Volume 1, Issue 23
June 20, 2019
THIS SUNDAY @ ST. JAMES
Proper 7 - June 23, 2019
1 Kings 19:1-4, (5-7), 8-15a
Psalm 42 and 43
Galatians 3:23-29
Luke 8:26-39

8:00AM
Preacher: Dean Ryan
Celebrant: Dean Ryan

10:00AM
Ushers: Richard Jennings & TBD
Lector: Anne Middleton
Eucharist Minister: Jeni-Ann Kren
Preacher: Dean Ryan
Celebrant: Dean Ryan

ONGOING EVENTS
Food Bank
2nd-4th Wednesdays @ 2:30PM

The Cottage Shop
[Closed Wednesday during Summer]
1st-3rd Sat. @ 9:00AM-1:00PM

Choir Rehearsal
[On Summer Break from Rehearsals]
UPCOMING DATES
Kathleen Gerner's Memorial Service
Sunday, June 23 - 3:00PM
Chapel

Youth Group Event
Saturday, June 29 - 12:30PM
Fireside Room

Men's Group
Saturday, July 6 - 7:30AM
Yosemite Falls Cafe

Buildings and Grounds
Saturday, July 6 - 9:00AM
Conference Room

Preservation Society
Sunday, July 7 - 11:30AM
Conference Room

CELEBRATION OF LIFE SERVICE: KATHLEEN GERNER
Sunday, June 23rd at 3:00PM
On behalf of Kathleen Gerner's family, we invite you, Sunday June 23rd at 3:00PM in the Chapel for a service celebrating Kathleen's life. A reception will follow in the Cathedral's Fireside Room. All are welcome to attend.

O God, whose mercies cannot be numbered: Accept our prayers on behalf of your servant Kathleen, and grant her an entrance into the land of light and joy, in the fellowship of your saints; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Most merciful God, whose wisdom is beyond our understanding: Deal graciously with Kathleen’s family and friends in their grief. Surround them with your love, that they may not be overwhelmed by their loss, but have confidence in your goodness, and strength to meet the days to come; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
THIS SUNDAY, JUNE 23RD
QUARTERLY FOOD BANK FREE-WILL OFFERING
This Sunday, June 23rd, during both the 8:00AM and 10:00AM services, we are inviting the Cathedral Congregation to participate in the quarterly free-will offering to support the St. James Food Bank. On this special Sunday, all cash gifts and any checks with the memo line “Food Bank” offered during the collection will be given to support the ministry of the St. James Food Bank.

The St. James Food Bank is blessed to have YOUR support—YOUR financial and food donations. This ministry is thriving because of your generosity and prayers. THANK YOU!

Please support the St. James Food Bank on this Sunday, June 23rd. 
DID YOU KNOW THAT YOU MAKE A HUGE IMPACT UPON THE FOOD BANK MINISTRY?
In the past year, the congregation has assisted the Food Bank with:

  • 275 jars of peanut butter
  • 250 jars of jam and jelly
  • 280 jars of tuna fish
  • 150 boxes of Bisquick
  • Hats, mittens, scarves, socks, and belts for Yellow Bag Ministry

Last year, in order to supply a breakfast, lunch and dinner to recipients, we spent $2.75 per family. The cost to supply the same amount has risen to $4.00 per family.

In addition, our Yellow Bag Ministry has grown. We are purchasing items like ponchos, emergency blankets, socks, feminine hygiene products, sunscreen, Chap Stick, and healthy snacks from the Food Bank. Our friends that are in need of shelter are proud to carry their Yellow Bag.

In the past year, we have reached out to local agencies; such as Health Screening, which tests our neighbor’s glucose, hemoglobin tests and blood pressure. Last year and this year we provided flu shots from the county. Food to Share is participating to educate nutritional foods to children and family. The ladies make the snacks in Zoe Hall and distribute them to our neighbors with the recipes.

We are connected with Fresno County School System that supplies their surplus to us every week. M.A.P. agencies serve as a resource to send people to local agencies for various assistance.

We are so blessed to work with the Thrift Shop in supplying personal needs to our neighbors. The Thrift Shop is so generous with their proceeds which they donate 50% to the Food Bank. 

Our weekly numbers are growing due to the generosity of YOU. We are reaching out to an average of 160 plus families per week.
WORLD REFUGEE DAY
June 20, 2019
On this World Refugee Day, Episcopal Migration Ministries and The Episcopal Church Office of Government Relations invite you to join in the work of welcome through advocating for our newest neighbors!

Download the 2019 World Refugee Day Advocacy Toolkit and learn how you can show your support for the children, women, and men forced to flee. World Refugee Day marks a day we lift up the courage, strength, and perseverance of refugees worldwide.

