November 14 gathering

Shannon Bostrom, Megan McCarty, Shannon Beck, Doug Yeager, Elisabeth McNinch, Janine Linder, Ben Langley, Soni Castleberry and Jane Larsen-Wigger all gathered at church on Nov 15 to talk about our Partnership and various things related to it.

After prayers of both thanksgiving and intercession, we heard from Shannon Beck about the Reconciliation study trip she was recently a part of in Guatemala.  This was done as a connection between PCUSA, CEDEPCA and the Synodical of IENPG (I think all that’s right!).  The background – and widespread prevalence – of sexual violence in Guatemala, especially among people of faith and in isolated, poverty-stricken areas, was eye-opening for us.  The outcomes of the conference were the hope of re-establishing a working relationship between the IENPG and CEDEPCA, to continue to meet as a group, and to begin to train women to train more women to help with awareness and prevention.

We spent the rest of the meeting talking about various aspects of the upcoming 2016 visit with our partners, including:

- The possibility of using CEDEPCA to organize and facilitate the visit:  We decided we can’t decide this until we know more clearly from our partners what they want us to do and see.  If then we want to see about using CEDEPCA then we need to talk to them (CEDEPCA) about how best to talk to our partners about it

- We talked, as we often have, about the nature and purpose of our trip and the importance of it being relational in nature, with the hope of learning and deepening our relationships with one another and with God.  We talked of the importance of our partners telling us what they want us to do, what they want to show us and not us just telling them what we want to do.   It was decided to emphasize in publicity that this is a Visit, instead of using language of mission trip.

-We discussed plans for the Jan. 29 Fund-raiser and re-iterated that it would be a benefit concert (by Mundo Brew) with a catered, buffet-style meal from 6 -10.  We will charge $35 per person (we neglected to talk about an under-12 cost I think).  Specific tasks that need to be done include:
-Coordinating with the band (Doug)
-Publicity (Soni, with help with graphics from Megan and hopefully Andrea
-Food (??  - need to explore catering options and make reservation)
-Ticket sales (Ben) – these will begin in early January
-Silent Auction (decided if someone would step forward to plan it, we’d do it; otherwise not worry about this aspects.

We explored who is indeed either planning or hoping to go.  Committed folks include Soni and Ben.
-Hopeful folks include Shannon, Doug, Jan
-Maybes that we don’t know about but hope are considering it are Chantel, Perry, Stephanie, Elisabeth, Jacob C-S, Cara Bridgman
-We will be promoting the trip more starting early January and will plan then for a gathering to interpret it to the congregation

After a prayer to close the meeting we called and talked to Ramiro.  They will be having a presbytery executive committee meeting in December and will talk then, at our request, about a calendar and schedule for our visit, what they want us to see and do.  We hope they can let us know before our meeting on Jan. 2. 

Next Meeting:  Saturday, Jan. 2, 2016 – probably at church.

-Jane Larsen-Wigger