Cry Freedom!

Congratulations St. Thomas Family! Your response to the call for emergency supplies to the Afghan refugees at Ft. Pickett in Virginia was overwhelmingly generous! We sent over $1000 dollars' worth of hygiene kits, bar soap, and feminine pads to people whose lives were torn by the evacuation of Afghanistan. Kathleen Abrams, wife of the Rev. Ron Abrams, (Holy Trinity, Hampstead) reports that a very large truck filled with supplies went to the refugees along with a second truck the next week to send the supplies that couldn't be shipped in time for the first truck. She said she was overwhelmed by the response from the churches of the diocese and particularly the smaller parishes. Thanks, St. Thomas, for making a difference in the hard life of a refugees.

Please don't forget the misery of others and donate what you can to help the folks in Haiti and the victims of the wildfires, and Hurricane Ida.

World Central Kitchen is on the ground in Haiti and Louisiana providing meals to the victims of the Haitian earthquake and Hurricane Ida. Click Here to donate to WCK!

The American Red Cross is on the ground in Louisiana, Mississippi and other areas affected by Hurricane Ida, as well as, helping those displaced by the wildfires in the West. Click here to donate to the Red Cross!

Christian freedom is not about freedom from... anything! Christian freedom is about freedom for... ministering in the name of the God of love. In the famous Parable of the Sower, the sower sows his seed (the Word of God, according to the explanation given) indiscriminately without a thought as to where it lands! This is how we sow the love of God: indiscriminately, overly generously, not caring whether it is embraced or grows. The same can be said of a Christian's attitude toward money. Fully aware of our Lord's warning that we cannot serve God and money, we can diffuse the spiritual peril of money by joyously and generously giving it away in for our Lord's work.

Our tithing acts as a spiritual vaccine against the power that money and possessions may have over us. Joyous, generous giving is how we gain our freedom from the oppression of money and stuff. As the late Bishop of East Carolina, B. Sidney Sanders was often heard to say, "You can look at your check register and tell who your God is."

Be as generous with others as your God has been with you.

Peace.

+Jeff