Nashville Epiphany Project
Gets New Funding and New Volunteers
by Bob Millard
With the September arrival of PCUSA Young Adult
Volunteers (YAV) Emily Hendel and Matt Lang, the Nashville Epiphany
Project (NEP), sponsored by Second Presbyterian, began its second year
of service to church and community agencies.
The new NEP volunteers will reside in church-owned
apartments, which were festively decorated for their arrival by Second
Church youngsters. They underwent a two-week orientation to the congregation
and community in which they will make home for the next year. Then,
Hendel, 24, and Lang, 25, chose to work with the Manna grassroots anti-hunger
organization and social justice organization Tying Nashville Together,
respectively. They will encourage church members to volunteer in outreach
ministry at partner agencies, as well.
Second's Epiphany Project got a major boost in
funding its second year when minister Steve Hancock, who had accepted
a call to Second Presbyterian in Little Rock, Ark., asked church members
to donate in his family's name to the project, in lieu of the traditional
farewell gift. In short order, the Hancock Fund for the NEP had swollen
to $8,355.00.
As with the 2000-2001 first-year Nashville Epiphany
Volunteers -- Mamie Broadhurst, Alicia Perry, and Richard Williams --
Hendel and Lang served the previous year as young adult volunteers overseas.
Emily worked with disabled adults at the Time For God program in England;
Matt literally lived and worked in the garbage dumps where the poorest
Philippine citizens live and eke out a living.
Kimberly Ness, a Family Services Counselor at Nashville's
YWCA, is the paid part-time NEP program coordinator. The program was
developed by Second's Outreach Committee, chaired then by Kate Mosley.
NEP is an integral part of the PCUSA mission volunteers
program. NEP is the first such project within the Synod of Living Waters,
and one of only two currently operating in the United States east of
the Mississippi River. The PCUSA YAV National Volunteer Office in Louisville
currently directs six national, and seven international YAV projects
for the 2001-2002 program year.
"Nashville Epiphany Project, for the time
being, is the only YAV program in the world that is sponsored by a single
church," says Ness, herself a former young adult volunteer in Chicago.
"Most of them are sponsored and funded by a group of churches."
Kate Mosley wants to broaden participation in the
NEP for the 2002-2003 year. She is eager to inform other area churches
about NEP in hopes of attracting additional volunteer sponsors.
"Our goal is that it not stay contained at
Second," says Mosley. "We want to invite other congregations
to participate by sponsoring their own NEP volunteers and having them
liaison with their churches like the current mission volunteers are
doing with Second. We think we can house as many as six to eight Epiphany
Project volunteers, living in intentional Christian community, in residence
buildings being purchased by Second, so that's our next goal: to get
sponsoring churches for more NEP youth mission volunteers."
The first Young Adult Volunteers with
the Epiphany Project were Alicia Perry, Mamie Broadhurst and Richard
Williams, in photo with first coordinator Heidi Aspinwall and her children
Christina and Michael.
Kimberly Ness, at left, participated
in the installation service for the new Epiphany Project volunteers
on October 9 at Second Presbyterian Church in Nashville.
At left, Stacey Rector, Associate Minister
at Second Presbyterian, with new Epiphany Project coordinator Kimberly
Ness.
From left to right: Emily Hendel, Matt Lang, Kate Mosley
