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“Parish Notes” newsletter
Learn More2016
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currently seeking new titles. We rotate out books every several months to make room for new titles. Gently used books may be dropped of during the week at the Church Office or on Sunday at the Book Cart location on the patio. Please check what you have read at home and might share with others. Money raised through the Book Cart Ministry helps support other ministries on campus. For questions, please contact Rev. Vicki at vicki@asbts.org.
Learn MoreAll Saints Book Group will meet next on Monday, November 14th at 6:00 p.m. in the Parish House for discussion and potluck. We will be discussing the New York Times bestseller A Man Called Ove: A Novel by Fredrik Backman.
Meet Ove. He’s a curmudgeon – the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him “the bitter neighbor from hell.” But must Ove be bitter just because he doesn’t walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time? Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove’s mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which change one cranky old man and a local residents’ association to their very foundations… (Booklist, starred review).
Bring a dish to share and a beverage of your choice (wine, soft drinks, etc.) and enjoy an evening of fellowship and lively discussion. All are welcome! Please contact Rev. Vicki at the church with questions, vicki@asbts.org.
Learn MoreSaturday, October 1
Parish House: 9:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
“Long ago, when the Celts built their own rustic kingdom of God in what would later be the British Isles, their fervor in prayer washed their world in vital revival…The Celts found God no casual diversion. They were too needed to talk about spiritual things over tea cups and pastries. As with much of Europe, the world was always falling down around them. Infant mortality was as high as life was short…Their todays were unsteady and their tomorrows obscure. In desperate times, living becomes an altar where you pray and sing because the only good news of the day is that God lives longer than you do. And God promises you that even if your days are few, your dying is not a wall, but a set of gates. Beyond this portal lies a reason to esteem your life…But your prayers endure forever. None of them die. They live in the air about us and they move us like the breeze of Pentecost…Vitality was the heart of the Celtic faith.” – Calvin Miller
Celtic prayer is an ancient way to everyday joy. Refresh your soul with new insight into this ancient form of spirituality. All are welcome! Please contact Rev. Vicki with questions. (vicki@asbts.org) Signup can be found on the Information Table.
Learn MoreGreetings, Kungabu Fan Club ~
We’re happy to report that the Fish Food Machine has arrived from China,
and will soon be headed to Kungabu!
The Kungabu Story
The Cyangugu region in southwestern Rwanda is one of the poorest in the country. The people depend on subsistence farming and the meager wages they earn working on tea plantations owned by Indian companies to survive. In an effort to lift themselves out of poverty, 30 families in the area near Lake Kivu decided to pool their labor to form a farming cooperative in 2008. They had a vision to start a business that would sustain all of the members: the farming of Tilapia fish. They named themselves, “Kungabu” which means “The Fish Farmers.”
Under the leadership of community elder Callixte Sebakungu, they collected a small amount of money from each cooperative member and were able to purchase the land they would need for 16 massive fish ponds.
Betsy Kain’s “Goats for Life” gave Kungabu $9,000 to purchase the tools, materials, and enough baby Tilapia needed to start the project. The co-op members dug the ponds by hand – an extraordinary accomplishment. They also constructed a rabbit house at the end of each pond – the rabbit droppings feed the young Tilapia corralled under the hutches with an underwater fence. The community managed the money wisely; grow their business and build a tiny office and store where they sell the fish.
In 2013, World Dance for Humanity inherited the Goats for Life program and made a commitment to Betsy to continue her work in Rwanda. We visited Kungabu for the first time in June of that year, and were present for their first Tilapia harvest. We helped them cut the ribbon in front of their new store, and watched them sell their very first fish.
One of our supporters and Rwanda travelers, Linda Lorenzen-Hughes, sponsored Kungabu member Jean Nsengumuremyi to attend a Fish Farming course in Uganda. Linda offered this gift in honor of her late husband, Bill Hughes, an avid fisherman.
A year into the project, the Tilapia were providing a good source of protein to the community, but they weren’t getting big enough to sell commercially. The Kungabu members learned that the adult Tilapia require special food available only in Uganda at a price they couldn’t afford. The food is made from locally grown crops – sorghum, soy, and cassava – but a special machine is needed to turn these grains into edible pellets. There is no machine of this kind in Rwanda. Learning of this predicament, in the fall of 2015 Betsy decided to try and raise the money needed for this Fish Food Machine – while World Dance for Humanity focused on funding education, livestock, training, and business projects in the other 19 cooperatives. In December, Sadie Leventhal, a bright, energetic, and globally-conscious 12 year-old student from Santa Barbara Middle School, decided to help Betsy raise the funds through her Bat Mitzvah. Collectively, Betsy and Sadie raised $16,089!
With no Fish Food Machines available for purchase anywhere in Africa, Justin Bisengimana (WD4H Rwanda Program Director) set out to have the machine built in China. The machine construction was completed last spring, and by June, it had set out on the high seas, bound for the port of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. After a month in transport, on July 28, 2016 the machine arrived safely in Dar es Salaam. Justin is now working on arrangements to transport the machine through Tanzania to Kigali (Rwanda’s capital), then down to the Kungabu. We have worked out an arrangement with an experienced Ugandan technician who will assist the Kungabu with installation, production, and maintenance. He will be visiting Kungabu on August 8th to meet the Kungabu, review their plans for the machine, and come up with a scope of work and budget.
Once installed, this machine will be the first of its kind in Rwanda. We will be engaging a business consultant to make sure the enterprise starts out on the right track and progresses well, as there is great potential to take this community a long way in their development and set a model for other Rwandan communities.
We are so grateful to Betsy, Sadie, and all of their donors for bringing an important resource to the Kungabu community and to the people of Rwanda!
Thanks to a generous grant from one of our supporters that covers our modest administrative costs, 100% of each donation made to Kungabu will be utilized in the service of this community.
See our KUNGABU VIDEO – July 2016
Learn MoreFind the 2015 Read All About It archives below:
The annual summer hiatus in our Sunday morning prayer meetings seems to have arrived. there will be no Sunday morning meetings of either Centering Prayer or Healing Presence for the months of June, July, and August. If enough of us are in town by mid-August, we’ll start our between-service meetings again. Otherwise, the first Sunday in September will resume with 9:15 a.m. Centering Prayer and the second Sunday with 9:15 a.m. Healing Presence, and we’ll be back to our alternating Sunday morning prayer sessions between the services.
We are already feeling the pull of Summer Solstice stretching out the hours like a great umbrella of time and light, allowing us to encounter more fully the tides of summertime living. May that outer light shift into experiences of the inner light of God’s Presence for us in unexpected moments of discovery and play all summer long.
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