Radical Hospitality on the Move

No family plans for their child to be placed in foster care. The tough decision to remove children from their home is often carried out swiftly and results in last-minute packing and transportation arrangements.

In all this turmoil, most children entering foster care receive just two trash bags for their belongings.

 

Sweet Cases is an initiative to provide luggage for children entering foster care. Volunteers decorate duffel bags and fill them with a stuffed animal, hygiene kit, blanket, and coloring book and crayons. This small gesture can provide a little bit of love and hope at a difficult time for these children.

Last weekend, our youth choir traveled on their annual mission trip to serve a neighboring community and to share their musical gifts with a sister parish. This year, our youth partnered with Together We Rise to make Sweet Cases for children entering a foster care placement. Our youth worked together to decorate the bags and fill them with goodies. It was a wonderful way to provide radical hospitality those who need it most.

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Click here to learn more about Together We Rise. Contact Laura McNally for more information about Youth Choir.

Our meals are on their way to Mozambique!

On November 19, we partnered with our friends at WEIC to package meals for Rise Against Hunger. We've just learned that a shipping container holding 285,120 meals -- including meals package by our own hands -- has been sent to Mozambique to be used by the Adventist Development and Relief Agency. These meals will provide daily nourishment to children and adults in one of the poorest countries in the world.

Adventist Development and Relief Agency is an organization that nourishes lives through food assistance and other services in Mozambique. Click here to learn more about ADRA.

Thank you for helping Be the Church, halfway around the world.

The Season of Epiphany

A Reflection by Robin Teasley 

What of your life has led you to set out on a journey to learn more? What do you consider to be your most precious gifts and are you able to give them to God by sharing them with others?  How will you seek the Christ Child this year?

>Read Matthew 2:1-12<

The season of Epiphany begins on January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany. On the Sundays that follow, our lectionary gives us stories in the life of Jesus that reveal him to be the Incarnate Son of God through his baptism, his first miracle at the wedding in Cana, and his transfiguration.

Epiphany means manifestation…to make known. From the Greek, epiphaneia, it’s literally the “shining forth” or the revealing of God’s glory in human form at the birth of Christ.  An epiphany is any dramatic moment that instills new spiritual insight, vision, or perspective.  An epiphany is something to be shared!

In our everyday epiphanies we call these “aha moments”, and when we have an aha moment we can’t wait to tell someone about it.  The wise men had an epiphany and they did not stay home doing nothing, but set out on a journey to learn more, to see what God had for them, and to bring gifts to the King of the Jews.

Wise men, or magi, were from the East, Persia most likely, and they were probably astrologers.  Often the birth of a new king was noted by studying the stars.  Why they would travel so far and bring such gifts…to an infant near Jerusalem is intriguing.  The story is the fulfillment of a prophecy of great hope from Isaiah that the Messiah would be revealed to all nations. (Isaiah 60:1-9)

The magi arrive, bearing some rather inappropriate gifts for a baby, but many have attached great symbolism to the gold (signifying royalty), frankincense(divinity), and myrrh(spice for burial). What is more likely is that these were precious to the magi and so they brought what they had that was most precious to give to the newborn king. 

Which may lead us to give some thought to what gifts we might bring to Jesus…. What of us is most precious and will we give it to Jesus?

As God revealed himself in Christ to the wise men, God is constantly revealing God’s self to us - if we are paying attention, we will see signs of God all around us. Maybe it is a star in the sky, or a beautiful sunset.  It might be something a trusted friend says to us that we need to hear, the words to a song at just the right moment, or an answer to a prayer. 

God is constantly shining light into our lives to help us on our journey.  Sometimes the journey can be long and hard. Some times the gifts we bear become heavy and hard to carry, and at other times we may be reluctant to part with our gifts.  But along the journey, through all the ups and down, God is revealed.  

Those times when we become aware of Christ before us are moments of purest epiphany and great joy.  We become wise men/women, not when we find the baby Jesus, but when we realize that the child born king, the Messiah, the Son of God, has found us.  

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This reflection is part of our Christian Learning Community, “Growing in Faith Together.” All are invited to join this group and receive weekly reflections and participate in occasional opportunities to gather for spiritual formation and fellowship. Find the “GIFT” group in Realm Groups or contact our clergy.