The Neighbor
The Orinda Community Church
An Open and Affirming Congregation of the United Church of Christ
January 9, 2008
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Seeing My Own Eyes
Abagyenda bareeba.
Those who travel, see.
—Kinyankore proverb
The proverb above is an epigraph in the book Tropical Fish: Stories out of Entebbe (University of Massachusetts Press, 2005) by Ugandan writer Doreen Baingana. I read this book in preparation for my travels to Uganda and Rwanda January 7-23 as part of a Pacific School of Religion cultural immersion course. My fellow travelers include eleven other students and three faculty members.
We will fly into the Entebbe International Airport, take a bus to the Ugandan capital city of Kampala, and begin our journey of “seeing” with our eyes, ears, and hearts.
The purpose of this course is to help us develop a theology that provides a Christian witness of solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Uganda and Rwanda. To accomplish this we will learn about the peoples and cultures of these countries; become acquainted with key issues related to African colonial history and the ongoing impacts of colonialism; increase our awareness about critical issues such as war, genocide, HIV/AIDS, international economic institutions, and poverty; and further our understanding about the roles Western governments, corporations, and other institutional bodies have played in war, economic oppression, and public health crises in Africa.
No doubt I will see much on this trip; I have never been to Africa. But I expect not only to “see with my own eyes” but to “see my own eyes.” That is, to become more aware of the lenses through which I understand myself and my relationship to the world. During my travels I will bump up against my personal and cultural assumptions. I will be reminded about the many privileges I take for granted on a day-to-day basis: clean, running water, a continuous electrical supply, infrastructures that support transportation and education, money enough to supply basic needs, access to healthcare.
I will be challenged to look beyond the American value of individualism in order to understand traditional African value systems based on cooperation and community. And I will be confronted with my complicity as a United States citizen in economic, environmental, public health, and cultural degradation in Africa.
This trip promises to be intense, challenging, rewarding, and transforming. I look forward to sharing a part of my journey with you when I return. I will preach on February 3 and lead a forum after worship on March 9. Meanwhile, you can follow along by looking at the group’s blog: www.psrafrica.wordpress.com. I don’t know how much internet access we will have throughout the trip, but I do expect someone to post to the blog from Kampala before we head to Northern Uganda to let everyone know we arrived safely. In addition, I invite you to be in prayer for our group during our sojourn and for our brothers and sisters throughout Africa.
Blessings,
Sonja
OCC Extends Call to
the Rev. Katie Morrison
At a well-attended Special Congregational Meeting after church on Sunday, January 6, Orinda Community Church voted unanimously to extend a call to the Rev. Katie Morrison of Naperville, Illinois,
to be our next Associate Pastor. Chairperson Dixon Grier made the recommendation on behalf of the Associate Pastor Search Committee, following a yearlong national search that eventually considered nearly thirty candidates. Katie was introduced to the congregation, conducted the children’s time, preached and co-officiated at the Lord’s Supper prior to the Special Meeting. Her partner,
the Rev. Curran Reichert, is also newly called as pastor of the Belvedere-Tiburon Community Church (UCC) in Marin County. Pastor Katie will begin her ministry with Orinda Community Church on Sunday, March 16.
Christmas Offerings to Homeless
The Christmas offerings this year, from the Sunday service on December 23, and the two services on Christmas Eve, altogether raised $2,350 for two homeless programs in Contra Costa County.
The offering monies will be split evenly between the Winter Nights shelter program and the Interfaith Housing project (IHCC). Many thanks go to everyone who generously offered their gifts so
our local families in need of shelter and housing may receive these services in the months to come.
Christmas Eve Services Well Attended
About 140 people attended the 5 p.m. Family Christmas Eve worship service. The service began with wonderful music, including two piano prelude pieces played by Weston Carpenter and two pieces by The Christmas Bell Ringers, a special bell group organized just for this occasion and directed by Grace Hartegen. Their performance was all the more impressive as several members are novice players and the group practiced only a short time during the December. Helen Mead led the responsive “Christmas Call to Worship” and Nancy Peterson, Chair of the Children & Youth Commission, welcomed everyone to the service. Leslie O’Brien directed the Angel Choir followed by a Shepherds Chorus of slightly older children. The children’s Christmas Pageant this year was a “tableau” format with narrators reading scripture followed by appropriately themed Christmas carols during which the story characters mounted the chancel to fill in the scene progressively. The first scene was the arrival in Bethlehem and the second was the shepherds and angels. In the third scene, three wise men played by Chris Mead, Bob Winbigler and Dixon Grier, sang their parts marching up the center aisle. Pastor Frank gave the Christmas Prayers followed by the lighting of the Christ candle by acolyte Donny Gordin. The service concluded with our traditional “Gathering in the Great Circle of Light” while singing “Silent Night.” Many people contributed to the success of this service, so many thanks to everyone, especially the kids and youth. Thanks to both those who planned and participated as well as those who attended.
