[Oe List ...] Don Elliott

[James Wiegel]

. . . and the congregation says, "A men"
can you explain "tutu's"

Jim



Coincidence is the spiritual equivalent of a pun.  G. K. Chesterton



Jim Wiegel

401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353-2401

+1  623-936-8671   +1  623-363-3277

   jfwiegel at yahoo.com   www.partnersinparticipation.com

--- On Wed, 9/30/09, Singltn at aol.com <Singltn at aol.com> wrote:

From: Singltn at aol.com <Singltn at aol.com>
Subject: [Oe List ...] Don Elliott
To: oe at wedgeblade.net, dialogue at wedgeblade.net
Date: Wednesday, September 30, 2009, 4:33 PM



 
 



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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