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OUTERMOST VOICE
Epiphany/Lent 2018
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New Year, New Life, New World
People mark the New Year in different ways. Some prefer a festive celebration to welcome in the new year and to bid farewell to the old. Other people mark the occasion with a quiet evening at home. Just about everyone looks to the new year with a desire that it will be better than the one that preceded it.
Unfortunately, once the celebration is over, many of us settle back into the comfortable routines of the past and the resolutions we made with enthusiasm are soon forgotten. Life as usual takes hold. The world goes on. And about the only thing that changes from one year to the next is the date on the calendar.
Change is not determined by the passage of time but by the choices we make. Mark's gospel says that when Jesus showed up unannounced and invited four Galilean fishermen to follow him, Simon, Andrew, James and John set aside the life they had known and took up a life as Jesus' disciples. That one choice not only changed the course of their lives, it helped change the course of history.
I sometimes hear people say that they wish things would change. And you can see why, given the trajectory of this moment in history. But wishful thinking changes nothing. Wishful thinking is no substitute for embodied hope. When hope is embodied, it ceases to be a feeling and becomes a fact. And when hope is embodied through love, the trajectory of history begins to change, for at the end of the day, the only thing that can truly
change the world for the better is a
changed heart.
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Christmas Memories 2017
photography by Kathy Barrett
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Financial Update
Mike Sutila, Treasurer
With the close of the previous fiscal year, I am pleased to report that the church's financial picture is good. Overall, 2017 was a mixed bag. While total revenue was down by $4,289 compared to last year, pledge and plate income was up $4,078. Seasonal offerings at Christmas and Thanksgiving were off a good bit but other income (weddings, parish hall rental, etc) were up. Expenses declined by $7,519 compared to the previous fiscal year. St. Mary's ended the year with a small deficit of $580, which is an improvement over 2016's $3,810 deficit.
Moving into 2018, I am pleased to report that prepaid pledges from our parishioners exceeds $17,000 which is helping us to fund operations during the lean winter months when plate and pledge income is typically lower. Another bright spot is the church's balance sheet which is a snapshot of the church's financial condition as of the end of 2017. Thanks to a generous donation to the Carol Westcott Legacy and the prudent management of the Diocesan Investment Trust, St. Mary's financial health continues to strengthen.
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All in the Family
at St. Mary's
Over the past few months a number of people have made St. Mary of the Harbor their church home. You have probably seen them on Sunday or at other times but perhaps do not know their names. It is our pleasure to introduce you to some of your newer brothers and sisters in Christ.
John (left) & Peter (right)
John Dennis Anderson and Peter Kosewski, retired respectively from the Emerson College faculty and the Harvard administration, have lived in South Wellfleet since the spring of 2016. John is a performance studies scholar and a solo performer of such literary figures as Henry James, Robert Frost, William Faulkner, and Henry Beston. You'll see him this spring in "You Can't Take It With You." Peter first came to St. Mary's in 1977, sang in the choir under Richard Busch through the 80s, and later served as music director. He works with Wild Care, both in the clinic and in the field, and on two ongoing projects at Center for Coastal Studies.
Tim
Tim Brown and his partner Frank have been visiting the Cape since 1987. Natives of Canada, they moved to Provincetown in 2010 when they bought The 8 Dyer Inn. They later sold the inn. Tim's partner Frank teaches at Truro Central School and and Tim hangs his hat at SeasCape Realty. When not touring through people's homes, Tim enjoys cooking, exercising, gardening and reading. Tim also serves as lector on Sundays and as a volunteer chef for the Saturday Winter Luncheon Ministry at St. Mary's.
