For Immediate Release…………..Thursday, April 30, 2014

FROM:     Louise R. Meyer – Y.M.O. Communications

                   847.518.4344                 

                   Louise.meyer@leonardo.com

 The 2013 Missions Team...and it has grown this year!

Grace Episcopal Youth Missions Organization Rocks All Night Long

This past weekend, the Grace Episcopal Church-based Youth Missions Organization (YMO) held its second annual Rock-a-thon with 17 teens rocking in their chairs for 24 hours straight in order to raise money for the group’s up and coming mission trip to Bluff, Utah. These teens came from Hinsdale, Clarendon Hills, Western Springs, LaGrange and Burr Ridge (and attend Hinsdale Central, Lyons Township, Fenwick and St. Ignatius to name a few).

The group raised $17,000, which is just a part of what it will need for its week-long trip. The mission group—which will ultimately comprise about 25 teens and 25 adult Grace Church parishioners—will leave from Grace Church on June 7, 2014 early in the morning and travel two days by bus to Bluff, Utah, which is about 10 miles northwest from the “Four Corners” where the states of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah meet.

In Bluff, they will be serving St. Christopher’s Mission, which is part of the Episcopal Church in Navajo Nation. There the Grace church mission group will build a hogan—a traditional Navajo dwelling—for Catherine Plummer, wife of the late Rt. Rev. Steven Tsosie Plummer, the first native Navajo to server as an Episcopal bishop in Navajo Nation.

St. Christopher’s Mission was originally built in 1943 by Baxter Liebler, an Episcopal priest from Old Greenwich, Connecticut.  It was named St. Christopher's Mission after the patron saint of travelers. It is now part of the Episcopal Church in Navajo Nation.

Catherine Plummer herself was ordained in 2013 and grew up with the aforementioned Baxter Liebler as her teacher and priest. She became the second Navajo woman to serve as a priest. Today, she lives about nine miles outside of Bluff in a trailer that has been condemned as it is unlivable.  

All donations are gratefully received and welcomed!  To donate, please simply send a note to one of the youth involved or, alternatively to the blog master, (louise.meyer@leonardo.com ).  Please indicate the amount of your donation and that it is for Y.M.O. Mission trip.  

For more information about YMO or Grace Episcopal Church, 120 E. First St., Hinsdale, visit www.gracehinsdale.org or call (630) 323-4900.