In April, Friends United Meeting organized a pastoral care trip to Friends in Palestine and Lebanon. We carried multiple stories in the enews. We reprint here the initial prayer request for guidance and protection, an account of the trip, and FUM General Secretary Kelly Kellum's prayer upon leaving.
Read More
In these partisan and divided times, when many Americans are arguing not only about how to respond to the truth, but what truth (or Truth) even is, Friends United Meeting has been asking what it means for us to be publishers of truth in this time. The FUM staff has agreed to the following guidelines for our news stories, social media posts, and our own personal communications, whether on social media or in person.
Read More
For years, FUM has collaborated with USAID staff to oversee grants through the ASHA (American Schools and Hospitals Abroad) Program. Both the Lugulu Friends Mission Hospital and Ramallah Friends School have benefited from this program. Currently, FUM has received a $1.4 million grant to construct an assembly hall on the lower campus of Ramallah Friends School. Construction was underway when, on 28 January 2025, we were notified that our grant is suspended for 90 days pending review. We have been working to comply with the terms of the suspension. . . Friends Lugulu Mission Hospital is another program deeply impacted by this suspension of American foreign aid...Our Comprehensive Care Clinic (CCC), supported by Catholic Charities through U.S. foreign aid, employs twenty-three dedicated staff members who provide life-saving medical services and counseling to patients diagnosed with HIV and tuberculosis. The clinic also runs essential programs to mitigate malaria in the region. The enforcement of the executive order required us to cease all clinic activities and dismiss our clinic staff.
Read More
Our visits to the farm each year, on our “Living Letters” trips or to volunteer during the olive harvest, are inspirational and demonstrate what real Christian faith and patience look like. It probably won’t keep me from planting too early in North Carolina, but in the larger scheme of things, it helps me lean into “long hope” when I despair about the situation in the world.
Read More
Mama, I no reach Roly Poly. You help me? In Aristotelian ethics, a virtue sits at the golden mean between two vices. Take courage, for example. We tend to think of courage as the end goal, evaluating ourselves on how more or less courageous we are. Aristotle, on the other hand, sees a spectrum from cowardice to recklessness with courage balanced in the middle. The goal is not to max out the virtue but rather to have the proper amount of forward drive: not shying away from hard and scary things, and also not taking unnecessary risks. The same is true of mercy. Too much and too little are both bad. Too little is hard-heartedness, which I find hard to imagine. I hope my heart is always a soft place for Gardenia to land.
Read More
Earlham School of Religion student Francoise Dutil writes about finding Quakerism, and then seminary, through the leading of the Spirit. Part 2.
Read More
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.
