Category Archives: Church

On Tuesday (5 February), we held a Shrove Tuesday pancake supper and race at
our parish, St. Andrew’s
Episcopal Church in Saratoga, CA. The Pancake Race
is one of our family’s favorite church festivals and we helped manage the event
in partnership with St. Andrew’s amazing Youth Group.
My daughter Jessica was sad she could not join us this year (she is at Carnegie Mellon
in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania). She wrote out her

“How to run a Shrove Tuesday Pancake supper and race” instructions in case
anyone wants to hold their own pre-Lent celebration. (She said last night that this
has been her most popular blog post so far!) John and I sent Jessica our notes on
this week’s event and she wrote an

update blog entry today. For those who don’t know

Shrove Tuesday from
Mardi Gras, read
The Unofficial Olney Page for one version of how the famous tradition got started
in 1445 in Olney, England.

Here are some photos from St. Andrew’s grand event. As you can see, we had
races between little kids, older kids, teens, and mixed groups. All the racers
won a strand of sugar beads (which also were the table decorations).

Youth Group Cooking Pancakes

Cooking Pancakes

Cooking Pancakes

Eating Pancakes

Laura Announcing

John Coaching Little Racers

Pancake Race

Cooks Race

Cooks Race

Pancake Race

Pancake Race

Pancake Race

Pancake Race

Pancake Race

Pancake Race

Pancake Race

Sugar Beads

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson

SAMA – St. Andrew’s Medical Assistance – is an outreach program of
St. Andrew’s Episcopal
Church. Today, the SAMA committee had its second meeting in 2008
to prepare for the SAMA fundraising dinner (to be on Sunday, 13 April
2008 at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, 13601 Saratoga Avenue,
Saratoga, CA.) There will be Middle Eastern food and an auction. I am
in charge of event publicity.

My first effort was to create the SAMA web page, now available at
http://st-andrews-sama.org.
As the newest member of the committee, I am still learning about the
program’s 14-year history of raising money for charitable medical
programs in the Holy Land and Africa. Other SAMA committee members will
send me photos, recipes, and text for the web site. For now, I put
up the pictures I took at last month’s Christian Palestinian craft sale.
(The same photos I posted on my

4 Dec 2007 blog entry.) I am looking forward to working on the
13th April fundraising event and SAMA.

At the end of 2007, I was touched and honored to be invited
to the annual awards service for

Mision Cristo Rey, a Spanish-speaking congregation in Watsonville,
CA. Cristo Rey was one of the missions of the
Episcopal Diocese of El Camino Real with which I worked
when I was Convener of the Department of Missions (2003-2007).
It was a triumph when, through the efforts of a great many
dedicated supporters, Cristo Rey was finally

welcomed into union as a diocesan Mission at the October 2007 convention.
The plaque is “For the great effort on helping us become a mission. Thank you
– we will always remember your hard work!”

Rev. Mario Macias Hauttecoeur at Mision Cristo Rey

Rev. Mary Lou McKenney, Padre Mario, and me

Plaque from Mision Cristo Rey

Images Copyright 2007 by John Plocher and Katy Dickinson

During the last two weekends, I helped SAMA –
St. Andrew’s Medical Assistance –
in their annual sale of goods from the Holy Land. SAMA supports several medical
programs in the Holy Land, including the

Ahli Arab Hospital (the only Christian hospital in Gaza) and the
Four Homes of Mercy (based in Jerusalem).
Many of the crafts we were selling were created by Palestinian Christians.

On my two trips to Israel (in 1979 and in 2006), I purchased many crafts
like those we were selling. In fact, our olive wood nativity set at home is now richer
by three angels and two camels from the SAMA sale. Here are some photos:

SAMA Tile

Ahli Arab Hospital

Bishop Riah Abu-Assal

Holy Land goods for sale

Jerusalem tile

SAMA Donation Certificate

Palestinian cloth crafts

Palestinian puppets

Palestinian puppets

Palestinian cloth crafts

Olive nativity set

Olive nativity set

Silver and Gold crosses

Liz at the sales table

Holy Land goods for sale

Olive wood carvings

Images Copyright 2007 by Katy Dickinson

I attended the ordination of Bishop Mary Gray-Reeeves today. It was
a beautiful, moving, and very well managed event.
Bishop Mary is the 3rd Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of
El Camino Real, on the Central
Coast of California. Today’s service for 1,000 was held at

St. Andrew’s in Saratoga, my new home parish.

I was among those who voted for Bishop Mary at the electing convention
last June. She was elected by

overwhelming majority on the second ballot.
Bishop Mary is the 15th woman elected as a bishop of the Episcopal Church and
she among the five youngest members of the House of Bishops. She is the
1027th Bishop in the American succession. I think Bishop Mary is the first woman
Bishop ordained by our new Presiding Bishop, The Most Rev. Katharine
Jefferts-Schori.

Bishop Mary’s former boss, the Rt. Rev. Leo Frade, gave today’s sermon.
Bishop Frade has been a Bishop for over 25 years and is the Senior Bishop
with Jurisdiction in the House of Bishops. Bishop Frade pointed out that
as the new Bishop of the Silicon Valley, Mary would face challenges
unlike those of his generation which only had to make the transition from
rotary to pushbutton phones. Bishops in the past did not have their
flock sending them email 24×7.