Michael (left) & Mark (right)
Mark Berryhill and Michael Kelley have been members of St. Mary's since the Summer of 2017. Mark was formerly a member of the Vestry at All Saints of Brookline, MA and both were formerly members of UMC of Provincetown. Mike and Mark have been life and business partners for 10 years. They both come from media and news backgrounds and founded Unconventional Studios where they specialize in TV and branded content production with offices in NY, LA and Las Vegas and soon, Provincetown! You can catch one of their productions, Celebrity Page, every night on Channel 5 or 180 other channels across the US as well as a new network of the same name on Roku, Apple TV, Google, Amazon Fire and more! Provincetown is where they plan to spend the rest of their lives in this loving, beautiful 1st landing of America. Mike and Mark have 4 children they loving combined into a new family from previous relationships: Brian 23 who works for Mike and Mark, Katie 21 who is a Junior studying Communications at Florida State University, Hannah 19 a Freshman at Smith College and AJ 14 an 8th grader. Mark and Mike are very happy they found and settled into the loving and welcoming arms of St. Mary's parish!
Sharon
Sharon is a retired high school English teacher and lives in Wellfleet with her husband, Mort. They have three children and seven grandchildren. Sharon works part-time for an online tutoring company and volunteers at Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary. Raised as a Lutheran, she was received into the Episcopal Church and completed the Episcopal Church's Education for Ministry program. Sharon is an active lay minister serving as an acolyte and lector on Sundays.
Michael (left) & Ken (right)
Michael MacIntyre and Ken Russo met when a mutual friend introduced them to each other. They were married in June 2007.
Michael's
successful career as an entrepreneur and his expertise in hotel management drew him to Provincetown where he opened the Brass Key, one of Provincetown's premier guest houses, followed later by the acquisition of Land's End Inn. After selling the inn, he retired in 2013. When another business opportunity presented itself, Michael invested in his friend Gary Pasnik's East End Market on Bradford Street.
Before Ken moved to Provincetown in 1991, he worked in the music industry for fifteen years. Moving to the Cape, Ken bought a two-family home with his brother and was a successful real estate broker for fifteen years at Atlantic Bay Sotheby's. Today, Ken's passion for the children of Baobab Home and the Steven Tito School in Tanzania has helped pave the way for St. Mary's partnership with the children's home and school.
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Until recently, St. Mary of the Harbor was a three gospel church. Some explanation is helpful. At one time, there were four handcrafted glazed tiles, each representing one of the four gospels. For years, the tile for Matthew's gospel has been missing. No one knows where it is or what happened to it. Maureen Cronin thought this was odd and contacted artist Brian Taylor to see what could be done. The result is that St Mary's is once again a "four gospel" church. Brian graciously designed, created and donated the tile to the church and on December 10th, there was a dedication and blessing to mark the occasion. The tile, along with the other three gospel tiles, is affixed to the front of the pulpit for everyone to see.
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Wake Up Call
Even though we have known for some time that the odds were high that the sea would someday overtake parts of Provincetown, we were given an uncomfortable glimpse of that reality on January 4th when a Nor'easter slammed into New England. Dozens of homes and businesses in Provincetown were damaged by water as it spilled in from the harbor, turning streets into rivers.
Fortunately, St. Mary of the Harbor was spared as water came within a few inches of breaching our seawall.
We may not be so fortunate next time. Based on NOAA projections, the likelihood of significant flooding is increasing for properties located on the harbor. As sea levels rise, tidal surges are expected to increase as well.
Given this inevitability, the vestry commissioned an Emergency Preparedness Team. Harry Ellsworth, Julia Perry and Beth Chapman will be working to identify and assess our vulnerability to disaster and to create a preparedness plan for future catastrophic events. Using materials developed by Episcopal Relief and Development and various dioceses and churches located next to the sea, the team will develop a comprehensive emergency plan for St. Mary's. Once completed and adopted, the plan will be posted on St. Mary's website.
Water came dangerously close to breaching the seawall of our neighbor to the West
Our neighbor to the east of the rectory wasn't as lucky. Water is seen here lapping at the sliding glass doors as the cottage's deck was submerged by seawater.
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The Outer Cape recently woke up to a harbor filled with ice. Subfreezing temperatures lasting several days contributed to a surreal seaside landscape.
