The Guatemalan mission partnership task force gathered at Nancy’s Bagels Saturday morning, June 6. The group shared prayer concerns about job issues, budget cuts issues, and upcoming trips.
Ellen reported to the group about a recent e-mail message from Pastor Gerardo of the Arca de Noe church in El Estor, which folks were excited to hear about. Gerardo said he had received via PC(USA)World Mission staff photos of Izabal folks that the spring mission team had taken while in El Estor. Gerardo also said he had received Carlos’ e-mail message with thoughts about Pentecost at Crescent Hill.
Later the group agreed that we would try e-mailing the Izabal folks a photo of the Pentecost worship service.
Ellen, Ben, and Carlos would also try to call Gerardo to find out more about in what ways Estoreño folks might have studied the joint spring scripture study scripture (the second chapter of Acts). The hope is that we can get through to Gerardo this week so Ellen can put any information from that conversation with him in an article for the July church newsletter issue. Ellen will translate into English at least part of Gerardo’s e-mail message to us and part of Carlos’ e-mail to Estoreño folks about Pentecost at Crescent Hill, as part of that article. (Those articles have also included prayer schedule information for the month)
There was also some discussion about the end of Gerardo’s e-mail, which dealt with his church’s efforts to construct a building for the El Chupon mission church they’ve helped get started. Gerardo said they’ve built a roof and walls but are now praying for money for cement (or just the cement) to cement the floor. We talked about whether this was a veiled request for money (although also clearly an invitation to join them in prayer about this). Perhaps at some point Crescent Hill church plans will have crystallized enough and our partnership has developed enough that we will feel comfortable devoting a piece of proceeds from a Crescent Hill church fund raising capital campaign for Estoreño Presbytery church building projects. It would be important to deal with the presbytery as a whole, in that case, not individual congregations.
Ellen mentioned that Jeff and Soila are planning to try again after an effort to land Soila a visa so that the two of them could leave Central America for the United States was rebuffed, partly because Jeff had no official job offer yet.
Ellen described in brief the current political crisis in Guatemala, where a lawyer accused the president of trying to have him killed on a videotape shot three days before the lawyer was indeed killed. Ellen also explained that Estoreño folks seem to be OK in spite of the earthquake that struck off the coast of Honduras and Guatemala that did reportedly level a couple of hundred houses in the surrounding Izabal area of Guatemala.
Ellen also promoted a new book by Robert Wuthnow, “Boundless Faith: The Global Outreach of American Churches,” which describes new international mission patterns with many U.S. congregations sending a relatively small number of folks on short-term mission trips and building international connections and U.S. congregational engagement from there – which Ellen said seems to characterize Crescent Hill experiences. Ellen hoped to read the book and keeps tabs with Guatemalan politics through the “Prensa Libre” Web site.
Soni described the development of the Looking for Lilith theater group – starting with Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Young Adult volunteers in Guatemala – and the opportunity to see one of their performances of “Strangers Extranjeras” – which deals with issues of cross-cultural friendships in Guatemala – with six evening shows over the next two and a half weeks, one matinee, and a special fund-raising show with dinner and other featured events this coming Wednesday, June 10. All shows are at the Rudyard Kipling in Old Louisville. More details are available at the “Looking for Lilith shows” blog entry or from Soni.
Perry reported that, at a task force gathering earlier in May, the group had affirmed the week-by-week rotation of prayer partners and suggested we continue with it, starting all over in late June. The group had suggested placing information and photos each week in the Narthex. Perry brought to the Saturday gathering an easel and two choices of boards: a white board or a cork bulletin board. Saturday’s group chose the cork board over the white board. The group encouraged Perry to include a permanent headline that describes the Guatemala mission partnership, and Ben and Ellen agreed to provide some appropriate fabric background for the nearly 18” by 24” bulletin board and small laminated Guatemala map.
The prototype discussed, with the border all around and the map below, would include, printed out, something like:
Guatemala mission partnership
Let’s pray this week with:
- Monte Sinai church in the San Carlos Porvenir community
- Pastor José Sub
- Church members, deacons, and elders
Jane urged us to put the easel in the southwest corner of the Narthex, near the basket of children’s resources, visible but not in the way. She also urged us to not to keep using the whole big Gathering Room bulletin board but to frame the text of the partnership plan with a couple of pictures and the map and put this up in the Gathering Room, more or less permanently. Perry said he’ll work on this.
