Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

"The angel said to the women, 'Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: 'He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee There you will see him.'" 
-Matthew 28:5-7



Thank You to everyone who's been following along on our Lent Journey! We have all greatly enjoyed sharing our thoughts, experiences and reflections with you all. While the 40 days of lent are up and we can joyously celebrate the Easter Season, it doesn't mean we stop discovering and deepening our relationship with Christ. This is only one step forward on our lifelong walk with Him.

Today, we're finishing the blog the same way we started it - with pictures of the YASCers celebrating Easter around the world!

{Becky Gleason and Claire Harkey attended Easter service at Iglesia Episcopal Espiritu Santo in Tela, Honduras.}

{Easter Egg hunt in front of the Cathedral after service in Santiago City, Philippines.} 

{Charlotte File attended services at St. Andrew's in Kiyosoto, Japan.}

"O God, Creator of heaven and earth: Grant that, as the crucified body of your dear Son 

was laid in the tomb and rested on this holy Sabbath, so we may await with him 

the coming of the third day, and rise with him to newness of life;

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, 

one God, for ever and ever.

Amen."

-Book of Common Prayer, page 283

{The cathedral in South Korea held an egg decorating contest. The English mission kids

 decorated our eggs with flags representing all the nationalities in our congregation.}

{The church in Dodoma, Tanzania, where Heidi Galagan attended service,

 is lit for the beautiful Easter Season.}

{Kids receiving communion on Easter Sunday at St. Andrew's in Kiyosoto, Japan}

"Rejoice now, heavenly hosts and choirs of angels, and let your trumpets shout 

Salvation for the victory of our Mighty King."

-Book of Common Prayer, page 286

{The lighting of the Paschal Candle at Saturday's Easter Vigil in Santiago City,

Philippines where Ashley Cameron attends mass.}

{Carlin Van Schaick and a friend at a potlock following Easter services in South Korea.}

{Claire Harkey and Becky Gleason lighting candles in Tela, Honduras during the 

Easter Vigil service on Saturday night.}

"The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation. 

There is a sound of exultation and victory in the tents of righteous"

-Psalm 118:14-15

{Rachel Carter and Joseph Morin pictured with seminarian, Carlos, attended Easter service at San Cristobal, Panama City, Panama.}

{Easter morning service at The Seoul Anglican Cathedral of Sts. Mary and Nicholas.}

{Nina Boe in Brazil.}

Alleluia! The Lord is Risen!
Alleluia! The Lord is Risen, indeed! Alleluia!

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Day 25: Coming Out of the Darkness

"...saying to prisoners, 'Come out', to those who are in darkness, 'Show yourselves.'...Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing! For the Lord has comforted his people, and will have compassion on his suffering ones. But Zion said, 'The Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me. Can a woman forget her nursing-child or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you." 
-Isaiah 49:9, 13-15



I’ve always been fond of Isaiah. There are so many wonderful verses in this lengthy book, and today’s readings do not disappoint—as per usual, there is much food for thought.

Isaiah 49: 9; 13: …saying to the prisoners, ‘Come out’,
 to those who are in darkness, ‘Show yourselves.’
 … Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing!
For the Lord has comforted his people, 
and will have compassion on his suffering ones.


And yet…I can’t help but have a twinge of discomfort when I think about this reading, like really think about it. I mean, we gloss over it, we read it once, and perhaps consider how nice it sounds. But lately I’ve reflected quite a lot about darkness. Not in the sense of my YASC placement; I’m head over heels about being back in Brazil again. But just because things can go or perhaps are going well doesn’t mean we don’t have our own moments of being in darkness. Recently, someone very close to me had a few months’ bout of severe depression, enough so that their entire personality and communication was distinctly altered. It was a very difficult time through which to pass, even more so to come back to the U.S. and see her in that state.