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Making the World a Better Place
Baobab Partnership
St. Mary of the Harbor entered into a partnership last year with the Baobab Children's Home and the Steven Tito Academy in Tanzania. Through annual investments and individual sponsorship of students, the people of St. Mary's are helping to insure the health, education and well being of God's children at Baobab. Jenipher (below) just started school at the academy. Like most five year olds, she loves to play and already enjoys reading. Jenipher is one of three children of parents who are farmers.
To learn more about Baobab Children's Home and Steven Tito Academy, click on the following link:
Truly, I tell you, just as you did to one of the least of these who are my family,
you did to me.
Jesus of Nazareth
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St. Mary's Parishioners on Medical Mission
Oliveros, Santa Rosa, Guatemala
by Priscilla Jackett
Receiving so much more than is given!
Janet Whelan, MD, Roger Martin, interpreter in the dental clinic for the last four years and I, interpreter in the vision clinic for two years have recently returned from Guatemala, spending a week in a once-a-year 'pop-up' clinic offering primary care, dental, vision, psychology, nutrition and pharmacy in the tiny dirt-road village of Oliveros in the middle of sugar cane fields in southwestern Guatemala.
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he 'village' consists of the seven-room cinder-brick elementary school which we convert into a clinic, and down the road: Nery's beer/ snack counter, a few thatched/tin roof houses with lots of 'free-range' chickens and the church. Huge four-tandem truck caravans hauling sugar cane rumble down the dirt road for a 16-hour round trip to the processing plant. High winds this year added to the dust that covers everything.
Conceived in 2005 by a Rotary Club in south-eastern Wisconsin along with Enrique ("Kiko") Gandara, born and raised in Oliveros who had emigrated to Wisconsin as a young man, the GMRP group of 45 practitioners, interpreters and generalists saw over 900 patients in 5 days this year, coming by foot, bike, motorbike, truck, bus from as far as three hours away. Our group is housed on Kiko's ranch, a short walk through the cow pasture from the school, where Kiko has built a nest of 8 simple but comfortable dorm-style cabins (with a window a/c!), a large thatched roof open-air dining area and 'lounge' with a delightful fresh water swimming pool at its center; a herd of brahma cattle keeps an eye on us from the other side of the fence.
We are fed three fresh and delicious home-cooked meals per day and deep-well pumped potable water to sustain us during the long and hot 10-hour days at the clinic (daytime temp +/- 100F). Kiko hires a beautiful 'chicken bus' to transport us from the Guatemala City airport 3+ hours away and back to the colonial city of Antigua at the end of our stay as well as 24/7 police protection to guarantee our safety. The group is a wonderful mélange of men and women aged 18 to 85, from several different states, Guatemala and Costa Rica - interesting, compassionate, some long-time GMRP veterans, some first-timers.
For me, familiarity with many in the group, the surroundings and routines made this year very comfortable.
For the second year, I worked in the vision clinic as an interpreter with optometrist Mark, assistants Nick and Victor, all from Wisconsin and locally born translator Byron. Mark brings his auto-refractor machine to provide us the vision level of each patient, a little less specific than our standard eye exams here, but nonetheless effective.
The numbers provide us with direction in looking for the appropriate eyeglasses from hundreds of donated Lions Club glasses. Farsightedness requires matching/close match to six numbers; myopia, near-sightedness only one number. Some people, we gave a pair of glasses for each condition. We did our best to honor vanity in picking frames that were age/gender appropriate, but often found that most patients were just happy to see more clearly! One of my favorite recollections is of an 8-year-old girl who was unable to read or write as she had never been able see the blackboard in school. Her face lit up the room when I placed the glasses on her face!!! She still faced a long road of learning, but with one less handicap.
