Greetings to all Province 2 ECW Board Members, Diocesan Presidents, Bishops and friends!
​
Having recently returned from the second gathering of the National Episcopal Church Women Board, I have some exciting things to share with you! We met at the Emerald Beach Resort in Charlotte Amalie on the island of St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands – the Diocese of the Virgin Islands is in Province 2. We experienced warm and sunny days for the most part with an occasional downpour during the afternoon. Our hostess at the hotel was a young woman named Ishani Chinnery, who was a delight – warm, welcoming and accommodating! There is still much physical damage evident in structures around the island resulting from 2017 hurricanes Irma and Maria, and there are people still in temporary housing. We viewed churches where the sanctuaries were visible from the street due to destroyed facades.
 
On Saturday morning, we visited All Saints Cathedral, where we heard some of its history and visited with their Interim Priest, the Rev. Hayden G. Crawford. We also helped the ladies of All Saints ECW set up for a luncheon the next day honoring Mrs. Ura Gosha, immediate past President of the Diocese of the Virgin Islands ECW. One of Ura's major accomplishments as President was to encourage the practice of thankful giving through the United Thank Offering, increasing the amount from $0 for the 2012-2015 triennium to almost $36,000, presented at the 2018 Triennial UTO Ingathering.
Many gathered to honor her and our own NECW Board 2nd Vice-President, the Rev. Gigi Connor, who was the homilist for the service at the Cathedral the next day. On Sunday, February 10th, we worshiped at St. Luke's Episcopal Church, the home church of the current Diocesan ECW President, Edith Haynes-Lake. We were feted with refreshments and a tour of the island, followed by an afternoon at the president's home with ECW members from St. Luke's, as well as other parishes. - complete with an island music band!
 
The Board was introduced to it's newest members: The Rev. Gigi Connor, 2nd Vice-President for Communications, and Jeanne Plecenik, Treasurer. It was good to get to know them. We have also hired a web master, John Wilkerson, who is keeping things organized and up-to-date on the web site. We have created a new monthly newsletter entitled “Branches.” It appears on our web site, ecwnational.org, and you can opt to receive it by email. Information about the Board, and all our activities and ministries can be found there as well. Our Facebook page is receiving many hits and our Social Justice Chair, Ema Rosero-Nordalm, is in the process of setting up a Social Justice Facebook page, which will eventually be published in both English
and Spanish. Our Board President, Karen Patterson, has been appointed by Presiding Bishop Michael Curry as a delegate to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women meeting, which will convene in New York City in March.
 
We approved the 2019 NECW budget in the amount of $185,250.
 
The Board looked over a prototype for the 2021 Triennial Meeting logo, presented by Cindy Mohr, Province 3 Representative, and offered opinions and suggestions.  Our next NECW Board meeting will take place at Nazareth Retreat Center in Boise, Idaho, hosted by
Province 8 from May 17-20, 2019.
 
As the season of Lent approaches, I wish you all a time of quiet, prayer, reflection, and growth in preparation for Holy Week and a glorious celebration of the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ on April 21st!
 
Peace and blessings - 
The Rev. Jennifer Kenna, Province II Representative to ECW
​

The winter meeting of the Executive Council was held at the Sheraton Midwest City Hotel and Reed Conference Center, OK.
 
Presiding Bishop Michael B. Curry opened his remarks around his experience the prior week when visiting the City Mayor David Holt, President Jennings, General Convention Executive Officer Michael Barlowe, Congresswoman Horn, Bishop Ed Konieczny, Presiding Bishop Michael Curry
 Anglican Church of Southern Africa. A young Anglican asked him if there was a future for the church. As he pondered the question, he thought “does the church, the community of people who have faith in Jesus, have a future? That may be one of the most critical questions before us in our time.” He continued, “The question applies to all faith communities, not just Episcopal ones, or even solely Christian ones.” 
​
In answering the question, he said, "Faith does not have a future if faith and religion is seen and understood as an institutional arrangement. Faith will not have a future if we believe that the church is an institution that we must prop up to keep it going,” 
He reminded us that the Christian church has been an institution periodically; it began as a "Jesus Movement,” and later became an institution that crowned emperors, only to be divided by theological schisms and reformations. The church has moved from the established churches of the majority to “a fragile minority.” He said that the way of love exemplified by Jesus is not just the way of love for the world, but can be the way of life for the church. “If we cannot witness to that way of love, then we ought to die because we have nothing to give the world.” The Presiding Bishop insisted that we listen to what the spirit is saying to our church. He inspired us to pray, to “find our life following Jesus' way of love, then the gates of hell will not prevail against us.”

President of the House of Deputies, the Rev. Gay Clark Jennings devoted her opening remarks to Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby's decision not to invite same-sex spouses to the 2020 Lambeth Conference of Bishops. She said, “If the communion is not able to hold a global meeting of Anglican bishops and spouses to which everyone is invited, then I think we should not be holding global meetings of Anglican bishops and spouses."