I am so beyond thankful that due to modern medicine and caring, healing hands, that time has passed and that person has improved substantially, but when she was in the midst of it, the rest of us too felt like we were in some amount of darkness. Uncertain if it would pass. It brought back memories of my own struggles with depression in high school. The difficulties of coming out of that darkness, no matter how much I felt the calling to do just that. It’s easy to become used to the darkness, or to be so lost in it all that you wonder if it will ever end – even if there’s a light shining behind your shoulder.

It is so easy in times like these to feel as Isaiah continues:

14 But Zion said, ‘The Lord has forsaken me, 
my Lord has forgotten me.’ 


Lent has always been one of my favorite seasons, if for no other reason it compels us to slow down. To wait and reflect. We’re closing in on Holy Week—and though that means getting closer to Easter Sunday, first we must pass through Good Friday, and the darkness that comes with it. There are times we might feel the weight of that darkness more than others. And yet, as the aforementioned verse says, not only will the Lord comfort us, but He will have compassion. At its root, compassion means ‘to suffer with.’ Not only do we have a God who calls us out of darkness, but He will suffer with us through it.

15 Can a woman forget her nursing-child, 
or show no compassion for the child of her womb?
Even these may forget, 
yet I will not forget you.

Yes, we know the story that lies so soon ahead of us. We know how it plays out and that there’s a happy ending. But I take solace in the fact that we have our moments of darkness as well—the light would not seem so bright if we had nothing in which it could shine, and bring us to the joy that awaits.

Nina Boe is working in the Anglican Diocese of Rio de Janeiro, 
part time  in support of the Office of the Bishop and part time with the 
Church  of the Most Holy Trinity's human rights ministry and community outreach.

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Day 22: Routines

"He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt:‘Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax-collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax-collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.”But the tax-collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.’" -Luke 18: 9-14

I can identify with the Pharisee in this parable. I have a bad habit of getting passive in what I’m doing and in my spiritual and personal life. In sticking to a routine, I forget why I do those routines in the first place. I am comfortable in routine, but I rarely benefit from it. I forget to question where I can continue to grow. I get complacent. I forget to come to God with an open heart, and instead I seek comfort in the ordinary.

Looking back on my life, the periods when I have been the most uncomfortable and the most challenged are the ones in which I have grown the most. The times when I felt I was the most lost and the most hopeless are the times in which I had to find the strength to keep going; these are the times that have shaped me into the person I am today. During these times, I struggled with feeling broken while at the same time knowing that they are moments of growth for me in the long run.

I’ll be honest and say Lent is probably my least favorite period of the church calendar. It’s austere, and it usually means that I have to give up something I love for a not-insignificant amount of time. It’s easy for me to want it to return to the “fun times” of the calendar. I dislike Lent for the same reasons I dislike the difficult periods of my life. Lent is hard. It’s outside of our normal church experiences, and that makes it the perfect time to examine why we have them. Like the difficult times that lead us to personal growth, Lent breaks us out of our complacency and challenges us to examine our practices and our faith by asking us to take that period to be reformed intentionally. It challenges us to acknowledge our own brokenness. It reminds us to be more like the tax collector who came to God with an open admission of his flaws and a genuine desire to repent on and improve them, and it reminds us that we should not be passive in this pursuit. In Him, we are reformed and given new life.

Seven months into my time in Hong Kong, I’ve gotten comfortable. My work is not easy or predictable, but I feel more capable of handling the challenges that come my way. As I approach the end of my mission service, I ask that God continues to shake me up and make me uncomfortable so that I may continue to grow. I ask Him to help me see my flaws and to help me improve them. May I always be seeking renewal through His grace.

Sara Lowery is 23 and from the Dioceses of Alabama and Georgia. 
She is currently serving at the Mission for Migrant Workers 
and attempting to try every coffee shop in Hong Kong.

