Sue Anne Fairman is blessed to have served in many places
February 7, 2024
A Ward family photo includes Sue Anne Fairman. (Contributed photo)
If home is where the heart is, then Sue Anne Fairman’s heart is blessed to call several places home.
For the Presbyterian ruling elder and deacon, for whom a call to mission has defined her entire life, New Wilmington, Pennsylvania, is home.
Not only is the small town home to Fairman’s alma mater, Westminster College — site of the New Wilmington Mission Conference, where she also served for 10 years as office manager — but it’s also home to the New Wilmington Presbyterian Church, which supported her and her former husband during their years as international mission workers.
But home, too, will always be Kenya, where they lived and worked among the Maasai people in southwestern Kenya. It was there that Fairman cultivated a love for literacy, raised and homeschooled two daughters, and spent 14 of her nearly 25 years in mission service volunteering at Mother Teresa’s Orphanage in Nairobi.
And home, since December 2020, is also Shenango on the Green, a Presbyterian continuing care community, where Fairman is an active volunteer. It’s also where she said goodbye to her own mother, who lived and died there.
Yet Fairman might not have been able to call Shenango on the Green home had it not been for the intervention of her longtime friend and college schoolmate, the Rev. David Dawson, former executive presbyter of the Presbytery of Shenango.
When initially faced with the financial realities of moving into a senior living community, Fairman said she was feeling “more than a bit stressed.”
“I was very concerned about living in this new place with the monthly rent going up, and my savings going down,” she said. “Then I had lunch with my friend, Dave, who said, ‘Why don’t you apply to the Board of Pensions for income and housing assistance,’ which I had never heard of before. He explained it was there for retired pastors and mission workers if they were in financial need. When I made the call and they investigated my situation, they felt I qualified.”
Fairman said that the day she received her acceptance letter from the Board of Pensions, she felt validated.
Sue Anne Fairman’s service to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) included many years serving in Kenya. (Contributed photo)
“Most of my years of service as a pastor’s wife and missionary in Kenya were not covered by the Board of Pensions, because [my ex-husband] was the one who was called into ministry,” she said. “When I got that letter that said I was accepted, I just cried. It meant that much to me. I cannot tell you how much this income assistance has validated me and my years of ministry!”
The support that Fairman receives is made possible, in part, by the PC(USA)’s annual Christmas Joy Offering, a cherished Presbyterian tradition since the 1930s, which distributes gifts equally to the BOP’s Assistance Program and to Presbyterian-related schools and colleges equipping communities of color.
The Assistance Program provides need-based grants to help active and retired plan members and their families. Income Supplements help eligible retirees and surviving spouses in need by raising to certain levels the monthly income for those who had earned modest wages.
“The Board’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion includes dismantling structures which had previously only served the few,” said Ruth Adams, director of the Assistance Program. “The Assistance Program has taken this mission to heart by expanding access to existing programs and creating new ones during the past two years. Changing pension plan participation for Housing and Income supplements has meant that pensioners who served the church for many years without full benefits may now be eligible to receive support from the Board of Pensions in their retirement.”
“Former church workers who have served long and well deserve to be recognized for their efforts over their lifetime,” Fairman said. “Because there are so many today who are struggling financially because of inflation and other challenges, they need help. Your gifts to the Christmas Joy Offering serve to validate their life and their ministry.”
Give to the Christmas Joy Offering to help the Assistance Program of the Board of Pensions support our leaders: past, present and future.
Emily Enders Odom, Associate Director of Mission Communications, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Daily Readings
Today’s Focus: Board of Pensions Assistance Program supported Sue Anne Fairman find a home
Let us join in prayer for:
PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Deborah Bernard, Administrator, Office of the President, Board of Pensions
Barbara Betts, Manager of Presbyterian Distribution Services, Administrative Services Group (A Corp)
Let us pray
Loving God, open our hearts and minds as we share your love with others. As Jesus healed us, lead us also to heal our neighbors, giving hope that they may restore their sense of worth and self-confidence. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.