The service was alternately in Spanish and English and featured a
Sudanese Choir and also a
Native American ceremony at the beginning. The most impressive part for me
was the great rumbling words of approval when Bishop Katharine asked us,
The People, for our approval and support:

• Bishop Katharine: Is it your will that we ordain Mary a Bishop?
  
  The People: That is our will.
  
• Bishop Katharine: Will you uphold Mary as Bishop?
  
  The People: We will.
  

It was wonderful to see so many Bishops present. There were at least 20, not including
Bishop Mary. I was glad that El Camino’s last two Bishops, The Rt. Rev. Sylvestre Romero
(now Assisting Bishop of the Diocese of New Jersey) and The Rt. Rev. Richard Shimpfky,
could both attend. It was also a delight to see The Rt. Rev. Nedi Rivera, the first
Hispanic woman Bishop, participating. There were some funny moments. When
The Rt. Rev. Chester Talton presented Biship Mary with her crozier (a processional
staff with the head in the form of a shepherd’s crook), he said she could whack us
with it if we did not behave. Of course, a cell phone went off during Bishop
Mary taking her vows (sigh).

John and I sat in the 6th row back. I was sitting behind someone who
was at least 6’5″ tall so we did not get very good photos. Also, we were asked not
to take pictures during the service but here is what we saw before and after:

St. Andrew’s Altar with Bishop’s Throne:

Clergy after Bishop Mary’s ordination:

Bishop Mary and Bishop Katharine:

Images Copyright 2007 by Katy Dickinson and John Plocher

John and Paul and I are visiting Jessica for CMU’s Family
Weekend here in Pittsburgh, PA. Last night, Jessica and
Paul and I saw a late showing of the movie
Transformers
(which was much better than I feared). Paul and the cabbie who drove
us back to the hotel had a passionate discussion about the
history and collecting of Transformer toys.

We woke up today to the headline “Episcopal Diocese Votes to
Leave” in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. There is a minority
of Episcopal parishes here in
Pittsburgh which are opposed to the recent vote to split from the
national church. So, we are going
to have fun deciding which Episcopal parish church to attend tomorrow
morning – one which voted to split or one staying with the national
church?

Today was the second and last day of the annual convention of the
Episcopal Diocese of El Camino Real
(ECR) at Sherwood Hall in Salinas, California. I am a convention delegate
but this is also my last day as Convener of

DIEM, the Department of Intercultural Evangelism and Mission
(diocesan Department of Missions). I have served as DIEM Convener
since 2003.

Today, we approved the budget and voted in the new diocesan officers and
committee members. Since ECR has just finished several years of
restructuring (resulting in new boards which had to be filled for the first
time), the voting and ballot counting took most of the day. Bishop-Elect
Mary Gray-Reeves, who came to us from Florida, kept making jokes about

how voting was done there.

This was a joyous day for me because two of the 13 missions with which I
have been working for the last five years were promoted.

St. Stephen’s in the Field of San Jose was promoted to parish status.
Cristo Rey
of Watsonville was promoted to Mission status. I am very proud of both!
I was honored to process with the banner for Cristo Rey around the
convention hall.

In between votes, we heard reports on a variety of topics:

• Ms. Robin Denney (of the Episcopal
  
  Young Adult Service) told us about her experience being a
  missionary in Liberia.
• Bruce Friesen, Parish Administrator for
  St. Andrew’s
  in Saratoga, gave us an update on Episcopal Relief and Development with which he has been working for 5 years. ERD provides emergency assistance in times of disaster; rebuilds devastated communities and offers long-term program development solutions to fight poverty. Bruce said that
  ERD gave 97% of its funding to programs. He also recommended that we consider
  giving presents from the ERD “Gifts for Life” catalog. He said: “There
  is no greater look of joy on the face of your loved one when on Christmas
  morning they find that you have given them a pig.”
• Rev. Mary Morrison of
  St. Luke’s Los Gatos spoke of arrangements for Bishop Mary’s
  ordination at St. Andrew’s
  in two weeks. She said in passing that Anglicanism was a
  system of salvation by haberdashery and told the clergy the dress
  code and colors for the day.
• Rev. Lorenzo Robles of
  Santa Maria Urban Ministry (the official diocesan charity) spoke about their current programs and needs. SMUM provides basic services in the inner city of San Jose, CA: both short-term needs such as food, clothing and transportation, and long-term transformation through education, counseling, and after-school and seasonal programs.

In her ending remarks, Bishop Mary asked us to make our first year
together a Year of Wonder. Sherwood Hall was a good meeting space.
I particularly enjoyed its artwork. On the landing of the stairs is
a huge tapestry illustrating the words: “To Plow is to Pray – To
Plant is to Prophesy – And the Harvest Answers – And Fulfills”.
Good sentiments for both an agricultural town and a diocese starting
a new life with a new Bishop.
Here are some of John’s and my photos from the convention:

Bishop-elect Mary Gray-Reeves:

Bishop Ernest Shalita Muhabura, Uganda speaks:

Living Waters band:

Cristo Rey’s promotion:

Cristo Rey’s banner:

St. Stephen’s banner:

Resolution on the Year of Wonder:

Roby’s “Field Workers” Sherwood Hall painting:

Sherwood Hall tapestry:

Images Copyright 2007 by Katy Dickinson and John Plocher