February 15 gathering notes

The longest telephone call with Guatemala partners in months and a serious discussion about some next steps were highlights of the Presidents’ Day/Valentine’s Day weekend gathering about Crescent Hill’s Guatemala mission gathering.

The group of nine there at Brad, Soni, and Hilda’s considered trying to send a mission team to Izabal this summer or trying to host an Estoreño Presbytery mission team – with fewer activities on the agenda than last time – this September.  The group leaned towards hosting – with a discussion about possible future fund-raising and the number of Estoreño folks who could be invited – but decided to call back at 10:00 a.m. Sunday, March 2 – during a presbytery Executive Committee meeting – to float the visiting Kentuckiana idea more aggressively.  A small group will meet at 9:45 a.m. (in the “Upper Room”?) to talk about this – with Hilda or perhaps Peter as a Spanish speaker.

The call with Pastor Raul Conteras (or Contreras?) went OK, with discussion about the upcoming March 22-23 presbytery meeting and a new congregation initiative – spearheaded by Pastor Benjamin – in an outlying community.  Doug and Raul also discussed Douglas and Stephanie’s upcoming engagement party/wedding reception and Raul’s daughter’s recent 15^th birthday celebration.  Apparently it is almost 110 degrees or so in Izabal right now.

The group sifted through some financial news that Perry reported and discussed the final page of a report to the national Guatemala Presbyterian church that the presbytery had carbon-copied to CHPC, which included an apparent response to a national church’s inquiry about the disputed Hurricane Mitch property in Panzos.

The group chose to recommend to Outreach Council – and, de facto, the session – that in 2014 CHPC continue to support the work of mission co-worker Amanda Craft (now regional liaison for Guatemala, Mexico, and borderlands ministries), along with the work of her husband, Omar Chan (both of whom met with the Guatemala group last fall) and incoming mission co-workers Sandi and Brian, who lunched with the group earlier this month and  - among other things – will continue Amanda and Ellen Dozier’s work in women’s ministries.

Soni also talked about continuing to pursue efforts to better educate each other and others at Crescent Hill about some of the individuals and individual experiences, partly through developing some photo albums/scrapbooks – as well as web pages - about individuals and individual congregations and past partnership activities.

The group slated 11:00 a.m., Saturday, March 29, at Brad, Soni, and Hilda’s, for the next gathering.

-Perry