As people of faith invested in the work of welcome, we have to utilize our stories to ensure that elected officials promote and maintain our nation’s admirable tradition of refugee resettlement and implement humane and just immigration policies.
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry's 2019 World Refugee Day message below.
TWO SPECIAL OCCASIONS
by Emily Niblick
In my last column I wrote about Bishop William Ingraham Kip, the first bishop of the vast missionary district which was California starting in the 1850’s. As you may recall I mentioned that in 1855 he had taken a trip through some of his missionary district, beginning with sailing from San Francisco to Monterey (the original capitol before statehood), then to Santa Barbara and Los Angeles, and then by wagon and horseback through Fort Tejon and down what would come to be known as “the grapevine”, into the San Joaquin Valley.

Traveling up the valley, he saw little other than a few settlers and indigenous peoples until he arrived at the lonely outpost known as Fort Miller. This Army post had been built after some differences between local natives and incoming miners and settlers had resulted in deaths and destruction, its intention being to keep the peace. There wasn’t really anything else around. Fresno did not yet exist. 

Bishop Kip arrived at the army post and arranged for a Eucharistic service to take place the coming Sunday and on that day, October 21, 1855, the first recorded church service in what would be the Fresno area took place. 

Now, it is an honor for us that the first service should be led by an Episcopal bishop, and we have come to see his visit that day as the beginning of the Episcopal Church in our area. No church was started; indeed, one would not come for some years; but we have celebrated Bishop Kip’s visit since then on two very special occasions. A look at these occasions is the focus of this article.

Not far from the Fort, on the south side of the San Joaquin River, was a small community and trading post. In 1856, a year after Bishop Kip’s visit, Fresno County was formed and this town, Millerton, became the first county seat. Although Millerton was abandoned by some people after the San Joaquin overflowed and washed away a good deal of the town on Christmas eve of 1867, by 1872 the Southern Pacific had finished its rail line through what is now Fresno and built a depot there and those who were left fled to a more prosperous Fresno, Millerton became a ghost town. Within two years Fresno City was declared the new country seat.

Before the decade was out Saint James Episcopal Church was formed.
Unfortunately, we can’t visit the fort anymore. Nor the nearby small settlement of Millerton.. In 1944 Friant dam was built and created Millerton Lake. Although the original county courthouse which served as the original county seat has been torn down and reconstructed on the shore of Millerton Lake, the actual location of the town and Fort Miller vanished under the placid waters. Now we can just imagine where it was as we look out over the waters of Millerton Lake.

It is easy to see how Saint James can feel a connection with Bishop Kip’s visit. Some of the earliest members of our church could have been former residents of Millerton. And so our church has commemorated his visit on not one but two occasions over the years.

On Wednesday, October 20th, 1920, members of Saint James motored up to the hills to the site of old Fort Miller to honor the 65th anniversary of Bishop Kip’s visit. According to the Fresno Republican’s account, “they gathered at the most notable historical spot in Fresno county.” The day was apparently perfect for a picnic. After describing the town of Millerton as being typical of settlements Bishop Kip must have seen on his California journey, and how Millerton was the typical stage stop town of the day (it was located on the Stockton-Los Angeles road), the reporter for the Republican waxed lyrically: “The rain had mellowed the air as well as well as laid the dust. The few clouds floating in the sky only emphasized the blue, and the hills lay soft and gentle against the horizon without any of the harshness of midsummer”. Reads quite different than news by tweet, doesn’t it?
Bishop of California William Ford Nichols accompanied Bishop Louis Childs Sanford of San Joaquin in leading the motorcade through the site of the old town of Millerton and on to Fort Miller. One hundred and fifty people accompanied the bishops and settled down to a basket picnic lunch prior to the ceremonies. Folks had traveled by auto and maybe wagon the 23 miles from Fresno along the San Joaquin River, through Friant, and then through the low hills past Collin Springs, the deserted courthouse where Millerton had stood, and then stopped within a quarter mile of the site of the Fort. The Fort’s buildings still stood, now serving as offices of the ranch upon which they now gathered. 

In their beautiful and stately vestments, the clergy lined up behind the cross bearer, Mr. William C. Harvey, and began the procession to the spot, followed by the many picnic goers.

Bishop Nichols delivered the sermon and used as his text, the same scripture Bishop Kip had preached on: I Corinthians 10:4. Among other clergy from the diocese in attendance, Dean G. R. E. MacDonald of Saint James Pro-Cathedral assisted in the administration of Holy Communion.
Mrs. Henry Tupper (Elizabeth) acted as hostess for Saint James Pro-Cathedral and along with other ladies served coffee.
Just thirty-seven years later, on May 12, 1957, the Episcopal churches of Fresno and the Fresno County Historical Society got together again to hold a special celebration of Bishop Kip at Millerton Lake, and included the unveiling of a memorial plaque. Of course, by this time those in attendance had to stand on the shore instead of trekking up into the low hills, now under water. But, just as in 1920, folks brought picnic lunches and ate before the proceedings. A full program ensued, with Episcopal clergy taking part. Rev. George Woodgates of Saint Columba’s read a Psalm; the Very Rev. Harry B. Lee of Saint James read the scripture; the Right Rev. Sumner Walters, bishop of San Joaquin, gave the memorial dedication; and the presentation of a scale model of Fort Miller was presented to Fresno county from the Episcopal Churches of Fresno by Mr. Healey Tondel, co-ordinator of the Bishop Kip-Fort Miller centennial.
The memorial inscription reads as follows: “Commemorating the centennial of the first recorded religious service in the Fresno area performed at Fort Miller on Sunday, October 21, 1855, by the first Protestant Episcopal Bishop of California, the Right Reverend William Ingraham Kip. Dedicated to those of all faiths who have propagated religion in this area since that day.”