Another story was of a gentleman in his 70's who had almost no vision in one eye because of a large cataract. Within the past year, he had gone to Antigua to see an ophthalmologist (not through GMRP). Was told they would call to schedule the surgery; they never did, he supposed because they suspected he could not pay for it. When I told him, his arrangements and expenses would be covered by our Continuing Care program, he openly wept.
It is the Continuing Care program, managed by Flory, a local woman who knows how to navigate the specialists and hospitals in Antigua, that makes this program more successful than some medical outreach missions. Where additional evaluation and/or treatment is recommended, Flory arranges follow-up appointments, surgeries, transportation, and housing in Antigua for the referrals made by providers during our one week stay, almost all, if not all, covered by GMRP's Continuing Care Program. Of the 900+ patients, we saw this year, Flory had 104 referrals to manage in the coming weeks and months.
On our last day, a gentleman in his 30's, returned tearfully to thank us for what GMRP had done for him. At our clinic last year, he presented with two broken legs. After surgery and physical therapy on one leg this past year, he is out of the wheel chair. He must still use crutches because the other leg requires surgery this year. He thanked us for the gift of a future without anticipated full disability and inability to provide for his family.
I sandwiched the incredibly fulfilling experience of the mission in Oliveros between two other amazing experiences - one staying with a host family for a week while brushing up on my Spanish at a language school in Antigua, the other, enjoying the rich cultural heritage of colonial Antigua. I learned from my family that Guatemala has no medical insurance: the top 1% pay fee-for-service at private doctors and hospitals. The bottom 99% are relegated to the public health 'system', inconsistently staffed by under-paid, under-educated, ill-equipped "providers" who are often medical students with little experience and incomplete training. Diagnoses and treatment may be incorrect.
The government typically drains program money into its own pockets. My one-on-one teacher at the Christian Spanish Academy, told me of the horrors of the civil war during the 80's and 90's when she at age 7 and her village walked at night crisscrossing through the woods to Mexico to escape the military and the guerillas. Despite the pain of learning first-hand of the challenges these sweet Guatemalans have endured, and continue to endure, I did enjoy a few days of delightful R&R in Antigua before and after the trip to Oliveros.
These are but a sampling of the stories. Each one is a gift. I am sure Janet and Roger could add many more stories of joy and pain. We are grateful beneficiaries of their trust.
To those of you who donated to GMRP! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!!!!
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Community Lunch Ministry
Prayer Circle with volunteers before the luncheon is served
Jean Alitz Segara and John Best entertain during the luncheon.
Cathy Coffey, a constant presence with this group, was ill when the pic was taken.
St. Mary's Winter Lunch Program continues every Saturday through the end of February. Coordinator Bruce Cagwin welcomes waiters and kitchen volunteers to help out each Saturday. Sign up sheets are in the kitchen on the freezer. To learn more about this important ministry, please contact Bruce at [email protected] or call the church at 508-487-2622.
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Vestry Update
Vestry Actions for December 2017 & January 2018
December 2017
- approved an increase in the church's umbrella insurance policy coverage
- approved change of time to 5:00 p.m. for Christmas Eve service
- approved schedule for newsletter publication
- approved resolution to authorize Fidelity Investments as intermediary for financial transactions for bonds, stocks, options and other securities
- approved Rector's annual Housing Allowance Resolution
- approved salary adjustments for rector and church employees
- set the annual vestry retreat date for September 8, 2018
January 2018
- Received Rectory Task Force's report and discharged their commission with the vestry's gratitude for their work
- Agreed to call a parish-wide meeting to be held late Spring or this Summer to present Rectory Task Force's findings and to discuss available options and future plans regarding the rectory
- Voted to approve the purchase of security cameras
- Voted to approve a $500 emergency contribution to the UUMH in Provincetown for building repairs
- Approved the creation of an Emergency Preparedness Task Force to assess our vulnerability to disasters and to create a written preparedness plan for use by St. Mary of the Harbor before, during and after a catastrophic event
- Approved the restoration and repainting of the outdoor creche panels
The church's financials and minutes from vestry meetings are posted on the church's website. They can be located by linking on the following link under "Events, News and Reports" menu bar at the top of the webpage. Here is the link:
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Ministry of All Believers
You don't have to be ordained by a bishop to be a minister. Every baptized person is a minister of the gospel. That doesn't mean you have to be able to preach a sermon. There are many opportunities at St. Mary of the Harbor where you can exercise a ministry. Here are just a few:
Healing Ministry at Saturday or Sunday services
Serving on the Altar Guild
Singing in the choir
Leading the Prayers of the People on Sunday
Reading the lessons at a worship service
Serving as a usher
Hospitality and Fellowship
Leading a bible discussion group
Volunteering for St. Mary's Community Luncheons
Serving on a church
committee or the vestry
Writing / editing articles for the OuterMost Voice
Photographing important events at the church
Volunteering at the Summer Fair or for the Art & Spirit Auction
Every Christian has God given talents. Please talk with Terry to explore how best to use yours.
