Dear Friends and Family,
Happy New Year to you!
I hope that your hearts are full as you move from the liturgical season of Christmas and Epiphany to Ordinary Time. As we embrace these weeks before Lent and Easter let’s be mindful of the fullness we have received in the birth and life of Christ. Between now and February 24 we celebrate with the historical and present-day Church a season of growth, flourishing and productivity characterized by the color verdant green. In the birth and life of Christ we have received good news to be celebrated and shared.
So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness…For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. (Colossians 2:6-9)
In step with this time of flourishing, Chris and I are entering a verdant season of service. Chris has a number of speaking engagements during the first quarter of this year. And we will travel together for field visits in Thailand and Nepal. We are preparing for Partnership Platform meetings in February where representatives from every WMF community will gather to grow in partnership with one another. Indians, Nepalis, Eastern Europeans, West Africans, South Americans and North Americans will meet together in Duliker, Nepal not far from Kathmandu.
Calendar Review: Where in the World are Chris and Phileena?
01/23-25 Ancaster, Ontario: Redeemer University College
01/26-28 Cambridge, Ontario: Heritage College & Seminary
01/29 Toronto: WMF Canada Development Day
02/08-11 Marion, IN: IWU Missions Conference
02/12-21 Dhuliker, Nepal: Partnership Platform Meetings
02/24-27 Bangkok, Thailand: Field Visit
03/9-11 Houston, TX: Original City Conference
03/12-15 Kansas City: First Baptist Church of Kansas City Missions Conf
03/16-20 Houston, TX: Original City Conference
Community Care Center: An Update
Enclosed you will find a prayer card for the Community Care Center.
The first week of January, Silas, Amanda and I spent three days at the Carol Joy Holling Center in Ashland, NE. During our time together we reflected on 2008 and our combined efforts toward supporting the community to live a sustainable and thriving vocation of service. In the thick of winter it was nice to get out of the office and into the outdoors a bit. We were blessed by the presence of woodpeckers and blue jays, deer, hawks and even a bald eagle! It invigorated us to get out of our usual surroundings and sort of step out of the confines of our imagination to let the Spirit guide us.
Looking back, we managed to draft our 2008 Development Report; and dreaming ahead we drafted our 3 Year Development Plan. Our unified effort is to support the community to live a sustainable and thriving vocation among the poor grounded in spiritual formation, mental and emotional well-being, and physical vitality. Our focus is vocational expression, vocational support and vocational formation.
It’s great to have Silas West working with us and offering his eleven plus years of cross-cultural service to the broader community. Hilary Wilken is currently raising support to serve as Assistant to the Community Care Center. We are eager for her to join us. We are very much looking forward to the synergy offered us with 4 full-time staff in the Community Care Center. Thank you for your prayers and support!
A Pilgrim’s Way for Authentic Work, Creativity and Service
As I think about the gift of Ordinary Time in which we are invited to give ourselves to a fertile, productive season, I am reminded of how central the contemplative dimension is to the active life. The union of action and contemplation is the pilgrim’s way for authentic work, creativity and service. A cyclical relationship develops in which contemplation leads to action and action to contemplation. In this continuum we find grace and freedom and fullness of life.
Henri Nouwen said,
Prayer and action, therefore, can never be seen as contradictory or mutually exclusive. Prayer without action grows in a powerless pietism, and action without prayer degenerates into questionable manipulation. If prayer leads us into a deeper unity with the compassionate Christ, it will always give rise to concrete acts of service. And if concrete acts of service do indeed lead us to a deeper solidarity with the poor, the hungry, the sick, the dying, and the oppressed, they will always give rise to prayer. In prayer we meet Christ, and in him all human suffering. In service we meet people, and in them the suffering Christ. (Compassion by Henri Nouwen,)
Be well. Breathe deep.
Phileena Heuertz