|
“The Rebirth of New Orleans”
| |||||||||
|
Join us on for a Joyful Revival Service
Click here for |
The Rev. William Barnwell, canon missioner at Washington National Cathedral, talks about “The Rebirth of New Orleans” service, its participants and the organizations the fundraising effort will support.
|
||||||||
From 7 to 9 pm on Friday evening, February 3, the Cathedral with the help of the Diocese of Washington will offer a joyful revival service designed to bring considerable financial help to three vitally important programs that are helping New Orleans to rise from the devastation of the worst natural disaster in our nation’s history. The February event will be upbeat and life-giving. Pastor Johnny Ray Youngblood (a native of New Orleans) of the St. Paul Community Baptist Church in East Brooklyn will deliver his great message of hope. He will bring 500 members of his congregation with him. they will offer three liturgical dances: a women’s group, a men’s group, and a youth group will all perform. St. Paul’s has also pledged $15,000 of the $100,000 we are trying to raise. 
Pastor Dwight Webster and someone from the People’s Institute will also speak. All of this with a great local Gospel choir. The $100,000 will be divided three ways: First, we are supporting the Rev. Dwight Webster, pastor of Christian Unity Baptist Church, one of the great justice-seeking, pastorally-oriented churches in the city. The church building survived but their African-American members are scattered all over the country. They want desperately to come home; New Orleans badly needs them to come home. They need to keep their staff intact, and they have no endowment. 
Second, we are supporting a large home rebuilding program, Rebuilding Together, formerly Christmas in April. Headquartered here in Washington and led by an active Episcopalian, Patty Johnson, Rebuilding Together plans to rebuild a thousand homes on the Gulf Coast, 500 of them in New Orleans. Third, we are supporting The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, perhaps the most effective “undoing-racism” organization in the nation. Headquartered in New Orleans before Katrina, their core trainers are now scattered, but they are still offering their powerful workshops all around the country. If ever we needed a better analysis of racism and the tools to confront it, it is now. (The People’s Institute will be offering their workshop to the Washington community from the evening of February 2nd through February 4.) Please plan to come, but if you cannot, you may make checks payable to the Washington National Cathedral, marked for Katrina Relief, and we will divide your gift three ways. If you would like to make a specific contribution, make out your check to: Christian Unity Baptist Church or Rebuilding Together or The People’s Institute. Mail your check to my attention at the Cathedral and we will send it on. Thank you so much for your support! We need to show the world that we do care about those who have lost everything and that we will support justice-seeking efforts and “roll-up-your-sleeves” hard work to give those people a real chance at a good life. With your help, New Orleans will rise again!
William Barnwell |
|||||||||
