.org/http://www.cotters.com/


Take Notearcadia parish to dedicate ‘bill daum hall’

The Church of the Transfiguration, Arcadia, invites the diocesan com-munity to the dedication of the “Fr. Bill Daum Parish

Hall,” in honor of the late Rev. J. William Daum, rector from 1962 to 1994, on Sun-day, March 6, at 4 p.m. A wine-and-cheese reception will follow the service. Church of the Transfiguration is located at 1881 S. First Avenue, Arcadia. For information call the parish office at 626.445.3340.

cursillo weekends planned in 2011, 2012

Cursillo weekends for men and women, in Eng-lish and Spanish, will be offered in March and Oc-tober of 2011 at Cursillo

House in Pomona. Episcopal Cursillo is a weekend retreat program “aimed at helping people understand their individual callings to be Christian leaders,” according to the diocesan Cursillo website http://episcopal-cursillolosangeles.wordpress.com/. An Eng-lish-language weekend for men is sched-uled for March 3 - 6; for women, March 10 - 13. The Spanish-language weekend for men will be Oct. 20 - 23; for women, Oct. 27 - 30. Candidate application forms and instructions may be downloaded from the website. For more information, contact Colin Stewart, chair of the diocesan gov-erning board, at 949.499.9991 or cestew [email protected].

centering prayer saturday in altadena

St. Mark’s Church, Altadena, will offer a

“Centering Saturday” program of centering

prayer and silence on Saturday, March 26, beginning at 8:30 a.m. with registration and ending at 12:30 p.m. Participants will enjoy communal silent prayer with medita-tive walks in between, private journaling, lectio divina and Eucharist. Refreshments will be provided. There is no charge; a free will offering will be taken. St. Mark’s Epis-copal Church is located at 1014 E. Alta-dena Drive, Altadena. For information, call 626.798.6747

bishop bruce to lead lenten silent retreat

A Lenten silent retreat with Bishop Diane Bruce, “Exploring Different Forms of Prayer,” will be held Saturday, March 19,

9 a.m. to 2 p.m., at the ProCathedral of St. John, sponsored by the St. John’s chapter of the Daughters of the King. Cost for the day is $10, which includes lunch. For res-ervations (requested by March 14), con-tact the parish office at 213.747.6285 or email to [email protected]. The ProCathe-dral is located at 514 West Adams Blvd., Los Angeles.

workshops to trace legacy of henri nouwen

Nouwen Legacy and St. James’ Church, South Pasadena, are the spon-sors of “Henri Nouwen and Spiritual Polarities,”

a series of retreat and workshop days at the Cathedral Center of St. Paul which began Feb. 26 with “Woundedness and Healing” and continues on April 23 with “Presence and Absence” and June 25 with “Life and Death.” Each session will begin at 9 a.m. and conclude at 3:30 p.m. Fee is $60 per session, including lunch and materials. For information, visit www.nou wenlegacy.com/, email to [email protected] or call 626.318.6696.

‘sixth day’ pet program goes on the road

The Sixth Day, the pet-friendly service of St. Ste-phen’s, Whittier, launched its On-The-Road series on Feb. 27. Worship and a

meal will be offered in some public venue at 5 p.m. on the last Sunday of each month. On other Sundays, the service will be held at St. Stephen’s, 10925 Valley Home Avenue. Pets on leashes or in crates are welcome at all Sixth Day services, which recognize and honor the spiritual bond between people and their companion animals. Besides the weekly service, The Sixth Day is a pet food distribution source for households and those on the street for whom the economy has put their pets at risk. For more infor-mation, call 562.447.4727.

catechesis training to be offered

Part One of the Cat-echesis of the Good Shepherd Level II course will be offered at Trin-ity Episcopal Church,

Santa Barbara, June 13 - 24, 9 a.m.- 3 p.m. Part Two will be offered June 18 - 22, 2012. Sessions will be led by Catherine Maresca, assisted by Seraphima Butler. Tu-ition will be $700 for members of the Na-tional Association of CGS; $750 for non-members. Registration and $100 deposit are due by May 6, 2011. The Catechesis of the Good Shepherd is a hands-on approach to the religious formation of children. For more information contact Carrie Brothers, [email protected] or 805.969.9129.

bishop glasspool to lead ‘lent event’

The Program Group on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Minis-tries will sponsor “Lent Event,” a day of learning,

prayer, reflection and renewal with Bishop Mary Glasspool, on Saturday, March 19, 9 a.m. - 3 p.m. at Church of Our Saviour, 535 W. Roses Road, San Gabriel. Cost is $10 (for lunch). For reservations, send an email to [email protected]. ?

http://episcopalcursillolosangeles.wordpress.com/http://episcopalcursillolosangeles.wordpress.com/cestew [email protected] [email protected]@stjohnsla.orgwww.nou wenlegacy.com/www.nou wenlegacy.com/[email protected]@[email protected]@yahoo.comhttp://www.angelenomortuaries.com/

(continued on page 5)Bookmark 2

Button 5:

serving the six-county diocese of los … · ic sta u d e nmal er jan e t kawamoto. the episcopal...

Documents