February gathering notes

Soni having bought containers and Doug ingredients and Mary and Stephanie and Pastor Elisa having traveled to Springfield (KY) for the presbytery meeting, Doug spent several hours Friday and Saturday, with several others pitching in at the last moment, to make chicken soup and bean soup for sale Sunday. The group decided on one quart for $15, and two for $25, while encouraging to give one of their two quarts for $25 to the Deacon’s Freezer.  A flyer to go out to people as they get their soups and text for labels with ingredients were finalized.  Folks will meet at 9:30 a.m. Sunday to finish soup preparation and will make the soups available right after worship in the Narthex.

The group called Ramiro in hopes of obtaining phone numbers for Estoreño Presbytery Presbyterian Women leaders to call about the April PW gathering and visit, to talk about funds to be sent to the presbytery, and to talk about a possible summer visit.  Ramiro was resting after Friday’s presbytery Executive Committee meeting.  The whole presbytery will meet this Tuesday.  Once again, $1,500 will go through the national Presbyterian church (the IENPG – which will take 5%).  One third will go to the presbytery PW group, and the remaining funds will to the presbytery for theological education or perhaps for other needs, such as youth programs.  The presbytery will make a timely report back to us about the funds were spent.  Ben will begin working on transferring the money.

The group agreed that Stephanie would make soup for the after-worship Sunday, February 25 Food for Thought, with Ben making bread and Soni making soup.  Doug will set up and use the photo array to show a continuous loop array of photos from the 2016 visit.  The youth will join us for the event.  In the past we have attracted 30 to 40 people to Food for Thought lunches with updates about the partnership and information about upcoming visits.  Mary will be asked to help set up the A/V equipment to show the photo array.  Exactly who would speak, if anyone, and what information would be supplied was not finalized.

Ramiro also mentioned that several people would be participating in theological education in Coban, starting in mid-February, including two women:  Ana and ?  (Brian Thompson-Royer had mentioned in his Minute for Mission that Rosa Marina was one of the women undergoing training also.)

The group did decide to shift the dates from the summertime visit from August 3-11 to Friday, July 13-Saturday, July 21 (note date correction), in hopes that some other folks – Molly, Dalen, Ben, and Stephanie, for example – might be able to go. Those dates are OK with Doug.  Pastor Elisa, Carrie, and possibly Soni are most likely for the April visit.  It’s not clear whether Elisa could go to both, or Soni.  Carrie could definitely only do one.  We hope that new folks – or folks who have been part of visit teams before but haven’t been able to meet with the Guatemalan Connection – might be able to go also. 

The group did also decide to skip trying to add Coban to the summer visit – but to end up in Antigua – probably staying in the Laras’ hotel – and possibly to stop at the Mayan Quiringa site on the way from El Estor to Guatemala City/Antigua.  The group also talked about running a parallel to the women’s workshop workshop for men, possibly around the Man on the Mirror curriculum that Brian Thompson-Royer talked about last Sunday.  (Incidentally, as per the group’s past discussions, Perry agreed to send the Thompson-Royers expense money of $200 to help cover the costs of their Crescent Hill visit, and he will take care of this Sunday.)  In general, folks seemed to like the Thompson-Royer visit, including the 16-person turnout for the Mission Co-Worker Breakfast.

The group had decided earlier to meet on the second Saturday of each month early this year, at 12:30 p.m., to talk and make soup.  It was not decided who would take the lead with soup-making this month. It should not be Doug or Stephanie, since she will make soup for the Food for Thought.  Doug actually spent several hours Friday and Saturday, prior to 12:30 p.m., doing most of the work and spent just about $150 on ingredients, for which he will be reimbursed (in addition to Soni buying the quart containers, which hopefully may last past this month).  Perry was to tweek a flyer and make copies for Sunday, as well as make labels for a total of 40 quarts of soup.

Ben checked and April tickets to Guatemala are running about $900, short of flying 14 hours on Aero Mexico.  Ben was going to check his schedule about the new July visit dates, Doug was going to check with Ramiro about the dates, and Perry was going to check with Stephanie, Dalen, and Molly about the dates.

-Perry