Dear Friends,

A small group of Idahoans is on pilgrim-age in Kenya as I write this column. One of our younger pilgrims, Frances Hall from St. Luke‟s, Idaho Falls, recently wrote to share an experience she had early in the trip.

While shopping in a small market she encoun-tered a girl about her age. In conversation she discovered that this young person expected to earn the equivalent of about $3.00 for her day‟s work selling water purifiers. And while she worked, she had no break from her work and no food to eat.
In this one brief encounter, Frances came face to face with three of the eight Mil-lennium Development Goals intended to ad-dress poverty in our world. First, the young woman was not earning a living wage. Three dollars a day in Kenya is not enough to live on. Probably she is giving all her money to her family, and all of her brothers and sisters are doing the same so the family can survive. Sec-ond, she probably experiences gender discrimi-nation. In other words, she is a girl-child and is expected to work, with the threat that if she is not productive for the family, she may be abandoned by her family. And third, she probably has a very limited education. Even though there is now universal public education available in Kenya, it is still out of the reach of too many Kenyan children.
In that moment Frances did what she could. She bought the girl some food. All ministry is local – and this ministry was imme-diate and responsive to the girl‟s needs. But unless and until we all embrace the MDG‟s, tomorrow the young girl will once more be hungry, will still lack the needed education to transcend her life circumstances, and will still be a victim of gender discrimination that is intended to “keep her in her place” in a male-dominated world. The mid-point for the world‟s completion of the MDG‟s was set a long time ago as 7/7/07, just a few weeks ago. So how are we doing?

To hear Frances' story, we still have a long way to go. And unless we all commit ourselves to both the goals and to doing the necessary work to achieve these goals by 2015, this young woman will still be earning about $3 a day, will still be hungry, and will still be oppressed by half the world‟s population when our interest in the MDG‟s comes to an end. Elsewhere in this edition of The Messenger you will read how you can become a partner in responding to these great needs.

Some of you have inquired about what I will be doing between now and the time I leave the diocese at the end of next year. Well – there is a lot to be done, and I will be address-ing many of these items. They include our on-going work in Transition Planning. This is very important work that will help us move into the future in our diocese. Just listening to your ideas and helping us give form to them will be important work for me to address.

I am also interested in moving forward with the work we have begun in re-directing our focus around Paradise Point. The newly appointed committee is off and running, but they have a long way to go. My job here is to help them hone their focus and support them in the work needed to make Paradise Point a premier min-istry of the diocese, not just for our children and youth, but for all of us and others who will find Paradise Point a place of re-creation, learning, and respite. We can-not continue to treat Paradise Point as a hidden treasure. It must be brought into the light and used and appreciated in all its majesty. Like-wise we have important deployment work to finish – indeed, this work is never done. And we must continue to shape and direct our for-mation/education work to support ministry on all levels. So, I will continue to be busy doing work that feeds my soul and uses my gifts for ministry in a productive way for our life to-gether.

For your prayers I am grateful. By your friendship I am blessed. Thank you for letting me share this journey with you.