What might it have been like on that day in 1855? California was five years old as a part of the United States, born partly out of the sectional unrest which would lead to disunion in six short years. Bishop Kip had to be aware of that. How did he feel? Or what was it like to be traveling in this vast valley with very few settlements and people? 

Or what was it like to travel to what was left of Fort Miller in 1920? How did the model T do on what had to be almost no road? What do you suppose was in the picnic baskets? We know Mrs. Tupper and the ladies provided coffee. How did they make coffee out there? Women had just gotten the right to vote with the ratification of the nineteenth amendment almost exactly two months prior to this day. And if any church member wanted a little nightcap they would do so illegally—prohibition was the law.
Or even in a time a lot of us can remember—the last celebration, in 1957. The Russian menace, the H bomb, communist infiltration. But Ike was president and we had confidence in him.

History is not just the event we talk about. It is composed of human events, and those humans live in a world, whenever the time, of many conflicts and day to day worries. But the good thing about history is that it can also separate us, if just for a moment, from the hodge podge of all that, and paint for us, perhaps in just one serious, quiet, yet comforting moment—it is our story.
Sources:

“Kip Pilgrimage Is Remembered After 65 Years," Fresno Morning Republican, October 21, 1920.

Church Flyer, “The Bishop Kip-Fort Miller Memorial,” St. James Archives, 1957.

“William Ingraham Kip”, Wikipedia.
The next gathering of the St. James Youth Group will be Saturday June 29, 12:30PM at St. James. The group will gather in the Fireside Room. All Junior High and High School youth are welcome--and we encourage you to invite your friends. More information to come in next week's Missive .

For information on the youth group or how to volunteer your time email sjyouth@stjamesfresno.org
FROM THE BISHOP
THE RIGHT REVEREND
DAVID C. RICE
Sisters and Brothers of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin,
I write to inform you that Ellen Meyer’s last day as our Diocesan Administrator and my Executive Assistant was May 31, 2019. This change comes after eight years of faithful service to the life of this diocese. Ellen has seen EDSJ emerge from the early years of post-split to a diocese working tirelessly to become who we are Called to be...   

I’m sure you will join me in appreciation of Ellen’s service, wishing her the best, and continuing as we have to hold her and her family in prayer during this time of transition.

Over the course of the next few weeks, the Diocesan Office will consolidate from St Paul's Modesto to its permanent location at St James Cathedral in Fresno. We anticipate this consolidation will better enable the Diocesan Staff to serve you.

We invite you to send any written correspondence to: Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin, 4147 E. Dakota Ave., Fresno, CA 93726. During this time of transition, if you need diocesan assistance, please contact Canon Anna via the diocesan phone number (209-576-0104) or her email ( canonanna@diosanjoaquin.org).  

Financial matters can be directed to the Diocesan Treasurer, Cathy Peck ( cpeck@diosanjoaquin.org).

Blessings 
+David
LATINO MINISTRY IN THE DIOCESE
Upcoming conference at ECCO offers great opportunity
Curious about Latino Ministry and what it looks like in San Joaquin? Join us at ECCO as we welcome The Rev. Cn. Anthony Guillen and the Hispanic/Latino Ministries Team, August 25, 6PM (dinner)-August 29, 4PM.

Topics of conversation: History of Latin America, Popular Religion & Liturgical Celebrations, Scrappy Church, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Multicultural Ministry, Social Media & Latino Ministry.

Registration deadline is August 9th. Please register online through the diocesan website . $110/person for program materials plus lodging at ECCO.
PHOTO OF THE WEEK:
Bringing Advanced Peace to Fresno
On Thursday, June 20, Jim and Barbara Mendez joined Dean Ryan and our friends from Faith in the Valley at the Fresno City Council Meeting. The group was advocating for the City of Fresno to fund "Advanced Peace" in the 2020 city budget.

The Advanced Peace program is aimed at combating gun violence in the community by targeting the individuals who are believed to be responsible for most of the gun violence in the city. The program is one modeled after a similar, successful one in Richmond that provides participants with high-level mentorship, daily check-ins, case management, and life-goal plans. Per studies presented to the Council, from 2010 to 2016 Richmond saw a 50 percent reduction in firearm assaults and 54 percent reduction in related homicides.
STILL TIME TO TAKE THE PLEDGE!

Those making the pledge, affirm that they "long to grow loving, liberating, life-giving relationship with the whole of God’s Creation" and that they "pledge to protect and renew the Earth and all who call it home."
If you have any feedback, comments, or questions for the Midweek Missive Editors, please email us . Submissions to the Midweek Missive are welcomed and must be submitted to midweek@stjamesfresno.org by Tuesday at noon.