The Blog is Back!
Posted by Bryan Appel, Youth Minister
A few months before his assassination, The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King told his congregation, ‘Everyone can be great, because everyone can serve.'
On Sunday morning, a group of 14 youth and adults will travel as missioners from St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Richmond, VA, to serve in the Diocese of Louisiana's Disaster Relief Ministry. We come to you to ask that you keep us in your prayers as we travel, as we work, and as we form relationships with the men, women, and children in New Orleans and deepen our relationships with each other. We ask you to monitor our day-to-day activities on this blog as we will keep you informed of our prayer requests, concerns, and celebrations. We ask that you pray for the people in New Orleans who were both devastated by the disaster and inspired in its aftermath to actively live in the Resurrection and allow God to work through their hands and minds to raise up their communities in Hope and Love. And we ask for your blessing, as we travel to serve and be served by others in the name of Christ.
‘Everyone can be great, because everyone can serve.'
The Bishop will offer the following prayer at the Easter Vigil for the St. Paul's Service Team-
Let us pray... O God, whose glory fills the whole of creation, and whose presence we find wherever we go: Allow Bryan, Margaret, Olivia, Emma, Chandler, Alex, Douglass, Phyllis, Suzanne, Si, Missy, Tom, Brian, Cindy to be open to your presence as they travel, and work, and learn, and grow, and pray during their time in New Orleans. We ask that you allow them to experience You in their efforts to give and in their efforts to receive. Open their hearts and minds to sharing in new relationships, to strengthening their commitment to helping to create a more just, a more peaceful, and a more hopeful world, and to being ever faithful to your call to love and serve others. Open their hearts and minds to life in the Resurrection.
It is so good to see you and your Youth and their sponsors doing this kind of service for the Lord and for the people of New Orleans, who from the beginning were ignored by our government.
Thank you on behalf of all the rest of us for your sacrifice.
-Charlie