The mission of Friends United Meeting calls us to “energize and equip” Friends. While this is happening in multiple ways, the General Board is initiating a new effort to support the financial sustainability of our project partners and ministries. In June 2019, the Board adopted the policy that all current and future FUM ministries should move toward the goal of being self-sustaining. The Board recognizes that paternal missional systems that create financial dependency do not “energize and equip” the communities we serve. The Board committed FUM to come alongside ministry leaders and boards to develop sustainability plans that will result in long-term financial stability. At that time, the Board stated, “This absolutely does not imply a diminishing of our commitment and spiritual partnership with any given ministry. Rather, we believe that genuine spiritual partnership is one in which no one is indefinitely dependent on the other.”
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For the past twelve months, FUM has been gathering the global community of Friends together for prayer. The next International Friends Prayer Gathering will be 19 March 2021. Join us by Zoom, Facebook Live, and WhatsApp
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During the first week of October 2020, about a dozen Samburu pastors and leaders met together for five full days of classes on how to start and run a small business as a part of their Christian ministry. The class and trained teachers were sponsored by an organization called Global Disciples, along with Indiana Yearly Meeting. Each person who completed the class then had the opportunity to develop a business plan and apply for a no-interest loan (from a couple of generous FUM donors) to start their business. Personal loans and small business loans are very difficult to obtain in Kenya, especially without significant collateral—like the title deed on a piece of property. Even then, re-payment interest is around 20%. So a no-interest loan is a pretty big life-changing deal! All of the loan payments from this initial group of ministry entrepreneurs will go back into a development fund to become seed money for whoever next becomes eligible.
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Recently I had the opportunity to participate in a leadership conference held in Kakamega, Kenya. Conference organizers invited Friends leaders from each FUM Yearly Meeting in Africa, along with representatives from other Friends organizations. The conference provided an opportunity for Friends to look at their past, celebrate their accomplishments, acknowledge their mistakes, and envision how God will guide them moving forward.
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When Kevin’s mother called me to tell me he had run away from home, she was crying. Anger, fear, and exhaustion poured out of her through the phone. She wept as she explained how her son told her he would rather live on the streets of Portland, Oregon, than stay one more day with her and his younger brother. He didn’t need them or want them—and at fifteen years old, he was perfectly able to fend for himself.
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Throughout our history, the people known as Friends (or Quakers) keep rediscovering an essential and enduring truth: There is one who speaks to our most basic needs and most significant hopes—Christ Jesus the Lord. Both individually and communally, we are learning to know and follow the Voice that guides us in the way we should go. Together, we seek to understand and obey that truth which sets us free. As a people, we share in the experience of that powerful life which makes all things new. Maybe you are searching for an authentic and transforming faith and community to call home—if so, come in and join us as we seek to know and follow Christ.
Friends United Meeting commits itself to energize and equip Friends through the power of the Holy Spirit to gather people into fellowships where Jesus Christ is known, loved, and obeyed as Teacher and Lord.
