On Sunday, March 26th, we warmly welcome Rev. Lori Whittemore to our church. She is an ordained interfaith chaplain and community minister.  She graduated with a Master of Divinity from Bangor Theological Seminary in 2010 and from Chaplaincy Institute of Maine in 2014.  As a part of her theological training, she participated in Hartford Seminary Dialogue Institute Training program, immersed with 8 Jews, 8 Muslims and 8 Christians for exegetical, sacramental, social and service dialogue.  She also completed training at the New Church Leadership Institute with Progressive Renewal Institute founder, Rev.  CameronTrimble.  She has served at Hospice of Southern Maine as a chaplain in the home program and at the Gosnell Memorial Hospice House and as Spiritual Care Leader for the American Red Cross in Maine.  She is the founder and director of Abbey of HOPE (hands of peace extended) interfaith cooperation circle, organized in the framework of a United Religions Initiative (URI) cooperation circle.  The mission of the Abbey of HOPE is to gather people of diverse faiths, beliefs and spiritualities to promote dialogue, encourage cooperation and facilitate compassionate action.  In this work she has helped facilitate several interfaith dialogue dinners, coordinated interfaith youth visits from Israel, and organized and collaborated on interfaith programming with the University of Southern Maine.  She has been working hard on a Compassionate Housing Initiative creating interfaith cooperation circles in different communities to learn about the experience of Refugees and Asylum Seekers coming to Maine and discerning how to best offer welcome to and within their communities. Rev. Whittemore has developed and directs a clinical pastoral training program that provides professional training and field experience for chaplains and lay folk of varying traditions, in varying settings with the modern religious and spiritual landscape in mind.   Lori lives in Yarmouth with her husband of 23 years, Pieter and has a daughter, Madeline in Chicago and another, Sammi in Costa Rica.