News & Messages

Becoming a Foster Parent

Bishop Miller would like you to consider learning about becoming a foster parent. The Rev. Scott Leannah and his wife, Gina Kuemmel, felt the call to be foster parents several years ago. Read a bit about their journey.

My wife Gina and I became foster parents because it intrigued us, we were invited to consider it, and we met someone, Daniel, who had grown up in "the system" from the time he was two. We met him at age 17.  When we got licensed and he came to live with us, it was not easy!  However, today at age 25, we still hear from him and he comes over for dinner on a regular basis, and, when he does, he usually brings his laundry! After Daniel left our home, we felt another divine nudge, inviting us again to open our hearts and lives to another foster kid. The social worker threw a curve ball at us, however, and said, "If this little girl comes to stay with you, she isn't leaving; she needs a forever home." And so it happened. Mia, age 5, arrived for a visit, came for another one, and then shortly after that, she moved in. Six months later we adopted her. Today she's 13, in seventh grade and doing well.

Gina and I know that being a foster parent or adoptive parent isn't for everyone. It's challenging, rewarding, and, for us, something we feel we've been called to do. We don't advise parents to engage in fostering or adoption of a traumatized kiddo to fill an empty place in their own lives.

Meeting one's needs to be a parent is wonderful, but, in our experience, the love, dedication and work of fostering or adopting a traumatized young person requires one to be fairly whole, balanced and realistic at the "get-go." I do not mean to be negative — it's an amazing, life-giving journey of love, growth and discovery. It is essential to respect and reverence the story of children who, through no fault of their own, are caught up in a system that, try as individuals within it may, is not perfect or even ideal.

What is ideal? Every child should be loved, cared for, fed, and offered a place to belong. If you feel open to doing that, it may be the most impactful thing you ever do in the life of another person. The need is great. There are folks who say to Gina and me, "Oh, I admire what you're doing so much — I could never do that!" Actually, you can.  Please, pray about it, consider it, and learn more.

 ~The Rev. Scott Leannah and Ms. Gina Kuemmel

The need for foster parents in Milwaukee County is significant. If you or your congregation members are interested in learning more about fostering, please consider inviting one of the Recruitment Specialists from Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin Community Services to host an informational meeting at your church, present to your congregation, or consider posting flyers within your organization to promote the need for loving foster parents in our community. 

Please contact Sarah Sergeant via phone (414-231-4867) or , if you believe you may be able to help in one of these ways, or if you have any additional ideas of how we can continue to find safe and loving foster families for our children in foster care!

You can also learn more about becoming a foster parent or ways to support foster parents by reading some current foster parents’ stories about their experiences at the Kid Hero Blog.

Checklists for Vestries

Checklists from the Commission on Mission and Development
The Commission on Mission and Development has developed some tools for you to use together with your vestries that we're excited to share with you. They are all available on our website. 

Here are all the checklists and tools as pdfs for you to view. All the files are available as Word docs on our website so you can fill them out and adapt them to your settings.

1. Checklist for Congregations
2. Calendar of Worship and Events
3. Review of Goals
4. Review of Ministries
 
We encourage you to start using these tools with your vestries. If you have questions or need help in any of the above areas, please contact Canon Peggy Bean. We have wonderful people resources across the diocese who can help encourage and guide you.

Lenten Resources 2019

Life Transformed: The Way of Love in Lent and Easter

Visit Lenten Resources 2019 for this and other seasonal resources

The journey through Lent into Easter is a journey with Jesus. We are baptized into his life, self-giving and death; then we rise in hope to life transformed. This Lent, faith communities are invited to walk with Jesus in his Way of Love and into the experience of transformed life.

New Way of Love resources for Lent and Easter include three components; additional resources from partnering organizations and churches are also featured:

Adult Forum: This set of seven Adult Forums, suitable to diverse settings, ties the Easter Vigil readings to the seven practices of the Way of Love. Drawing on the ancient practice of setting aside Lent as a period of study and preparation for living as a Christian disciple (known as the catechumenate), the forums draw participants to reflect on salvation history, walk toward the empty tomb, and embrace the transforming reality of love, life, and liberation. As we stand with the three women at the empty tomb, we hear his call to go and live that transformed reality. Curriculum will be available in Spanish before the end of this month.  

Quiet Day: The Quiet Day curriculum condenses the forums into a single-day journey. Offered as an option for churches and dioceses seeking an alternative to the weekly class.  

Test Kitchen: “Living the Way of Love, Transformed.” After the forty days of Lent, this Facebook-based platform will invite participants into a fifty-day Eastertide “Test Kitchen.” People everywhere will actively “GO” with Jesus from the tomb to bless the world - and then share and inspire each other with accounts of how they are living the Way of Love. Consider joining this closed Facebook group now to receive regular messages of support as you live the way of love through Lent. 

Resources shared by partnering organizations and churches

Way of Love resources from Church Publishing, Inc. (CPI) include Living the Way of Love, a 40-day devotional by Mary Bea Sullivan, along with their recently published Little Books of Guidance – one for each of the seven Way of Love practices.

Coming in early February are a series of sermons based on the Year C lectionary readings offered by St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church in Gladwyne, Pennsylvania as well as video classes that track with the Life Transformed curriculum offered by The Hive.

 Additional seasonal resources include

• Ashes to Go Resources
•  Daily Devotionals from d365 
•  Episcopal Relief & Development’s Lenten Meditations 
• Lent Madness
• Living Compass: Living Well Through Lent
• Living the Way of Love: A 40-Day Devotional
• Sermons That Work for Lent (available in English and Spanish)
• United Thank Offering Lenten Calendar

If your ministry has developed a seasonal Way of Love offering, please share at  . We’d love to feature it on the website and pray for our shared journey into new life. 

Explore the Way. Start a small group. Follow Jesus. Let God’s love transform you and your ministry. Find resources for every liturgical season here:www.episcopalchurch.org/wayoflove.