Advance
Report 2000
Affiliate Reports
United Society of Friends Women
Our 1999-2000 USFW year began at Yearly Meeting in August. Our luncheon was held at Earlham College. New officers were installed and they, together with the other members of the Executive Committee, continue to work with the wonderful women who make up Indiana's USFW group.
Our theme for this year was "He leadeth me beside the still waters." Peggy Benson was the speaker for our luncheon. She is an author from Nashville, Tennessee. Peggy inspired us to listen to God as He speaks to us in every situation. She shared excerpts from the book she recently wrote in which she described how she found God speaking to her in quiet whispers after the death of her husband, Bob Benson. This gave her much comfort and new insight into what direction her life should take following her husband's death. While this topic was very serious, Peggy's sense of humor left us laughing through our tears as we were challenged to go out in joy as we continue to minister through USFW.
In September, we continued our year with the annual USFW Fall Retreat at Quaker Haven. This is a joint venture with Western Yearly Meeting USFW. This year our speaker was Ardith Talbot. She is the retired editor of Friends United Press. She encouraged us to celebrate our uniqueness and to allow God to work through us as individuals who offer different talents and gifts.
The year continued to be one of growth and reflection as we held our Fall Conference at First Friends, Richmond in October. We were warmly welcomed and given tours of their new facility. Our special guests for the day were 12 women from Friends Fellowship who had given many years of service to USFW and other Quaker ministries. Our theme was "Friends Through Time.” Our morning speaker was Retha McCutchen, FUM's Secretary of World Ministries. She shared with us some of the highlights from various mission fields, past and present. Our offering, after 10% for IYM-USFW expenses were taken out, went to FUM for operating expense use. Following a delicious luncheon prepared by the women of Richmond First Friends, Don and Janet Garner shared their slides from their recent trip to Kenya and gave us an update on the ministry going on at Friends Theological College.
Our Winter Retreat, which is usually held in February at Quaker Haven, had to be postponed because of the weather. We rescheduled it for March. There were 20 women from Western Yearly Meeting and Indiana Yearly Meeting in attendance. This retreat is designed for the younger members of our group. Beth Carter, Sylvia Graves, and Jan Miller provided the program which centered around a scripture scavenger hunt.
Our Spring Conference was held in April at Marion First Friends. We used our theme for the year, "He leadeth me beside the still waters," as the theme for the day. Brad and Christine Wood from the Kickapoo Friends Center were our morning speakers. They told us of their ongoing work and shared some prayer requests. The Marion First Friends Handbell Ensemble provided the special music for the morning. Following the lunch, which was provided by the Marion First Friends USFW women, we heard from the students at White's Residential and Family Services. Bob Schloss gave us a brief overview of some of the ministries that White's provides through their chapel. Indiana USFW sponsored a White's Sunday for local meetings in May to help raise funds for White's chapel renovation.
At the Spring Conference we also collect the "Least Coin Offering." This offering is saved throughout the year and goes to Church Women United to pay for expenses of programs and outreach done by the joint efforts of community churches. Our general offering for the day went to the Kickapoo Friends Center except for the 10% used to cover our expenses.
This year passed quickly for those of us involved in USFW as we worked on many different projects. Presently we have 45 active societies and two new fledging groups that are in the process of reactivating their societies. We have one local society that is in the process of closing because of the loss of key members. Local projects range from making sleeping bags for homeless people in one individual community to giving money to provide Bibles for a local jail ministry. Each society is unique with their own ministries in addition to those that we do together. It would be impossible to list all the hands-on projects that are completed by local circles each year. Together we have continued to raise over $25,000 toward various ministries local, national, and international.
Each year we take on a few special projects in addition to our regular work. This year we chose to work in three areas. First we successfully cooperated with Indiana Quaker Men and Western Yearly Meeting USFW to raise money to buy a commercial range and have it installed at the Mesquakie Friends Center. Victor and Brenda White expressed their thanks to us for this much-needed piece of equipment.
Our second special project for the year was to collect Bibles to be mailed to Friends Theological College. We also raised money to cover the postage. As of June 1, we have mailed 12 M-bags of Bibles and related materials to the college. Each M-bag weighs approximately 66 pounds. The response to this project was overwhelming and our results far exceeded our initial expectations.
Our last project was to collect old Guidepost and Sports Illustrated magazines to be sent to the Boys School in Belize.
The response for this project has been slower than expected but as of June 1st we have gathered two M-bags of materials to be sent. We also received donations for two new Sports Illustrated subscriptions. These were sent to Florence Emma Peery and she will hand deliver them to the Boys School when she goes there each year.
Throughout the year, we have honored 14 women with Eliza Armstrong Cox Awards. This award is a way to recognize Christian role models within our local meetings. The cost is $25 each. Half of this goes to the International Board and the other half is used to fund Quaker Haven Camp scholarships.
The "Quakeress" is our newsletter and it continues to go out four times a year with information to local circles. This year we also revised our by-laws and made them available to the local societies at our USFW Fall Conference.
We continue to stimulate our spiritual development through our reading course lists, not only for women, but also for the children within our meetings.
One of our least visible but most important ministries is personally supporting our FUM field staff in prayer and through birthday greetings and other correspondence.
Our group is open to all women and we are making an effort to attract more young women to our circles. We encourage anyone who is interested in a ministry of quiet service to join their local circle or to contact us if your meeting does not have an active USFW group.
We are looking forward to our USFW Yearly Meeting luncheon this summer. It will be held at Friends Memorial in Muncie, Indiana. Our guest speaker will be Ardith Talbot. We enjoyed the insights Adith shared with us at the Fall Retreat and felt she should share with us again at our annual luncheon. She will be helping us cast our vision for the new millennium. Be sure to stop by our display at Yearly Meeting and at our literature table for details on our upcoming project and new reading lists.
Linda Brock, President
