QUEST AND BEQUEST IN A TIME OF SOLITUDE

ABM’s Gifts in Wills Officer, Dr Ivan Head.

Rev’d Canon Dr Ivan Head is the Gifts in Wills Officer with ABM

This is a Thank You from the Gifts in Wills Officer on behalf of all who work to make ABM happen today. Much good is being done everywhere our 2020 projects are happening and can be read about in depth on the ABM website or in the Project Book. 

I am writing from the relative solitude that we are all experiencing in some way. The current COVID-19 driven solitude gives each one of us a chance to reflect on our own life quest. I watched a program called Alone which focused on 10 people who chose to be in individual solitude in the wilderness of Patagonia to survive for as long as each could. One person went 87 days totally alone. A bit over the top for most of us! The Jesuits have a core 40-day retreat, and Jesus was alone in the wilderness too. It is not ‘the usual’ for humans, but it can work for us at deep levels. And when the normal days resume,  hopefully we can again enjoy the benefits of deep community.

I have been helping ABM with Gifts in Wills for about a year and learning about ABM’s 170-year history of mission – made possible by generations of supporters. It’s a bit like the incredible Ancestor Vines in the Barossa that still deliver great wine annually from vines that have been growing for up to 170 years. God’s mission is renewed from one year to the next and the website and Project Book show some of the positive differences that ABM’s supporters make and the deeper community life that results. ABM’s present mission emphasises five distinctive marks, each of which invites further exploration. 

ABM involves people of all ages. For many it has a been a whole of life calling. Some come later to it, when they see an area where ‘I must just make this positive difference–- I can, so I will’.  

I have the privilege of seeing the shape of some of these callings or quests or insight moments when an executor of an estate informs me that a bequest has been left in a person’s will and directed to the work of ABM. 

I have been contacted in that way about 12 times in the last year. For all of these, I express ABM’s special thanks. And I add our thanks to those who have considered the matter deeply and included ABM in their will. I am moved by the generosity and desire to good of all who have done this.

It enables ABM to make a difference now, and in decades to come as we strive to be the best possible mission agency for the national Anglican Church. 

I am always interested to hear the stories of those with connections with ABM and its long history of mission. 

I look forward to hearing from you. Please drop me an email.

Thank You,
Ivan

Ivan.head@abmission.org.au