15-Jan-08 9:00 PM  CST  

Interview with Ken Rogers 

Interview with Ken Rogers

[Ken “Ancient Hawk” Rogers, an NWTA weekend leader emeritus, has lived in Houston with his wife Billi since 1977. He did his weekend in August of 1991 at Haimowoods. His daughter Sonya is a member of Woman Within, and his son-in-law, John Meador, is a Warrior who also has an article in this issue of the DRUM. Ken’s grandson, Chris Thralls, and his father Bob Thralls have both done the training. We asked Ken to tell us a little bit about his enthusiasm for empowering men in our community to create missions of service.]

DRUM: Tell us a little about your interest in this possible new direction for our community.

KEN ROGERS: Our organization initially started as “Men in Mission.” Over time, some changes took place on both the national and the local level and we eventually became primarily known instead as “ManKind Project Houston,” even though “Men in Mission” is still an official name of ours. I see this next step in our evolution as a renewal of our identity, as a chance for us to become more visible and give the community in general more of an opportunity to see who we are. I see this movement as supporting in a practical way the men in our New Warrior community as they create missions of service, as they return to principled visions. These are things that we stress throughout the NWTA weekend. Essentially, the intention is to continue what the NWTA weekend starts and provide opportunities for newly initiated men to be in mission by being in service. And, of course, this opportunity is of particular benefit to those vital men who have been in the Houston NWTA community for a long time. For them it is about renewal.

But most of all, it is a commitment to help others, those many people who through bad health, misfortune, incapacity, disadvantages of many kinds, need assistance. In every case when a committed man is asked his mission he returns a statement that reflects assistance to others in either direct or indirect ways. My mission is “ to create a world of happiness and peace by helping men heal their wounds.” My guess is, Mike, that if you state your mission, it will involve helping others.
 

DRUM: What inspired you to suggest to our leaders and to the community in general that we start moving in this direction?

KR: It started with the group of questions that were published in the last issue of the DRUM. For a while, I had been thinking about the kind of image that we as a community project, and I realized that we are not known outside of our own circle for living our missions. I also had been thinking about all the folks out there who are in need of support, or just a smile. This last idea actually came from my wife Billi, who reminded me how important it is to smile when I am involved in service or other work with another person . So I wrote up those questions and presented them to the leader body, who responded very positively to them and insisted that I publish them in our newsletter.

DRUM: So what kind of response have you been getting to this idea?

KR: The response has been phenomenal, really big. A group of us are in the process of organizing a larger group of men who will be available to go and perform service work where there is a need. Basically we’re just getting the commitments and then going and doing some of the things that need to be done.

DRUM: And so besides yourself, there must be others upon whom men in the community can call if they want to get involved.

KR: Yes. They can talk to Bruce Anderson, Joel Ferguson, Lamont Grogan, Joe LaFico, Alastair Livingstone, Tom Oldham, Eduardo Somoza, or Dave Steitz.

DRUM: Any final comments?

KR: I can’t emphasize strongly enough that our dual purposes here are to give men repeated exposure to their mission and to help people who need help.

 Our first project is on February 16. It will be a project of 15 men who will be serving food to homeless individuals at the Beacon, a ministry of Christ Church Cathedral downtown. If you are interested, please get in touch with me or one of these other men as soon as you can. We have other projects in the planning stage. Sign up now. We need your energies.

 

Source: Mike “Lionman” Leone
http://www.mkphouston.org

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