Category: Uncategorized

In celebration of the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi, animal lovers are invited to bring their pets to be blessed by Fr. Rodney Sunday, October 8 at 4 PM in the upper parking lot.

The Oracle | The Oracle is back! After a bit of a break, we are pleased to publish a new Oracle for October/November 2023. Take a look to view upcoming events, updates on various ministries, and reflections from parishioner and Vestry member Antonia Greene-Edwards. The Oracle can be found on our website, saintmattsec.org/oracle-newsletter/ or from the link in your recent parish emails.

St. Matthew’s will remember the faithful departed by holding a solemn Holy Eucharist on Thursday, November 2nd at 6:00 PM. Remember departed loved ones by emailing their first and last names to either Fr. Rodney, rector@saintmattsec.org or Carolyn Bedics, parishmanager@saintmattsec.org. Remembrances are requested by Monday, October 30th.

The 2022 Annual Report for Saint Matthew’s Episcopal Church, Maple Glen is accessible online here or by clicking on the image below.

St. Matthew’s Annual Meeting will be held in the Parish Hall on Sunday, November 13 following the 9:00 AM service. Vestry members and diocesan delegates will be elected during the meeting.

St. Matthew’s Summer Camps are open for registration!

Go off-road for a Monumental adventure through the colorful canyons and sunbaked trails of the southwest. By exploring God’s awesomeness, kids form a rock-solid faith for the road ahead.

Led by parishioners Laura Zakrzewski and Karin Davis, the camps will occur from July 11th to 15th.

Offerings include Monumental VBS for children, and Middle School Service Camp for tweens and teens.

Visit tinyurl.com/SMEC-Camp-Registration to register today!

The 2021 Annual Report for Saint Matthew’s Episcopal Church, Maple Glen is accessible online here or by clicking on the image below.

This announcement serves as official notice regarding Saint Matthew’s upcoming Annual Meeting. The meeting is to be held in the Parish Hall on Sunday, November 14th immediately following the 9:00 AM service. Unlike last year, there will not be a virtual engagement option. Following the Annual Report, the body will elect diocesan delegates and newcomers to the vestry. 

We are thrilled to have a newly cleaned and organized parish kitchen. However, we now need your help to re-stock the pantry! If you would like to help, please go here: https://tinyurl.com/parishpantry-SMEC

Have you seen the newest addition to the St. Matthew’s property? If you have not been able to return to the campus, please drive by and take a look! We are most grateful to Jane and Rick Baker for donating this amazing sculpture to St. Matthew’s! It exemplifies our family orientation, and effort to be an open and welcoming community!

Artist: Dale Rogers (website)

Kitale is a largely rural region and lies in the north of Kenya bordering on Sudan and several other countries. The region is quite poor, and the Kitale Diocese strains to help its 150,000 rapidly growing active members. The Mwamba Foundation partners with the Kenyan Church to offer scholarships to assist with the secondary education of girls and very poor boys in the diocese.

St. Matthew’s participates in this program, pooling our donations to sponsor students. It costs about $400 per year to educate a high school student in Kenya. Each year, for the past several years, we have supported over a dozen students enabling them to complete their high school education. We sponsored seventeen students in 2019. Mwamba Foundation is a separate non-profit, but our parishioners have always been a significant part of the governing board and our congregation is the largest single source of sponsorship for Mwamba Foundation.

The Mwamba students have been significantly affected by the coronavirus, as Kenyan schools were suspended as of April 1 of 2020. Students could not return to school until January 2021, and then were sent home in March when another wave of COVID-19 cases hit Kenya. The schools are slated to reopen in May of this year, and the 2020 school year (which should have paralleled the calendar year) will be completed in July of 2021. The 2021 school year is planned for July 2021-March 2022, and the 2022 school year should be able to run April-December 2022. School terms will run with no breaks.

While COVID-19 has affected learning for children in the United States, it has been devastating for Kenyan children. There is no infrastructure for virtual schooling, so the children have lost nine months of education, and are just now trying to make that up. The pandemic has hit the lower income classes particularly hard, and more families than ever are struggling to pay school fees. The need for scholarships, especially for girls, is more present than ever.

St. Matthew’s has supported Mwamba for 20 years, as Father Dave Robinson was instrumental in its founding. We typically run our fundraising campaign in November, but delayed this year until we knew when the students could return to school. We are now asking for your contributions to fund the 2021 school year, which will begin in July. The cost for a full scholarship is still $400 per child, but recall that we pool our donations, so no amount is too small. We have supported 15 children for the past two years, and hope to do so again.

Finally, we ask your prayers for our three Form Four students, who are taking critical national exams (similar to British “A levels”), which will determine their ability to attend university or technical college. Their names are Norah Long’or, Daniel Mukelima and Tecla Chepengat. These young people are under tremendous pressure after having missed significant portions of their last year of school.

Donate online here:

Make an Online Donation

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Send a check to the parish office, or include it in your offering envelope:

• Please make check payable to: St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church
• Please indicate “MWAMBA” in the check memo field

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We ask that you kindly submit support by May 22, 2021.