Interns, Interns Everywhere!

Webmaster | May 10, 2012

Interns, Interns Everywhere!

One of the most wonderful blessings of being a large parish like All Saints’ is that we have the opportunity to be a resource to the communities all around us. We have, since our founding, been a great source of Christian learning and formation, a fine tradition that continues today, in many of our programs and in many different ways. This fall we will blend together our ability to be a resource and our tradition of formation as we take in many fine interns from around the country to be with our parish in three different ways.

Anglican Seminarians

Jane Weston, Tom Gartin and Miranda-Lynn Gartin are current Anglican studies seminarians at Candler School of Theology. Jane, Tom and Miranda-Lynn are all discerning their vocational calls to ordination and while they are in that discernment and in school, they will be our seminarian interns. You will see them all over campus, on Sundays, on Wednesdays, assisting in worship, writing for Saints Alive and teaching adults and kids, all while they work towards their Masters of Divinity.

Contextual Education Students

The All Saints’ Refugee ministries program will be the site placement for five “Con Ed” students from Candler this fall. These students are required to spend two semesters of their three-year program working in a clinical or social service setting. They will be working with Louisa Merchant, our Refugee Ministries coordinator, as well as our refugee families and parish volunteers to better understand the challenges that these families face. The parish as a whole will not see these interns as often as their work focuses directly on one ministry rather than the full parish.

The All Saints’ Atlanta Project

The All Saints Atlanta Project, ASAP is a brand new program of the parish. ASAP, an Episcopal Service Corps ministry, will bring four young people together in intentional Christian community to live into a year of social service. Our four ASAP interns will be recent college graduates that will live together in a house with a common rule of life and under the direction of Elizabeth Shows Caffey and Noelle York-Simmons. They will work 30 hours a week for eleven months in a social service organization around town and spend 10 hours a week in reflection, in community and in service to All Saints’. You will see these four interns on Sunday mornings, on Wednesday nights, working with the youth, children, young adults, communications and in other program areas that need extra hands. We are especially looking forward to engaging the parish with our ASAP interns, who will need some mentoring, meal hosting and in-kind help to keep them sustained for the whole challenging year they live together.

The Right Reverend Abraham Yel Nhial

A Letter From Abraham Nhial

The Right Reverend Abraham Yel Nhial, former Lost Boy, was a resident of the Diocese of Atlanta and friend of All Saints’ parish for several years. Bishop Nhial is now the bishop of the newly formed Diocese of Aweil in South Sudan. He wrote to some of his friends and ministry partners recently to avail us of the situation in his area. Please read below and keep Abraham, his people and the country of Sudan in your prayers.

Dear Friends,

This letter is to update you all about the current war situation in South Sudan, as many of you have seen it in television and it read it in the newspapers, the war is back to us. As we are watching television and reading about what going on through the newspapers, we learnt that many people are killed, wounded, displaced and their properties are looted or destroyed by the soldiers from Sudan government leaving them in horrible situation. Read More…

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Dear Readers – April 17, 2012

As I reviewed the readings for May, I found myself pausing and reflecting on the encounter between Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8). Who was this Ethiopian and what was he doing on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza? According to the narrator he was treasurer for the queen of the Ethoipians (“Ethiopia” in Roman times referred to the land just south of Egypt, more or less modern Sudan). And he had been to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage; perhaps he had acquired the Isaiah scroll there; perhaps he felt adrift, wanting to tie himself closer to his religion. At any rate he is seated in his chariot (apparently being driven by someone else) with the scroll, open to the portion we now call Chapter 53. Like all people who read to themselves before about a century ago, he was murmuring the words aloud. I assume that the chariot is stopped; I can’t imagine that Philip could hear such a speaker in a moving chariot, given the clatter of hooves and the creaking and clatter of the vehicle. Read More…

Introducing Jane Weston

I’ll be writing for Saints’ Alive over the next few months and thought an introduction was in order so you’d know who I am and why I’m writing in our newsletter.

I’m Jane Weston and have been a member of All Saints’ since the fall of 2009. My husband Hal and I moved from San Francisco for him to teach at Georgia State’s Robinson College of Business. I’m a trial lawyer by trade, but while practicing in San Francisco, earned a Certificate in Theological Studies at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, the Episcopal Church’s seminary on the west coast. While studying at CDSP, the rumblings began to consider the priesthood.

Soon after my arrival at All Saints’, I entered the Diocese’s formal discernment process, part of which involved working with a vocational discernment committee here at All Saints’. After about ten months in the Diocese’s program, the bishop approved me for postulancy and to attend seminary. Essentially, this means that All Saints’ and the Diocese agree that I should be making steps toward the priesthood.

I’m now in my first year at Candler in the Anglican Studies program. As part of the requirements for Anglican Studies, students are required to work ten hours a week for three years in the same parish. I am fortunate that I am doing my work here at All Saints’ with Noelle as my supervisor. Over the next three years, I will be immersed in all that we do as a church.

I’ll be sharing some of my experiences regarding my new wild ride with you on a monthly basis.