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Day 11: Love Your Enemies

"But love your enemies, do good, and lend, despairing of no one. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. " 
-Luke 6:35




I’m not good at this.  I find it easy to be loving and compassionate to a lot of people, but I find it really hard not to give up on some who frustrate me the most.  Like many Christians, I sometimes wish there was an asterisk in the Biblical text, leading to a footnote explaining that of course Jesus didn’t actually mean those people, even if I define those people differently from some of the more loud-spoken Christian sects.  I want there to be some limits on whom I should have to look to for God’s presence.  I want to be given the allowance by God to just storm off in a huff and leave certain people to their own problems.  I want to be able to focus on just winning an argument with these people, to prove myself right over whatever issue we’re arguing about this decade.  Like most people, I sometimes want my religion to be easy, to have control over it.  I want to stick God in a box because a God who fits into the box I’ve defined is less scary and demanding.

No one said Christianity was going to be easy.  Well, okay, Jesus did once in Matthew 11, but not nearly so many times as he pointed out that it was not easy to follow him.  Love is difficult, it is a conscious choice every day to work for the best for the people around you.  Love means giving up the need to prove yourself right in every argument, to sometimes say that the point is to remain in the conversation even when you violently disagree.  In my lay institute class, this came up as a part of our discussion, that the strength of the Episcopal/Anglican communion is that we are in communion.  Even when it is tough, even when we argue and disagree on fundamental, earth-shattering issues, we keep talking to one another.  Okay, sometimes it’s more like yelling at each other at the top of our lungs, but at some point we have to stop yelling, if just to grab a breath, and it’s then, while we are still in communication, still present with one another, that we can remember that we are called to love, not to agree.

Love is scary.  Love means not being in control.  Love is being vulnerable to other people, and still working to be good to them.  Love is not giving up on other people as part of God’s creation.  Christian love isn’t safe, isn’t easy, and doesn’t promise happiness.  It just promises that we are acting like God wished.


Or to give the internet shorthand version:

Margaret Clinch is 28 years old and from the Diocese of Southern Ohio. 
She is serving as a teacher at Easter College in the 
Diocese of the North Central Philippines.

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Day 10: Grow Up

"‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax-collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters,* what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." 
-Matthew 5:43-48

“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” – To be honest, every time I read this, I think, “This is insane. How in the world are we supposed to do this?” It almost seems like it goes against the laws of nature. Typically if someone mistreats you or does you wrong, your immediate reaction is not to love them. It’s actually quite the opposite. You want to write them off, you want to make them feel the same way that they made you feel. That’s just the natural reaction.

The thing is, maybe they do not “deserve” for you to treat them well. But that’s the beauty of grace – God’s grace. God is asking us to treat others not as they deserve, but as God wishes them to be treated. He wants us to show them the kind of grace that he showed us. “For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous” – God loves everyone. It’s plain and simple. He treats everyone the same, regardless of who you are or what you have done.

What I think is most fascinating about this passage is that he continues to say, “For if you love those who love you, what reward have you?”

This is something that I think we are all guilty of. Of course it’s easy to love people who love us – it’s easy! But the question is, what good are we doing here?  Yes, we are loving our neighbor, but we are only loving our kind neighbors.

God is giving us a challenge. I believe he knows that loving our “enemies” or people that treat us wrong is one of the hardest things to do, and at times may even seem impossible. But I think this is one of the greatest challenges, and I especially love a good challenge.

For me right now, I find this especially relevant. Being a teacher of kids that are 15 and 16 years old, I find it especially difficult to treat everyone the same, regardless of how good or bad they behave. Don’t get me wrong, some kids are absolutely wonderful and I just want to call their parents up and tell them that they have the greatest and coolest kid. But there are also days where there is so much chaos and insanity in the classroom that I feel like I’m just going to lose my mind. But as a great teacher once told me, “They’re going to misbehave. They’re going to make you crazy. But no matter what they do, love them anyway.” That just blows me away every time.  And this is what I think God is asking us to do. There are going to be days where someone just tears you apart, and I’m pretty sure the last thing you want to say is, “You know what? I love you anyway.” But that’s the challenge. God is asking us to love them anyway.

It all comes back to the last line, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect”.

