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Annual Meeting 2025
143rd Annual Meeting Episcopal Church Women,Diocese of North Carolina Saturday, November 15, 2025, 9 AM – 3:30 PM The Station at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church875 W. 5th St. Winston-Salem NC 27101 Special Guest: Lisa Bortner President, National Episcopal Church Women Sharing her vision for… ECW Reimagined! National ECW is a churchwide organization dedicated to empowering Episcopal…
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17. Honoring the Dead
Late one afternoon, after the last of the reports have been presented at the annual conference of the Mothers’ Union, about a dozen MU members and I pile into the trusty white passenger van and head to the home of a recently deceased maruti, Mma Toto. Mma Toto, whose husband predeceased her by about a…
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16. Crafting to Compete & for Outreach
Competitions are an integral part of the annual conferences of the Mothers’ Union in the Anglican Diocese of Botswana. Women from different parishes vie for top honors in a variety of categories. These showcases for skills are friendly competitions, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t taken seriously. The first contest at the conference in Tsabong…
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15. Being Present
The mornings do indeed begin bright and early. After lunch there’s a break of an hour. However, the timing of the evening schedule turns out to be more a suggestion. Events go on until 11 p.m., midnight, even later. And here’s the thing, younger and older alike are truly present, participating with gusto even as…
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14. It Takes a Village, and a Cow
On the first full day of the Mother’s Union annual conference, and our second day in the desert village of Tsabong, I leave the assembly hall to stretch my legs. It’s late morning and a dozen or so of our hosts are preparing for the lunch crowd.
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13. A Sweet, Sweet Spirit in this Place
I slept soundly the night the Mother’s Union officers and I finally arrived in Tsabong, but woke early the next day. Eyes closed against the bright sun streaming through the window next to the bed, I lay still, listening to birdsong, men calling to one another, and the tinkling of bells.
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12. A Late Supper
Like the Episcopal Church Women of the Diocese of North Carolina, the Mother’s Union of Botswana rotates the place of its conference. In August 2010, Tsabong, on the southwestern edge of the country in the Kalahari Desert, was the home for the annual event.
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11. Into the Kalahari with a Song
A journey of a 1,000 miles may begin with a single step, but the 324 miles between Gaborone, the capital city of Botswana, and Tsabong, the administrative center of the Kgalagadi District in the Kalahari Desert, is best begun with a reliable vehicle and trailer.
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10. Lift High the Cross… and the Banners
Within a few days of the tornadoes that tore through North Carolina on April 16, 2011, I began receiving e-mail from Botswana. The people there had begun to get word of the destruction wreaked by the storms and they were concerned.
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9. Faith in Action
The Mother’s Union, active throughout the worldwide Anglican Communion, is one of two primary women’s ministries in the Diocese of Botswana. The Episcopal Church Women of the Diocese of North Carolina has unique relationships with both these groups as they focus on different things at different times.
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8. A Desert Place
Botswana is bordered by South Africa to the south and southeast. One afternoon, while on a leisurely ride through the countryside with a few friends, the driver suddenly veers off the road and makes his way through mounds of reddish brown sand, halting abruptly at the edge of a clearing.
ECW-NC
Episcopal Church Women in NC