HILLSPEAKING
from The Anglican Digest
LENT A.D. 2008
CHURCH bodies around the world regularly assemble to debate,
discuss, examine, occasionally to pontificate and pass resolutions
about, ecumenicism but in the long run Anglicans remain Anglicans,
Baptists remain Baptists, Catholics remain Catholics. On the
other hand, Operation Pass Along (OPA) has been from its beginning, and
is so today, completely ecumenical.
Its mission is to solicit books (primarily about the Church), and
nowadays clericals, vestments and altar fittings, from those who no
longer need or want them and to pass them along to those who do.
It is as simple as that.
There are neither means tests nor are there any religious affiliation
tests. If we have the item, we pass it along; if we do not we
will enter the request in the OPA data bank and send the item if and
when it shows up in the day’s mail. We’ll keep the request open
for a year and happily renew it if requested. The only priority
we apply is the date of asking.
There’s never a charge for the item itself, but we do ask that postage
and handling charges be remitted before we send it. Most OPA
beneficiaries throw in a few dollars extra and with that we are able to
send books, tapes, videos, vestments, clericals, altar fittings, and
the like to clergy and churches – and to individuals – in Third World
countries postpaid.
Our benefactors are as varied and widespread, and as ecumenical, as are
our beneficiaries. In recent years two of our most frequent and
generous donors have been a Presbyterian church in Alaska and a Baptist
church here in Arkansas.
Just as we happily send to those who ask, we happily accept from those
who send. Oft times we have no inkling of the affiliation of the
donor – and wonder how in the world he or she learned about Operation
Pass Along.
In the thirty-five years I have worked with OPA, I’ve followed any
number of seminarians through their years of study and on to their
ordinations. One such, of happy memory, told his son about OPA
when he went to seminary and now the son too is a priest – and still
occasionally asks for a book he has trouble finding.
People who send books or vestments quite often thank us for seeing that those items have a second life.
Operation Pass Along is international as well as ecumenical. In
2007, for example we sent more than three thousand books to Ghana,
India, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, the Philippines, the Solomon Islands,
Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, Vanuatu, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. In
all, since its beginning in 1972, OPA has sent almost 24,000 books to
the Third World.
Along with that, some six hundred vestments, clericals, and altar fittings have been passed along during the year.
All of this, of course, would be impossible without the generosity of
those who, over the years, have donated books and other items to the
tune of almost a quarter-million individual items of great variety and
value. A seminarian in Ghana recently e-mailed us, “I am very
grateful for the parcel of studying materials you sent to me.
Thanks for your concern and [the] help you have given so many
individuals.”
It is a gratifying and worthwhile ministry.
©SPEAK, INC
805 CR 102 - EUREKA SPRINGS AR 72632-9705
PHONE: 479-253-9701
FAX:
479-253-1277 E-MAIL: speak@speakinc.org
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