Episcopal Press and News
P. B. Fund Gets, Gives Grants
Episcopal News Service. March 27, 1986 [86067]
NEW YORK (D.S., March 27) -- The Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief has already made a number of grants this year to alleviate "emergency" situations, but the Fund has also received a grant -- from the Diocese of North Carolina in memory of the Rev. Lex Mathews, who for more than a decade was director of Christian Social Ministries there and who also served as Presiding Bishop's Fund Network representative from the Diocese of North Carolina,
Shortly before Christmas, Mathews died in a boating accident. In mid-February, the Rev. Canon Samir J. Habiby, executive director of the Presiding Bishop's Fund received a hand-written note from the Rt. Rev. Robert Estill, bishop of North Carolina, and a check for $50,000 as a tribute to Mathews. Still wrote, "While we would like to see it used for world hunger, we will leave the specific need and designation to you." Habiby called the designation "highly appropriate," noting Mathews' years of interest and work in the area of world hunger.
The money, taken from undesignated fund balances, had been granted by the diocesan council to the Fund. At the same time, the council had appropriated the same amount, from similar sources, for local outreach, also as a memorial to Mathews.
Meanwhile, the work of the Fund continues.
The Dioceses of Northern California and San Joaquin each received $10,000 emergency grants early in March to aid areas in those dioceses affected by recent floods.
Internationally, the Fund has contributed an $8,000 emergency grant to the World Council of Churches' Asia Floods Fund to provide relief to countries such as India, China, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Bangladesh, which have also been affected by floods.
The Philippines Independent Church received a separate emergency grant of $10,000 to assist in the rehabilitation of church buildings damaged by a typhoon last October.
In another area of the world hit by recent civil unrest, the Diocese of Haiti was granted $15,000 for an emergency program to aid poor victims of that unrest by helping approximately 200 families to start small business enterprises.
The Emergency Stage (cq) of Health in Sectors of Huaycan project in Peru also received an emergency grant from the Fund. The $7,000 will go to assist in an ecumenical effort to provide sanitary and health care for the poor and the sick, as well as to help provide pregnant mothers with proper feeding for their children.
Sharing is something the Church has been doing since the days when St. Paul organized relief efforts among Gentile congregations for the Jewish ones hit by famine, but it still goes on. Of the $5,000 emergency grant sent by the Fund to Colombia late last year, $125 came from the Diocese of Northern Mexico, itself still involved in relief efforts for the Mexico City earthquake, and included in the $46,579.90 worth of funds collected and sent to the Diocese of Central and South Mexico in response to the earthquake was $1,000 from the Diocese of El Salvador "as a gesture of solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Mexico... the Mexican tragedy is also our tragedy, and we hope our prayers will help them with their pain."
The Episcopal Church in Honduras, poorest Hispanic nation in the Western hemisphere, also came to the aid of their disaster-struck fellow Central Americans. Honduras split its offering to the Presiding Bishop's Fund between Mexico and Colombia. Bishop Leo Frade said the decision wasn't an easy one: "At first we decided to designate half for relief in Mexico and half for poverty relief in Honduras. Then the volcano erupted in Colombia. We finally decided the Lord would have us reach all the way outside of those who are our own."