This is our first State of the Society report as a Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. The year has been a transition to a keen awareness of our identity as Friends grounded in our corporate worship and historical Quaker testimonies.
Because this has also been a year of national preparation for war, our Quaker witness for peace has been called forth. We have united as a Meeting to be a visible Quaker presence in our Port Townsend community, keeping faith with the historical authenticity of the Quaker experience and with our new responsibilities as a Monthly Meeting. For example, we joined the AFSC Board of Directors in civil disobedience by sending water chlorinators to Iraq; we initiated an ecumenical forum on "Iraq: Is War the Answer?"; we had made and distributed locally and regionally a WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER bumper sticker; we lifted up the principles of nonviolent direct action in a public presentation; we gave material assistance and moral support to a member of a Voices in the Wilderness delegation to Iraq. Through our Peace and Social Concerns Committee we worked for peace through the many activities of the Port Townsend Peace Movement: a community peace portrait, peace education events, legislative lobbying, weekly vigiling (including an all-night vigil and fast on New Year's Eve), nonviolent training workshops, and alternatives to military recruitment at the high school.
We remained engaged in the wider Quaker community through individual participation and representation in Quarterly Meeting, Yearly Meeting, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Friends Committee on Washington State Public Policy, and the new Quaker Outreach Committee of the American Friends Service Committee.
Together we studied the literature and practices of Friends by programming adult education around the FGC Quakerism 101 curriculum. The study culminated with a joint potluck and forum with Whidbey Island Worship Group and Agate Passage Preparative Meeting.
We took under our care Whidbey Island Worship Group and have felt privileged to do so.
Our Junior Friends developed their own First Day program by choosing from the resources and experience of the Meeting, from appreciating poetry to understanding civil liberties and conscientious objection. One Junior Friend coordinates the care of the young children, by providing a First Day activities box and scheduling First Day volunteers.
As a worshipping community our Meeting has been enriched by the pastoral care given to two members who experienced health crises.
In October 2002, fifteen Friends transferred from other Monthly Meetings to become the initial membership of Port Townsend Friends Meeting. In February 2003, we celebrated the acceptance of our first new member. On that occasion we experienced the significant meaning of being a Monthly Meeting.
We mourned the death of Lu Chawla, who was a member of Port Townsend Friends Meeting.
In preparing this report, Ministry and Counsel asked for the personal reflections of individual members and as a conclusion shares the following:
"That our little fledgling Meeting is so well organized, so attentive to the needs of its members and that we love each other so well fills me with awe, wonder, and tears of gratitude. Through the Meeting's love and constant help I have experienced God's presence in a powerful way."
"We are a vibrant, loving, growing, inclusive, and active Quaker community now...and every week, nearly, I see more and more new people (or former Friends) drawn to this joyful Meeting. For this, I am deeply grateful, as I think all of us are!"