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The Season After Epiphany
2008 ECD Convention
To view a slide show photo album of the 2008 ECD Convention click
HERE
The photos are courtesy of the Rev. Roy Brown.
Congratulations to the newly elected Board of Directors!
President
The Rev. Barbara A. Allen
First Vice-President
Second Vice-President
The Rev. Marianne Stephens-Kroll
Secretary
Cass Martensen
Treasurer
Steve Holst
Members At Large
David Early
The Rev. Maria Isabel Santiviago
Notes from the Webmaster:
7-22-09
If you are looking for information about the ECD, its members, or activities contact a member of the board. Their contact information is on
The ECD Board Page. Please do not contact the
webmaster for this information. If it is not already posted on the
website, I do not have this type of information.
12-1-05
A lot of spammers and virus programs surf the internet and automatically
read e-mail addresses so that junk mail can be sent to them. To defend against
this I am putting e-mail address on this site in a format that spam-bots can not
as easily read.
You will see e-mails listed as something similar to:
"name at
isp . com"
Simply replace "at" with the at sign, and eliminate all spaces in the
email address. I am sorry for the inconvenience but trust you understand.
-Shane McCook, Webmaster
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The President's Message
for Christmas 2009
I wonder how many of you are as far behind as I am with your work. We live in a “hurry,
scurry world!” With all our technology we can now communicate with each other in a matter of
seconds. There seems to be no time for “living” because we are too busy dealing with “life”.
So, in this message I invite us all to stop, take a deep breath and evaluate who we are and where
we are, in relation to God, others and ourselves. How much time did you spend in quiet reflection
during Advent? Think about it! The world seems to be rushing “headlong” and most of us
don’t even try to slow it down. We don’t know how and we are afraid to try.
In this message I want to challenge us all to stop and think. Where are we going and what is the
rush? If the rush for you is not rushing to minister to others, to open your hearts to God, to look
around to find those who need you and then respond then we are in a futile cyclic mode.
I received an e-mail story today about Christmas. About a family who bought a new crèche to place
in their home for Christmas. On unpacking the figures they found they had two baby Jesus! First
they checked with the store but all the other sets seemed to have the right number of figures. Then
they placed their phone number in the store asking people to phone them if they had purchased a crèche
that did not have a baby Jesus. They waited and waited but no one phoned.
Finally, on Christmas Eve a woman phoned. She did not have a crèche but she had a major problem.
Her husband had left her a few weeks before taking most of the furniture, blankets and other necessities.
She was left with four small children. Now, on Christmas Eve her oil heating stove had stopped working.
This story was set in an area where temperatures stayed well below zero in the winter.
You can probably guess the ending! The family who had the extra baby Jesus went into action.
They went to the woman’s home. The father was able to fix the oil stove and also arrange for more
oil to be delivered. They took blankets, clothing, toys and food including cookies and milk to brighten
what was otherwise destined to be a cold and lonely Christmas.
They took the extra baby Jesus they had gotten, seemingly by mistake, and he became a symbol of what
Christmas is finally all about. Love!
Do you feel love during this beautiful time of celebration of the birth of our Lord? How have you
shown that love to your family and to others? Stop, take a deep breath and thank God for God’s
matchless gift to us, a Savior who is Christ the Lord!
Blessings,
Barbara
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6919 Strathmore Street
Bethesda, MD 20815
Phone – 301-907-7855 (voice)
Email – Allen.rev at gmail . com
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