Okay, now this is crazy. We all know that humans are imperfect, no matter how hard we try to be perfect. But wow, what a great goal to have! God is setting the bar pretty high for us, and that is the coolest part. We have this super ambitious goal to reach, and every single day we should consciously try to make baby steps to be as gracious as our Father.

I know that for me, this transition certainly won’t happen over night. I don’t think I’m going to wake up in the morning and immediately feel an overwhelming love for my enemies. But I’m willing to accept the challenge, and I am aware that there will be days that I make steps forward, and days that I might even take a step back. But I’m ready for this goal, especially during the season of Lent. I have always been a firm believer in taking something on during Lent, so I hope y’all will join me in taking on this challenge!

I want to leave you with an interesting interpretation of the last line (Matthew 5:48) that I found in “The Message”.

“In a word, what I’m saying is, Grow up. You’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.”


So maybe saying “grow up” is a little harsh. But I think it’s pretty cool that is says, “You’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it.” It’s an ambitious life-style, but I’ll surely give it a go!

Rachel Carter is 22 years old and from the Diocese of East Carolina. 
She is currently serving in Panama City, Panama. She is teaching 
World History for 9th and 10th grade at St. Christopher's Episcopal School in Panama.

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Day 9: Give and Accept Forgiveness

"Out of the depths have I called to you, O Lord

Lord, hear my voice;

O let your ears consider well

the voice of my supplication.

If you, Lord, should note what we do wrong

who then, O Lord, could stand?

But there is forgiveness with you

so that you shall be feared.

                                        I wait for the Lord, my soul waits for him

                                        and in his word is my hope.

                                       My soul looks for the Lord

                                       more than watchmen for the morning,

                                       more, I say, than watchmen for the morning.

                                       O Israel, trust in the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy

                                       and with him is ample redemption.

                                       He will redeem Israel

                                       from the multitude of his sins."

                                      -Psalm 130

My junior and senior years of undergrad, I took as many classes with a favorite professor as I could fit into my schedule. The perks of his history classes were many, from gratuitous quips on monks in the Middle Ages to Trader Joe's Espresso Pillows. But what made his courses most appealing to me was that when it came to his exams, if you put in the effort beforehand you could be confident in the outcome. Down to the last minute, I knew the amount of time I needed to invest to get my A.

Nine times out of ten, memories from those classroom hours bring a smile to my face. However, whenever I read the word "Psalm," I flash back to the time in the fall of 2011 that I, on an Ancient Civilizations exam, neglected to write that one of King David's many legacies was the Book of Psalms. I knew that, I chided myself upon seeing that I had been docked for my mistake. I knew it better than I knew everything else I wrote in that dang 'blue book'.

Trivial (and obsessive) as I recognize that reads, it was still the first thought I had upon opening today's texts and seeing Psalm 130. However, that long-overdue forgiveness I owe myself for something that has had zero impact on the way my life has turned out since that day is overshadowed reallll fast (yes, I'm Texan) by the implications of the words in today's Psalm. The much, much more grievous errors I have committed in the past twenty-three years are not held over my head. I worship a God who relieves me of their weight.

There is forgiveness with you, Lord. I am forgiven for those moments I lose patience with your sons and daughters on the over-crowded Hong Kong MTR. I am forgiven for the times I have focused on differences between my American self and the Hong Kong Chinese, rather than celebrating our commonalities. I am forgiven for the moments I get wrapped up in thinking about what life in Hong Kong has done and can do for me and not what more I can do to serve.

My soul waits and my soul looks for you, Lord. My soul yearns for your forgiveness, and the ample redemption that you provide for the errors of my ways. This Lenten season, I pray that we all forgive ourselves and accept the forgiveness and grace of God for the trespasses we have committed. Let this forgiveness be accompanied by self-examination, and a commitment to be better.

Katie Webb is 23 years old and from the Diocese of Dallas. 
Not only has she served with the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui Archives,

 but also she spent last year working at the Episcopal Church Center as YASC program staff.

