[Dialogue] Don Elliott

[Singltn at aol.com]

Don was what my Father called a chaRACTer.  He used the term to describe 
someone who  is a little bigger than life, hard to define, and hard to 
contain.  Don’s energy always filled a room and  gave it a lift, he was hard to 
describe in a few short words, and you never knew  where his enthusiasms and 
that passionate spirit would turn up next. 
The Elliott’s took RS-1 in Boulder in January 1971.  The Singleton’s took 
RS-1 at  GerogeYost’s church – Evanston Methodist- in February 1971, at the 
invitation of  Bill Hudson who had left the Order and was a minister at 
Montview.  Even though we lived a block apart and  both went to Montview, we 
did not know each other until the long journey that  followed from those 
courses.   The Elliot’s and the Singleton’s both went to Summer ’71.  We spent 
endless Saturday hours as part  of the Local Church Experiment, and every 
Sunday evening as part of the  Pioneers, a cadre assembled by Ken Barley to 
follow through at Montview on the  Local Church Project.  One outcome  of the 
LCP was that Montview decided to have a corporate ministry – all three  
ministers as equals – in everything, from preaching to committee work, to  
salary.  The model is still in place  at Montview today.   
Don and I attended Session meetings and choir practice,  endless meetings 
at the Denver Religious House trying to interest forward  thinking projects 
from around the state into going to India for the  International Exposition 
of Rural Development.  Don and Freda were one of the early ones  to go on 
Global Odyssey.  I went to  India, Malyasia and  Indonesia to visit projects in 
 1976.  For both families, ICA opened up the  world.   
In 2002, Don came to the village of Golokwati in Ghana to help launch the 
ICA HIV/AIDS  Prevention Initiative.  He and John  Singleton spent a week 
riding tutus visiting all the health facilities in the  district to tell them 
about the HIV project and assess what health related  resources were 
available.  People  were there from every African ICA office to help figure out how 
to train local  people to be health educators, and Don knew many of them 
from a trek following  the Millennium Connection he had taken with Dick Alton 
the fall of 2000.   
As a Rotarian and member of Montview’s Global Mission  Committee, he was 
instrumental in combining a Montview contribution with Rotary  funds to 
leverage district and international Rotary funds to provide much of the  funding 
needed to assist 2003 launches in other countries.   
At every level of the ICA network, Don has  been an enthusiastic supporter 
of  an ambitious vision for what was possible:  he helped Denver become an 
ICA office, he spent years on the ICA Board and  was faithful for years to 
the work of ICA International.  I understand when he was on that Board,  he 
never missed a General Assembly meeting. 
We did have a difference in politics and we learned it was better not to  
go into them too deeply.  I often wondered how people with such differing  
political opinions could find companionable direction in our common  work.    
With his seemingly unlimited energy and resources, he  came as close as 
anyone I know to walking the fine line that was both freedom  and 
responsibility, which means that he lived very fully. I join many people who  are going 
to miss him.  He was always a colleague and a friend.       
 
Louise Singleton MSPH
4 Calle Aguila
Santa Fe, NM  87508
505 983-7077
303 478-9033
singltn at aol.com


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