Jennings continued that Archbishop Idowu-Fearon’s post promulgated “a misconception about the Anglican Communion’s governance” by claiming that the Anglican Communion’s position on marriage is defined by Resolution I.10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference.

She said that only the Anglican Consultitaive Council – ACC-  is seen as the corporate entity of the Anglican Communion by the instruments’ governing documents and British law. Setting policy is only the ACC’s job. She also noted that the resolution’s reference to marriage as a “lifelong union” seems not to pertain to the opposite-sex spouses of bishops who have been divorced and remarried but are still invited to Lambeth. “We are left to conclude that excluding same-sex spouses is a selective decision.” Jennings suggested that, if the communion cannot resolve to invite all of the bishops’ spouses, “I think that the day is coming when we will need to take a hard look at where and how we invest the resources of The Episcopal Church across the Anglican Communion.” She cautioned that her stance “is not at all the same thing as saying that we should not be in relationship with the Anglican Communion.” She said her travels across the communion have seen the communion as life-giving, life-saving, mutual relationships rooted in dioceses, congregations and networks across the world.

“That is the Anglican Communion that deserves our energy and attention, our commitment and our resources,” she said.  Archbishop Welby’s refusal currently affects two bishops and one bishop-elect in the Anglican Communion. She stated, "One of the couples is the parents of two young children. I cannot overlook the fact that the Anglican Communion Office has created a public situation in which two children are learning that the hierarchy of the church considers their family to be a source of shame and worthy of exclusion. When little children are collateral damage, that is not the way of love.”

Executive Council heard a report from Treasurer Kurt Barnes that showed the church ended the 2016-2018 triennium with between $5 and $6 million more in income than it had in expenses, due in large part to the startup of some programs delayed to the current triennium. The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society’s investment portfolio was down just more than six percent in 2018, Barnes reported the portfolio recovered six percent in January. “We just hope and pray that it continues for the remainder of this year.”

Barnes also said the sale of a city block in Austin, TX,  which had been hoped would be the site of a new Archives of the Episcopal Church, netted $19million after paying off the debt on the land. 

After the opening plenary we spent the rest of the day meeting in committees until the afternoon of Feb. 22 when we visited the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum. The memorial and museum commemorates the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building by Timothy McVeigh, an act of domestic terrorism that killed 168 people and injured 600 others. Saturday, Feb. 23, we returned to the plenary session. Committees began their reports to the full body, As vice-chair on Mission Beyond the Episcopal Church, we proposed three resolutions:
MB002: Approved the presiding bishop's and president of the House of Deputies appointments of the Rev. Ted Thompson and the Rev. Alfred E. Moss to the interreligious convening Table of the National Council of Churches;
MB003: Expressing gratitude for the continuing dialogue with the United Methodist Church as they meet in a Special Session of the General Conference, Feb. 23-26 in St. Louis, MO;
MB004: Expressing "deepest concern regarding the humanitarian and political crisis affecting Venezuela and sends greetings to our brothers and sisters in the Diocese of Venezuela.
All resolutions were approved by the full body.

We traveled to St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral in Oklahoma City for Eucharist Sunday morning, Feb. 24. The Presiding Bishop gave the sermon, telling us to overcome evil with good, that we should never avenge ourselves that vengeance is the way of the Lord. We heard several stories on love, the love of humanity and the constitution, loving thy neighbor as ourselves, not listening to gossip and people putting others down around the water coolers in the office. But the best story for me was when the Presiding Bishop related to losing one’s religion in traffic when someone cuts in front of you and you roll down your window and proceed to speak in sign language. He said, “Hold fast for what is good, don't let evil overcome good, but overcome evil with good and put up two fingers giving the sign of peace.” I left the cathedral remembering  three loves: love God, love your neighbor and don't forget to love yourself.

We concluded our meeting Sunday afternoon unanimously approving the resolution GO006, "Exclusion of spouses at Lambeth Conference: When does all mean all?”  The resolution says, “it finds the decision “inconsistent” with the positions of The Episcopal Church and with multiple statements of Anglican Communion entities that have urged the church to listen to the experiences LGBTQ persons.” Presiding Bishop Michael Curry said in a statement after the vote that the resolution “reflects our commitment to be ‘a house of prayer for all people, as the Bible says, where all are truly welcome.”  The words of the Apostle Paul to the Galatians should be true for the church today: “All who have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female, for all are one in Christ."                                                                                                                                                                Respectfully submitted by,
                                                                                                The Rev. Lillian J. Davis-Wilson

What has Provincial Council been up to?
Re-Imagined.  Re-positioned.  Re-newed.
 
The Province II Provincial Council has adopted those three statements – Re-Imagine. Re-positioned.  Re-newed. – to illustrate the willingness to work and partner with dioceses to serve God, His Church, and the world.
 