About 100 people attended the 9 p.m. Candlelight Christmas Eve worship service. This service was full of especially wonderful music, including Bob Steiner’s vocal spiritual “Rise Up Shepherd and Follow,” the Chancel Choir’s anthem “Deo Gracias” by Benjamin Britten, Roberta Bowman’s lovely lullaby “Gesu Bambino,” and Judy McCall’s exquisite cello offertory “To A Wild Rose.” Pastors Lee Cruise and Frank Baldwin read the scripture selections, Minister-in-Training Sonja Ingebritsen delivered a moving Christmas Prayer, and Pastor Kirk delivered the sermon. This service also ended with our traditional “Gathering in the Great Circle of Light” accompanied by the singing of “Silent Night.” The cold, crisp night air encouraged everyone to hurry home to family rites, blessed by the warmth of our OCC Christmas Eve worship
Time to Reassign “Nine to Dine”
Our annual congregational dinner groups, which we are now calling “Nine to Dine,” will soon be reorganizing. Look for the sign-up sheets to be posted at Fellowship hour. Please consider signing up as the first to host a dinner. At that first dinner, all group members together should schedule at least three more gatherings and designate a host for each.The Care and Fellowship Commission will attempt to make assignments by placing individuals and couples into groups with people not previously matched, so everyone has an opportunity to get acquainted with someone new or less familiar. Groups are not limited to dinners at home. Some groups have met at restaurants and others have attended cultural events together.
Another Date Set for Pastor Kirk’s Examination for Ministry
The Golden Gate Association (GGA) of the Northern California Nevada Conference again has called an Ecclesiastical Council to examine candidate Kirk Thomas for approval for “Ordination Pending Letter of Call” to ministry in the United Church of Christ. A previous meeting planned for November had to be rescheduled. GGA clergy and lay members will meet on Saturday, February 9, 2008, at Saint John’s United Church of Christ in San Francisco to hear candidates Kirk and Barry Willbanks present their ordination papers and answer questions before voting on whether to approve them for ordination “pending call.” Anyone interested is permitted to attend.
Thanks for Your Support
Just a quick note of appreciation to the many of you who have spoken with me or sent a card expressing your love and support to me and my family after my dad died in November. Although hard to lose a parent, dad’s passing was extremely dignified and mercifully fast. Our family feels blessed for the ease of his passing, and I even more to have been present with him then. Your expressions of love have been helpful and much appreciated. Thank you all so much!
~Kirk
Common Hope Team News
Help us Buy a Truck!
April 1 to 10 a team of volunteers will visit Guatemala to work with and learn from Common Hope. As you may have heard before, Common Hope is a non-profit organization providing Community Development services to children and families in rural Guatemala. The focus is on education and helping children and families stay in school as long as they wish and includes social work and medical assistance for the families. This will be the second team of mainly OCC people to participate in Common Hope and at least the fifth team that one of our members has been part of.
The work of Common Hope is centered in Antigua with another center in a town outside of Guatemala City called New Hope. In January 2008 common Hope will begin in depth work in a new village,
San Rafael el Arado. One of the wishes the staff has is for a vehicle to help them make the daily two hour trip to the village. Our team has offered to help make that wish come true. That is what that unusual looking truck picture in Fellowship Hall is all about. We are selling pieces of the truck to anyone willing to help out. The prices of each piece are marked on the back of the colored model.
You can go together for a piece or buy one on your own. Please consider buying one--our goal is $7500.--trucks are much cheaper in Guatemala!!
You will also see a box of school supplies near the Guatemala Giving Tree; take a list and bring in whatever you can. We will take the supplies with us when we go in April.
Thanks in advance from your OCC team members: Kate and Bob Winbigler, Helen and Chris Mead, Lani Shepp, Austin Grier, Jeanne Merchant and Frank Baldwin.
~Lani Shepp
Annual Meeting
Coming Soon
We will meet again for the 69th Annual Meeting of the Congregation of Orinda Community Church on Sunday, January 13, 2008 beginning at 12:00 p.m. in Fellowship Hall. As usual, the Care & Fellowship Commission will organize the traditional sit-down, catered dinner that will precede the meeting. Donations will be accepted to defray the cost of the dinner, and childcare will be available so parents may attend. The congregation will receive reports from various commissions and committees on current church projects, and will discuss plans for the future. Those present will vote on nominees for church officers and commissions. Please mark your calendars now so you can plan to attend this important annual event.
