Current News & Ministries
AWS Updates, published August 2011
Our Current Involvement with Italy:
Being Church Together
The Reformed Church in America and the American Waldensian Society will collaborate in the funding of the request by the Waldensian Church for a New Church Development/Existing Congregation Redevelopment Worker whose primary task will be the strengthening and expansion of relationships between Italian Protestant Churches and immigrants of non-European backgrounds. This cultural mediator will be referred to as National Director of Being Church Together. The AWS has committed $30,000 annually for five years towards this project. Please meet Paolo Naso here at the RCA website.
Board Member, Rev. Laura Jervis: Representative to 2011 Synod in Torre Pellice, August
Laura Jervis, Executive Directo of West Side Federation for Senior Housing, Inc. WSFSH is a community-based organization responding to the need for low-cost housing. The mission of WSFSSH is to provide safe, affordable housing with supportive services within a residential setting that enhances the independence and dignity of each person.
Our Current Involvement with South America:
Office Administrator, Sheila Young, is heading to South America late this Summer to prepare the logisitics for a Waldensian Study Tour in late May/early June of 2012. This Study Tour, with a destination of Buenos Aires, Argentina and Southern Uruguay is open to all interested parties. Details to follow.
Current Happenings with our Partner Ministries:
XXXXXXXXXXX
2010 ReCap of AWS Activities:
Dear Friend of the American Waldensian Society,
I am happy to send Holiday Greetings to you on behalf of the Board of Directors. We are near the end of a year of significant initiatives, a few highlights of which are as follows:
• We helped arrange U.S. volunteer mission work by Ms. Analia Álvarez Talmon, from the Waldensian Church of El Río de La Plata, beginning in March 2010.
• We supported U.S. seminary students Jenn Lindsay and Alex Souto, who attended summer camps at the Agape Ecumenical Center in Italy.
• We sent representatives to both the Italian and South American synod meetings.
• In partnership with the RCA and PC (USA), we increased greatly our support of the Being Church Together (BCT) program, which helps create and sustain multicultural Waldensian congregations in Italy. Our joint efforts now pay for the work of Mr. Paolo Naso, a Waldensian layperson and national BCT coordinator.
• The Board launched a new grass-roots fundraising campaign, “Ten for Twelve,” inviting friends and members of the Society to contribute $10 per month to designated projects of the Waldensian Church in Italy, Argentina, and Uruguay.
• To support Ten for Twelve and other work and provide better information for our supporters, the AWS Board issued a new brochure and voted in October to hire a part-time editor for the Society’s newsletter and other communications.
We laid the groundwork for an even more fruitful set of collaborative activities in 2011:
• The Rostan Foundation will provide scholarship support for seminary students who participate in the January 2011 course at La Facoltá Valdese entitled “Rome—A Crossroads of Religions,” with several AWS members serving as faculty or coordinators of the course.
• AWS Board Member Dr. Doug Ottati of Davidson College and the Rostan Foundation will support travel to the U.S. by Mr. Paolo Naso and Professor Daniele Garrone, who will participate in the Colgate Visiting Professorship Program at Davidson College during the 2011 Spring Semester.
• Mrs. Gretchen Costner, Executive Director of the Waldensian Heritage Museum of Valdese, NC, and Mr. Sergio Velluto, Moderator of the Session of the Waldensian Church in Turin, are organizing a trip to the Waldensian Valleys, Turin, and Rome in June 2011.
I hope I have given you a sense of the vibrancy of the Society at this point in its history, which rests not only on good working relationships the Society enjoys with Waldensian colleagues overseas, but also—most importantly--on your generous and faithful support. I ask that you seriously and prayerfully consider extending or even increasing that support in 2011, by joining the Ten for Twelve program or making another donation. To make a donation on-line, visit Paypal and transfer funds to info@waldensian.org.
On behalf of the Board of Directors, I thank you again for the ministry you have made possible and wish you a meaningful Christmas and a New Year replete with the promise of the Lord’s favor (Luke 4:18-19). May the peace of Christ be with you.
Dr. Brad Lewis, President
Board of Directors
