In her weekly message, Bishop Eaton addresses the weariness of being church during pandemic amongst many storms around us, and offers a prayer.
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When I was 10 years old, I was in a community theater’s production of the musical Peter Pan. I was apart of the chorus, a lost boy who would run around the stage with twigs in my hair, a wooden sword in my hand, singing about flying to Neverland. This play gave me a taste for fantasy.
The author of A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle talks of fantasy being a guide to truth. She said; “Fantasy goes beyond easy possibilities to the possibilities that are much harder which open us and push us.”
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ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton and the Mission Support Team express gratitude for ELCA congregations and synods and their sharing of Mission Support.
For stories about how your Mission Support is making a difference visit https://www.elca.org/SOFIA
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In need of a miracle, Bishop Sani-Ibrahim Azar offers this prayer and appeal for support of Lutheran schools in the Holy Land. Bishop Azar is Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land.
Already struggling with difficulties, Covid-19 has affected the school as well as many student’s families dependent upon tourism dollars for tuition. Please donate at elcjhl.org or via OpportunityPalestine.org.
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Tessa Comnick, Hunger Advocacy Fellow writes: “Like many people, I have spent the last several months living out of my house. While that may not seem like a significant statement—I mean, houses are where we live—living out of my house has taken on new meaning. It’s now where I socialize (virtually), where I work, where I sleep, where I eat… and soon it will be where I vote in the 2020 election.”
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We continue our 50·40·10 celebration with a message from Pastor Lu Cantrell of Peace Lutheran Church in Morris, Illinois. Pastor Cantrell shares the special circumstances of her unique ordination.
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Even though I am not currently in Senegal, my work continues as an ELCA Global Missionary. Find my August 2020 Newsletter here, or you can also access (and share) the August Newsletter online at the YAGM Senegal blog. You will also find a few posts from myself and the Senegal YAGM about our return to the United States in March.
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In her weekly message, Bishop Eaton gives us a history of the Luther rose. And if you’ve been watching her this summer, you’ve noticed the neon Luther Rose always in the background. In this video, things finally get lit.
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In a Harper’s article, A Litany for Survival, Naomi Jackson begins with: “When I was a girl, my Bajan grandmother insisted that I recite Psalm 23 every night before bed. I didn’t yet know what death was, but I knew that there was something sinister and brave about repeating the words.
My parents emigrated to the United States from Barbados and Antigua in the late 1970s. They were determined to cloak their children in an armor of education, etiquette, and religion—to protect us from a world that, in the words of Audre Lorde, ‘we were never meant to survive.’ “
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We share a letter written by Interim Bishop Murray D. Finck of the Southwest California Synod, addressing the series of fires spreading through California.
“I have worn the shirt pictured above a number of times in the past years…on the island of Kawai; in San Diego; Fallbrook; New Orleans. I want to put this shirt on now and go somewhere where I can be helpful, but today I do not believe that is possible. Instead I have gone to elca.org and made a contribution.”
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The Office of the Bishop team is dwelling in the words of Acts 16:6-10, and will be for the next few months. In a time of weariness, when we are unable to go to the places we desire, this story from the church in its infancy has much to offer.
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Join Valley Interfaith Project and the Arizona Faith Network in urging the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry (ADCRR) and Arizona Department of Health Services (DHS) to protect prison staff, inmates, and their families during the COVID-19 crisis.
On Tuesday, it was reported that half the population of the Whetstone Unit of the Arizona State Prison Complex, 517 individuals, have tested positive for COVID-19. Learn more and sign a petition for a testing blitz and other measures to control the virus in Arizona prisons.
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Sylvia Haddad, the executive director of the Department of Service to Palestinian Refugees (DSPR), shares a personal account of her experience with the Beirut explosion on August 4, 2020.
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The image became emblazoned in my memory: a group of Muslims prostrating in prayer at Tahrir Square while a group of Christians formed a ring around them, holding hands to protect them, and looking outwardly to give them privacy.
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Rev. Paul Gehrs writes: “I write to you from Treaty 1 Territory: the land of Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene Peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation. I acknowledge that from time immemorial, Indigenous Peoples have lived as stewards and defenders of this land; this work is ongoing.”
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In her August column for Living Lutheran, Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton says, “Darkness and blackness and night are too often contrasted with lightness and whiteness and day, and found deficient.” She wants us to “consider the beautiful dark works of God.” Read her column in English at https://bit.ly/3gF21O4 and in Spanish https://bit.ly/2PnQ9Ef.
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In their Camp Without Campers, Rocky Mountain Synod’s Sky Ranch shares life in quarantine for their staff, which is using the opportunity to work on the physical property and dig deep into their own worship.
If you would like to access any of their other virtual resources, you can find them here: https://skyranchcolorado.virtual-camp.org/
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We continue out 50·40·10 celebration with a video from Pastor Connie Mentzer, Advent Lutheran, York, Pennsylvania. She shares her story of Bishop Eaton’s influence on her ministry.
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As an intern with the Lutheran Office for World Community, I have the incredible opportunity to “sit-in” on virtual meetings to observe the UN and civil society members actively wrestle with the world’s greatest challenges.
An intersectional lens is largely maintained in conversations, making it clear that existing inequalities like racism and xenophobia create differentiated experiences within a crisis.
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Dj McCoy and Kristen Theile write to us from Community Lutheran Church, in Las Vegas, where their youth ministry is a diverse group located on the East side. Their youth have been wanting to speak out about the sin of racism and where we are called as a church to respond.
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