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Stay in touch. Get the latest diocesan wide news at this link:
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Parishioner Directory
Click on the following link to view the latest parishioner directory. Once the file is opened, you can save it to your computer's hard drive for future access.
Please email us at [email protected] or call 508-487-2622 for corrections to your contact information.
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Paypal
Online giving is now available for people who are interested in making pledge payments or one time gifts electronically.
Access it through the church's website at
www.stmaryoftheharbor.org
where you will
find a "Donate" button on the menu bar at the top of the page and to the right. Click and it will take you to Paypal where you can make your donation. Contact Mike Sutila at msutila@chasemachine if you have questions.
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The Episcopal Church
people graced by God
and being transformed through love
since 1789
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Mark Weinress, Senior Warden
Harry Ellsworth, Junior Warden
Michael Sutila, Treasurer
Gerri Spinella, Clerk of the Vestry
Bruce Cagwin
Beth Chapman
Joan Gibbons
Simonne Ketchum
Julia Perry
Andrea Sawyer
Church Office Hours
517 Commercial St.
Provincetown, MA 02657
10:00 am - 5:00 pm
Tuesdays & Thursdays
Phone (508) 487-2622
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Contact St. Mary's
St. Mary of the Harbor
517 Commercial Street
Provincetown, MA 02657
Office Hours
10:00 am - 5:00 pm
Tuesdays & Thursdays
Phone (508) 487-2622
Email: [email protected]
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A Ministry of Caring & Presence
Lay Eucharistic Visitor Training
Feb. 24, 2018
9 am - 4 pm
St. David's
Episcopal Church
Licensed by the bishop, Lay Eucharistic Visitors make
house calls and nursing home visitations to deliver communion to parishioners who are unable to come to church. Training for this important ministry will take place at St. David's in South Yarmouth. Please contact Terry for more information.
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Lenten Schedule
Ash Wednesday
Imposition of Ashes & Holy Eucharist
February 14
at 12:15 p.m.
Tuesdays in Lent
Noon Bible Study
in the library
February 20
through
March 20
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The Adventures of Anne & Alec Marshall
Two hurricanes left
St. Thomas a mess!
No place fo
Bruce and Beth
Would bring in a guest.
Thanksgiving with them,
35-year tradition,
Was cheerfully switched
To mainland position:
To Charleston we drove
To a house they could rent.
Chris joining us there
Was a gift Heaven-sent!
His'try, Houses, and Parks
And Port we explored.
With great Southern food
You couldn't ask more!
When Alec turned ninety
The "kids" were all here.
The Lees hosted us all
With love and good cheer!
Gath'ring together
Was such a success
We did again for
Cape Cod Happiness.
"Epic" low tide,
Made clams easy reach
While 30-odd Marshalls
Had fun on the beach!
May you and your loved ones,
Celebrating Christ's birth,
Have heart and home brimming
With great love and mirth,
And may the New Year
Be spectacular, too,
Abundant with dear friends
And good health for you!
written by Anne Marshall
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