Global Mission

St. Paul's community is committed to answering God's call to care both locally and globally. The Carpenter's Kids, our partnership with the Diocese in Mwitikira, Tanzania, continues to grow.

Our intergenerational immersion experiences provide youth and adult parishioners an opportunity to give and receive God's joy while making a difference in communities throughout the world.

Water Project in Mwitikira: An Update

During the period May through September of 2009 St. Paul's made successful improvements to the reliability and accessibility of the Mwitikira, Tanzania water system. The improvements were to both the physical plant and to the management of the system. The author worked through the Diocese of Central Tanganyika and received significant help from the diocesan staff. 

Click here to read the latest report about improvements to the water system in Mwitikira, Tanzania.

Posted February 2010

Global Mission in the News

Triangle of Hope, published July 2009 in Center Aisle, the opinion journal of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia published on-site at General Convention.

Oneness of the Human Family

The below article from our Rector, The Rev. Wallace D. Adams-Riley, was printed in the May 2009 Epistle, and reaffirms St. Paul's commitment to global mission, in support of the Millennium Development Goals. Click on the links at right for more information about our efforts and ways you can help! 

You may recall that, when I was a boy, my family spent a couple of years in the central African republic of Malawi.  My father was in the foreign service at the time.  Many memories from those years  remain vivid in my mind, one being my first sight, from an airplane, of mud and straw dwellings; another being the drab-gray school uniforms (shorts and short-sleeve shirts) that my schoolmates and I wore, with knee-high royal-blue socks and black shoes, which we were expected to polish daily.  Still another memory, from that time in my life, is of a realization that dawned on me in a gradual way:

For the second year of my father’s service in Malawi, my younger brother and I were sent to an Episcopal boarding school in Arden, North Carolina.  Several times that year, Julian and I made the trip, at ages 12 and 13, from North Carolina to Malawi, and vice versa.  It was quite an adventure for the two of us, as you might imagine, and we met all sorts of people along the way.  It was as I reflected on my own response to the people whom we met, during those trips, that something new came into focus for me.

What I realized was that, as we made our way across the globe, I found in myself a certain thrill at encountering other Americans.  Or perhaps it was more relief than thrill.  Whatever the right word, there was something reassuring and comforting about running into another American in a foreign airport, or to find myself sitting beside one on an airplane; and all the more so, if they were southern; and all the more so, if they were from South Carolina. 

To a certain extent, this affinity is natural, we might say.  “Birds of a feather flock together.”  However, what initially seemed like a happy, innocent thing soon left me wondering.  What I found myself thinking about was how, while I might be excited to run into an American in the London airport, on the other hand, I didn’t seem to be as excited about running into the Americans I saw every day in America.  And, while I might be especially excited to meet a fellow South Carolinian in Paris, I didn’t seem to get as excited about all the South Carolinians that I encountered while walking the streets of Columbia, South Carolina, my hometown.

In time, it became clear to me that there was a certain falseness, a shallowness, in the comfort I sought in the presence of those like me.

It is one thing to identify with one’s group, whatever that group might be; it is another thing to over-identify with that group.  Needless to say, the temptation to over-identify with “my people” didn’t leave me at puberty.

Thomas Keating, one of the spiritual giants of our age, has spoken and written with great insight about how easily we can over-identify with our own group, whether that group be Americans, Democrats, Episcopalians, or even Christians.  We are who we are, which, all things being equal, is well and good; and yet, in as much as who we are becomes a barrier to the other, then, well, God has some work to do.  And so do we.

As I write these words, two members of our parish, Roger Whitfield and Suzanne Johnson, are preparing to leave for central Africa, where they will spend nearly three weeks.  While God still has more work for us to do right here in Richmond, Virginia, feeding the hungry and tutoring children, we at St. Paul’s have also sensed a call to minister with and to another part of the one human family, in the small village of Mwitikira, Tanzania. 

From the Creation story in Genesis through the Incarnation, through the Day of Pentecost and beyond, the Word of God teaches us of the oneness of the human family.  A oneness that is, yes, a work in progress.  A work in progress, powered by none other than the Holy Spirit.  

Later this month, we will mark one of the great feasts of the Church, the Day of Pentecost, recognizing and celebrating the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in our midst.  Who knows—who knows?!—what the Spirit of God will do in and through us, in the days and years to come, for the sake of the one human family, here in Richmond, and across the globe!

May the winds of Pentecost blow our doors—and our hearts—wide open!,
your brother in Christ,

Wallace+