Green Church Meets January 27
The Green Church Committee met on Sunday, December 30, and discussed plans for the coming year. Members agreed to begin building a Green Church website that will allow the congregation to share much more information of relevance to “green” issues. The committee will meet next on Sunday, January 27, at 11:30 a.m. after worship, and anyone interested is welcome to attend.
Foreign Student Needs Home
International student Ju-Hun from South Korea is in need of a new host family in the Orinda area before January 15 for the spring school semester. Ju-Hun is currently living with a wonderful OCC host family in Orinda who agreed to host him through the fall semester only. Ju-Hun attends Miramonte High School where he is a sophomore with good grades and intellect. He is a great conversationalist with rapidly improving English skills. His main interests are attending church, playing basketball and badminton, listening to music and working with electronics. His teachers in Korea have described him as positive and optimistic.
Sponsored by Youth for Understanding (YFU), host families complete a short application with references. A local volunteer visits the home to conduct a brief interview. YFU is a non-profit international student exchange organization with students from over 50 countries around the world. YFU orients and supports host families, students and volunteers to ensure the students’ success. Hosting a student is a rewarding experience that opens sponsors to another culture, language, and possible lifelong friendship with the student and her or his family!
If you or someone you know in the Orinda community might be interested in welcoming Ju-Hun into their home for the spring semester, please contact Emilie Linick by telephone at 817.422.6019 (Toll Free: 800.872.0200 x 285) or by e-mail at linick@yfu.org.
Winter Nights Volunteers needed
Orinda Community Church will again partner with Santa Maria Catholic Church and St. Mark’s United Methodist Church to provide two weeks of housing and meals for the homeless in the Winter Nights program, coordinated by the Inter Faith Council. This program has been operating since 2005 and it is our 4th year of being involved. The shelter opened this fall on October 15th and will continue through April. Our church will host the Winter Nights’ Homeless Shelter March 31- April 14th, 2008. We will need volunteers in different capacities including tutoring, meal serving and cleanup, breakfast preparation, sleepover volunteers, and for evening and weekend activities. Families will be welcome this year to take part in the after dinner and weekend play and tutoring time.
Betty Karplus will serve as the OCC Winter Nights Coordinator and Patti Grier as the Volunteer Coordinator. Patti will be available after Sunday services for sign ups. Please consider committing for even a few hours to this worthy outreach.
Next Neighbor Deadline: January 20, 2007
Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts.
Arnold Bennett
A MESSAGE TO THE UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST
Dear members and friends,
Today Orthodox Iraqi Christians, including those who have remained in Iraq and those who have been forced to leave, are celebrating Christmas. In the words of the Syrian Orthodox Christmas Liturgy used in Iraq, we pray with them,
Make us worthy, O Lord God, to hallow You. . . to bless You. . . to glorify You. . . to adore You. . . to exalt You with the innocent shepherds unceasingly; to worship You with the discerning wise men steadfastly;and to rejoice in You. Make us worthy, O Lord, to honor Your birth. We beseech You to regenerate us, spiritually, in daily fruitful works that are pleasing unto You. Make Your light to shine forth in our souls. Grant us, our Lord, that we may rejoice in Your feast to recognize without any doubt that You are the true God.
From Advent through Epiphany members of the United Church of Christ have observed the incarnation in many ways through fruitful works pleasing to God. I am particularly grateful for the generosity that has surpassed our $100,000 goal of support for Iraqi refugees forced to flee their homes by sectarian violence. To date we have received $141,594, which will be shared through our ecumenical partners to help provide humanitarian aid to these displaced persons. Contributions can still be made online [www.ucc.org] if you still wish to make a gift. Our members have also been generous with their prayers for U.S. servicemen and service women, many of whom face danger and were unable to be with family and friends during the holiday season. You may read some of those prayers posted online.
Bringing the war to an end and restoring health and wholeness to Iraq remains our urgent goal. To that end, many UCC members have visited their Congress persons or senators in district offices during the recess, delivering the Pastoral Letter on Iraq [www.ucc.org]. That advocacy effort continues and I urge you to join your fellow members in scheduling these visits.
Make us worthy, O Lord, to honor Your birth. Through our generosity, our prayers, and our protest for peace, may Your light shine forth in our souls. And may the prayers of all our Iraqi sisters and brothers, of whatever faith, be met by the One who has come among us to make this world worthy of its Creator.
God Bless You,
The Rev. John H. Thomas
General Minister and President
United Church of Christ