This week’s phone call and follow-up communication with Estoreño Presbytery folks should give Crescent Hill church folks an idea of how study of the joint scripture study scripture – this spring, Acts 2 – went in Izabal. Even with the flurry of activities within several Sunday school classes studying the scripture, the sending of background and questions to Estoreño folks, and the focus on Acts 2 in the Pentecost Sunday worship service, folks in the group thought Crescent Hill’s Acts 2 scripture study was too diffuse. They suggested next time, instead, a separate scripture study group – perhaps meeting weekly or every two weeks – not during Sunday school, but perhaps during a weekday evening. Folks said that – after the Estoreño folks picked the Philippians scripture for joint study during the winter and we picking Acts 2 for joint study in the spring, it is the Estoreño folks’ turn to pick the next scripture. Hopefully, the phone conversation with Gerardo would give us a better idea of what general ideas they might have for joint scripture study continuing. (Estoreño leaders might want to consult before coming up with another scripture.) Folks at Saturday’s gathering talked about doing the next joint scripture study (for a limited time period) in the fall, or perhaps late summer and early fall as a lead-up to the Estoreño presbytery’s Saturday, September 19 annual meeting.
Saturday morning folks went on to talk about the vigil and fast we had promised to put together to coincide with the start of the September 19 meeting. (Keep in mind that Guatemala is currently two hours behind us – they are normally on what we call Central time, and they don’t currently do Daylight time.) Following up on a conversation at the previous gathering, the group talked about – instead of having any kind of common program – Crescent Hill folks fasting until 12 noon and stopping by church – between 9 and 12? – to pray, perhaps in shifts that the group had pre-arranged before. Jane said we would need to promote this – through the newsletter, bulletin announcements, and a Minute for Mission? – and give people suggestions on how to fast and how to pray at home or at church. Ideas that we join for a light lunch afterwards in the Fellowship Hall or at a restaurant might not pan out if everyone were coming to church at different times.
Initially, Ben and Ellen volunteered to help spearhead this. But Ana said the Worship Council had talked about the vigil and had ideas about doing a Labyrinth – like stations of the cross – apparently in the sanctuary – with photos at each stop along the Labyrinth. Ana and the Council will continue to work on this, perhaps with help from Ben, Ellen, and other Guatemala mission task force folks.
Last summer half a dozen Crescent Hill folks traveled to Nashville to participate in a gathering of the Amigos de K’ekchi, a federation of Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) congregations and presbyteries working with Guatemalan Q’eqchi’ partner presbyteries. Crescent Hill was not able to send anyone to a follow-up gathering in Spokane this April (that followed both Crescent Hill’s spring Guatemala mission trip and a joint Amigos de K’ekchi trip to north central Guatemala). At the Spokane gathering the federation established had set up a Steering Committee which was slated to “meet” periodically by conference call. Soni expressed some interest in representing Crescent Hill on the Steering Committee.
A few Crescent Hill folks had been talking about the possibility of Crescent Hill church reaching out not only to folks in Guatemala but also to folks from Guatemala and other Latin American countries here in Louisville by setting up a regular program with English as a second language classes (partly for Spanish-speaking neighbors in Clifton and Crescent Hill), with Spanish classes for some of us and others, with children’s activities, and with a meal. But Jane said she’d learned recently that the Mid-Kentucky presbytery had been talking about doing all but the Spanish classes part of this in four sites around the area, and that our sibling congregation on the other end of Frankfort Avenue – James Lees Memorial Presbyterian Church – was slated to be one of these sites. So Saturday’s group talked about some of us becoming involved in the James Lees effort while setting up a (weekly??) Spanish class for Crescent Hill folks and others in the community at Crescent Hill (paying a teacher). A teaching ESL training is tentatively slated for September. Ada is leading the presbytery Latino commission and Perry has also tried reaching some James Lees folks about this. After the gathering, Jane suggested that task force folks check with the Crescent Hill church Outreach Council about the ESL and Spanish class ideas and the idea discussed next. Jane was to help lead the Spanish classes effort.
Soni reported that she had been talking with Marian C. and Jane and hoped to be talking with Marcus and the Outreach Council soon about an idea for a possible Latino-themed fund-raiser or community event to include some Cuban American performing acts Marian had been talking with, perhaps some Guatemalan performance, and even a short performance by the Looking for Lilith folks, perhaps with food, perhaps with donations – along the lines of the Leslie McClure concert or a broad community event Marcus and others had tried to organize last fall. A twist is that some of these groups might want to be paid or do their own fund-raising. Soni and others will continue talking about this, perhaps for this coming fall (?).
At some point during the gathering folks considered two water initiatives – Living Water for the World and Edge Outreach ministries – as possible endeavors in the Estoreño Presbytery. Folks talked about some of the questions raised about the Living Waters approach and wanted to hear more about Edge ministries. For more on Edge, see
http://www.edgeoutreach.com/ or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqqJPkHxmcsThe group picked for its next gathering: 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, August 8, at Soni and Brad’s house in St. Matthews. The group talked up gathering monthly but skipping July. Additional activities that we discussed – scripture study group, Spanish class, English as a Second Language education etc. ministry at James Lees – may develop. We may continue to work with Worship Council on the September 19 vigil and fast and Outreach Council on the Spanish and ESL classes and possible community event.
-- Perry
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