A Good Time, and a Great New Resource!

For over a year now at UUSC we have been celebrating the acknowledgment by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial of the inspiring and heroic work of two of our founders, Martha and Waitstill Sharp.

We have held or attended ceremonies in Israel, Washington D.C., and in their hometown of Wellesley, Mass. We have received proclamations from the U.S. House and Senate, and from President George W. Bush. We have seen their names added permanently to the Wall of Remembrance in Israel, and to the Rescuers' Wall at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.

And now its our turn. We have chosen to memorialize their work in a 25-minute documentary entitled "Heroes of the Spirit." And further -- as we believe they would have wanted it -- we are using this documentary not just to look back, but also to look deeply at the current events taking place in Darfur, Sudan, where a devastating genocide has already claimed the lives of over 300,000 men, women, and children, and displaced more than 2.5 million more.

We will be showing this film publicly for the first time on Tuesday, December 12, 2006, in the congregation Rev. Waitstill pastored before and after their trip to Europe. All are welcome to attend, and if you would like to join us that evening, please send an RSVP.

We think that this film will be an important resource that UU congregations and other groups can use to begin conversations about what we can do now in Darfur. To help spur this conversation on, we will include on the DVD not just the film about the Sharps, but also a film about Darfur, a study action guide, and a facilitator's guide, as well as a poster that can be used to promote a showing of the film and conversation at your congregation, home, or elsewhere! The DVD will be available on the website beginning the day after the Wellesley event, and we hope it will be put into use across the country.