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Day 6: Seek the Lord

"Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near;... For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do no return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it." 
-Isaiah 55:6-11


Seek the Lord where he may be found.  One of the temptations that I think affects missionaries, both short and long term missioners, is the concept that we find God best by going away from where we lived before.  We seek God in the faces of those we are serving, in the actions of our lives on our mission.

And you know what?  We find it.  We will absolutely find God in the faces of those whom we are serving, and those who serve alongside us.  God is there when we look.  And because we started looking so intensely for God on our mission, when we need it the most, we decide that God can best be found away from those we know best.  God is found in other places, away from home, away from our familiar environment.

There’s the fallacy.  We find God by seeking, but if we start out by excluding people and places from our seeking, by never looking at those which are most familiar, at the places we know best, it’s easy to decide that God isn’t in the normal places.  We go home, and because we only start looking for God amongst the stranger, we don’t let ourselves see God in the ordinary and familiar home life.  It’s a let-down, coming off of a spiritual high of our mission work.  So we keep going away.  We keep looking for new places to go, new spiritual experiences which will push us to find God again.  And by restricting the God experience to mission trips and spiritual retreats, we cut out other ways of experiencing God, and we restrict the people who have access to God to those who can afford the time or expense of going on these retreats and mission trips.

But the thing is, if we honestly do believe that God is present throughout the world, in all peoples and in all times, then it’s not that we can only find God by going away.  It’s that we’re only looking for God in those far-off places.  God is not restricted, but we are restricting our own experience of God.

It’s another way of making the God-experience safe, by putting the divine away into a box that we think we can control and regulate.  It’s harder, scarier, to say that God is just as present in your ordinary life, when you go grocery shopping at your local store, or hunting for the dishes that your family members use and never return to the kitchen to get washed.  It’s hard to say that God is present in the neighbor who plays music loudly too late at night, or fights with her husband when your kids are trying to take a nap.

It still has to be the goal.  Seek the Lord while he may be found.  Paradoxically, the work of mission isn’t done until we go back home and apply the task of mission to our own lives.  We haven’t found God in the world until we can return and still seek God in the face of the person next to us.  

Margaret Clinch is 28 years old and from the Diocese of Southern Ohio. 
She is serving as a teacher at Easter College in the 
Diocese of the North Central Philippines.

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Day 2: Choose Life

"So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the Lord your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him; for this is your life and the length of your days, that you may live in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.” 
-Deuteronomy 30:19b-20




When I was five years old, I had a conversation that I remember vividly.  Someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up.  This is a conversation I have had many times with young children.  It is always fun to hear their answers. For me, the answer was simple.  “I am going to be a teacher.  I will try really hard in school and get good grades in high school so I can go to college.  Then I will graduate and become a teacher.”  My five-year-old self was planning for my future.  It was going to be that easy.

Fast forward 20 years.  Believe it or not, but it took me that long to realize that the best laid plans (prepared by a five-year-old) are still beyond our control.  Sure, I “tried really hard in school.”  I earned grades in high school that not only allowed me to graduate in the top 15% of my class, but also made me eligible for a scholarship.  I was a full-time student through 5 years of college and graduated with a BA in Elementary Education.  There was one thing my childhood self didn’t plan for: the real world.

I was forced to stop, take a step back, stop thinking about my plan, and take off my blinders.  I had been so narrowly focused for so long that I was missing out on a lot.  Today’s reading from Deuteronomy says “So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the Lord your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him; for this is your life and the length of your days, that you may live in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.” (30:19b-20)

Choose life.

By obeying HIS voice, not mine.

This is MY life, and the length of MY days.

Luke 9:23-24 says “And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.  For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.”

What did I discover when I stopped trying to make my plan work?  The life I had chosen was not allowing me to live.  By trying to appease a stubborn five-year-old who no longer exists, I was not leaving myself open to experiences.  I was not listening to God’s voice.