The following is an update of the many aspects of the recent activities of the Provincial Council:

• Appointed a Communications Committee which has helped the Province:
  • Launch a new logo, designed by high-school Junior Grace-Ann Porpeglia, as digitized by Meghan Keegan, Communications Officer and Webmaster of the Diocese of Albany;
  • Launch a new InProv2 logo, consistent with the new Provincial logo;
  • Start the process of website redesign and update to maximize the availability of information to all dioceses, Episcopalians, and others interested in our mission and ministries;
  • Increase our presence on social media, specifically Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter;
  • Start the process of expanding translation of Provincial materials into Spanish and French;
  • Start rebuilding regular communications and relationships with various branches of dioceses, including Diocesan communicators and more - - with more to come!
  • Start a Provincial ministry of “Prayers for the Times”, with the Litany for a Government Shutdown in both English in Spanish.  This litany was shared widely throughout the Church.
  • Responded to the needs in Cuba following the devastating tornado
• Engaged the services of Neva Rae Fox as Director of Provincial Communications, who will work closely with Jan Paxton, who will continue as Editor of InProv2 and Webmaster.
• Committed to supporting the anti-sex trafficking and Dalit Christian ministries that were presented at Provincial Synod in 2018.
• Initiated a study of all prior Provincial “networks” to determine viability, as well as a study to determine areas of new ministry need.
• Committed to: (1) building better relationships between the Province and all our dioceses, and among the dioceses within the Province; (2) facilitating and fostering opportunities for cross-diocesan ministries within our Province; and (3) responding to urgent needs within our Province.  Relationships require presence.  The Provincial Council is committed to becoming a regular, consistent, and continued presence in each and every diocese within the Province within the coming years. 
• Begun to plan for Synod 2021 - - more on that to follow as soon as dates and location are finalized!
• Begun to plan for Provincial presence at General Convention 2021.

 
We’re just getting started! Please join us on this great journey!

• If your Diocese or parish has a ministry that you think would benefit from partnering with other dioceses or parishes, or if you have a suggestion for a Provincial ministry, please let us know by contacting Neva Rae Fox at [email protected]. 
•  
• If you would like to volunteer for a Provincial committee, please contact Province 2’s President at [email protected].
•  
• If you have a suggestion for a workshop for Synod 2021, please contact Dorothy-Jane Connolly at [email protected].
•  
• If you have news you’d like to share, a suggestion for inclusion on the Provincial website, or an article suggestion for a future InProv2, please contact Jan Paxton at [email protected].

 
 
Appointments
 
The President of the Province, the Rev. Dahn Gandell of the Diocese of Rochester, has announced the following appointments with the advice and consent of Provincial Council:


Advisory Committee to Provincial Council
Philip Fileri, Esq. Diocese of Rochester - Co-chair  [email protected]
Dorothy-Jane Connolly, Diocese of Albany – Co-chair [email protected]
Neva Rae Fox, Diocese of New Jersey [email protected]
Grace-Ann Porpeglia, Diocese of Albany [email protected]
 
Communications Committee
Neva Rae Fox – Co-chair [email protected]
Dorothy Jane Connolly – Co-chair [email protected]
Dahn Gandell  [email protected]
Phyllis Jones, Diocese of New Jersey [email protected]
Yvonne O’Neal, Diocese of New York [email protected]
Jan Paxton, Diocese of Newark [email protected]
Grace Ann Porpeglia [email protected]
Brian Romero, Diocese of Long Island  [email protected]m
 
Ordinance Committee
Philip Fileri, Esq.- Chair [email protected]
Paul Ambos, Diocese of New Jersey [email protected]
Dorothy-Jane Connolly [email protected]
Neva Rae Fox [email protected]
​
Synod Planning Committee
Dorothy-Jane Connolly – Chair [email protected]
Other members to be named later
 
 
 
Several appointments remain.  If you are interested in serving on any Provincial Committee, please feel free to reach out to the Rev. Dahn Gandell at [email protected].  She would be happy to hear from you!
 
About the logo, its design, and meaning...

Province II is thrilled to launch its new logo. With the in-process addition of the Diocese of Cuba to the Province, we need a logo that represents all of our Dioceses. The long overdue new logo is finally here!  So, who designed it and what is the meaning?
 
The logo reflects the people, mission, and work of Province II. The hands represent the people of the Province doing God’s good work throughout the Province and the World. This is represented by the “hands of peace” upholding the Episcopal Church shield which spans the Atlantic — the International Atlantic Province.   We invite you to join us as we continue to live out the meaning of this logo as a community of faith, joined by our love for God, our community and each other.   Let us grow closer as a beloved community by carrying out the mission and work of this Province!
The new Provincial logo was designed by Grace-Ann Porpeglia of the Diocese of Albany, a Junior at Christa McAuliffe Academy School of Arts and Sciences of Lake Oswego, Oregon. An avid figure skater, she is interested in studying Criminology/Criminal Justice, Pre-Med, and Political Science in college. She is the daughter of Dorothy-Jane Connolly, Chair of the Synod Planning Committee and former Provincial Chancellor, and granddaughter of the late John Wood Goldsack, former Chancellor of both the Province and the Diocese of NJ.  Meaghan Keegan, Communications Officer and Webmaster of the Diocese of Albany, graciously volunteered her time to digitize the design for the Province. Thank you Grace-Ann and Meaghan for all your hard work and patience throughout this process.