St. Peter’s members to build home of love for orphaned South Africans

From The Washington Post-

Twenty-seven members of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Arlington County are traveling to South Africa this week on a community-building mission to support children orphaned by the AIDS epidemic.

The congregation, based off North Glebe Road, has raised more than $52,000 over the past two years through car washes, a bike race, dinners and other fundraisers to help build a home for six children and a caretaker, or house mother, in Masiphumelele, on the western cape south of Cape Town. This week, the families and individuals from St. Peter’s will deliver seven handmade quilts, build a playground, paint a mural and volunteer in other ways for the orphans and the church’s partnering organization, St. Francis Outreach Trust.

“We are not trying to do a one-off mission. We are trying to develop relationships between our community and their community,” said Anna Fernau, the mission’s organizer. “Obviously, we are trying to support them financially, but it is deeper than that. It is what connects us as human beings.”

More here-

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/st-peters-members-embark-on-intercontinental-mission-of-love-for-orphaned-south-africans/2011/07/25/gIQAPBr4eI_story.html