I found myself in a whole new situation.  Finally listening and open to what I was going to hear.  Believe me when I say that I had no idea where it was going to take me.  The idea of taking up a cross means something different for everybody.  For the man who visited my college campus every year while I was there, it meant literally hauling a wooden cross across the United States.  For other people, it’s caring for children or an aging family member.  For myself and the other YASCers around the world, our cross is friendships and positive relationships with other church organizations around the Anglican Communion.  We have taken up our crosses and followed Him across the ocean.  By letting go of my own ideas, listening to God, and giving away my former life, I have gained so much more.

{The unofficial CAMS School Photo for 2014. Can you find Heidi?}

I have built a great life in Tanzania, even though I am only here for a short time.  I have amazing friends.  I get to work with wonderful people.  My life is simpler and more complex at the same time.  I would like to believe that if my five-year-old self could see me now, she would be proud.

Heidi Galagan is 28 years old and from the Diocese of Wyoming. She is currently teaching at DCT Canon Andrea Mwaka Primary School, International in Dodoma, Tanzania where she enjoys teaching Standard 1 and Standard 4.

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Day 1: Ash Wednesday

Instead of one of us taking on the daunting task of reflecting about Ash Wednesday, we thought we'd share how we experienced services around the world today. And in the spirit of being twenty-somethings, there are a few selfies!

It's a beautiful reminder of how millions of our brothers and sisters in Christ are worshipping alongside us throughout the Anglican Communion.

"I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God's holy Word." 

-Book of Common Prayer, page 265

{Sara Lowery, Katie Webb, & Will Bryant at St. John's Cathedral, Hong Kong}

{The students of Holy Cross School praying in Grahamstown, South Africa.}

{Becky Gleason attended services Iglesia Episcopal Espiritu Santo in Tela, Honduras}

"We have not loved you with our whole heart, and mind, and strength. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We have not forgiven others, as we have been forgiven." 

-Book of Common Prayer, page 267

{Margaret Clinch attended services at Holy Innocents, Baguio, Philippines}

{Charlotte File hiked a half hour in the snow to learn services were cancelled.}

{A small, quiet service was held for the staff of the Diocese of Santiago, Philippines}

"Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me now away from your presence and take not your holy Spirit from me. Give me the joy of your saving help again and sustain me with your bountiful Spirit."

 -Psalm 51:11-13

{Claire Harkey with friends in San Pedro Sula, Honduras}

{Filipino students of St. Mark's preschool proudly sported their ashes.}

{Maurice Dyer worshipped with students in Grahamstown, South Africa}

"Bless the Lord, you angels of his, you mighty ones who do his bidding, and hearken to the voice of his word. Bless the Lord, all you his hosts, you ministers of his who do his will. Bless the Lord, all you works of his, in all places of his dominion; bless the Lord, O my soul." 

-Psalm 103:20-22

{Heidi Galagan attended a service in Dodoma, Tanzania.}

{St. Andrew's, Kiyosoto, Japan cancelled services due to deep snow.}

{Rachel Carter and Principal of Instituto San Cristobal Episcopal, where 

Rachel teaches attended a service in Panama City, Panama}

"Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen."

{The Cathedral for the Episcopal Diocese of Santiago in the Philippines}

{Students of Holy Cross School in Grahamstown, South Africa receiving their ashes}

{Episcopal Church in San Pedro Sula, Honduras}

“So as you enter Lent, consider how you will live in solidarity with those who are hungry, or broken, or ill in one way or another,” 

Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said in her Lent Message 2014

{Ashley Cameron received her ashes at St. Augustine in the Valley Cathedral, Santiago, Philippines.}

{Honduran students receiving ashes at Iglesia Espiritu Santo in Tela, Honduras}

"Almighty God, you have created me out of the dust of the earth: Grant that these ashes may be to me a sign of my mortality and penitence, that I may remember that it is only by your gracious gift that we are given everlasting life; through Jesus Christ my Savior. Amen"

-Book of Common Prayer, page 264

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