New Project in Palestine--Our Team is on the ground this week

In response to the invitation from St Joseph Center (Dominican Sisters Nursery) in Bethlehem to visit their ministry and help set up a coalition and community development training event for Muslims, Christians and Jews in Palestine, WorldHope responded: first by sending a $2,000 gift last year to benefit the Nursery and Bethlehem Bible School; and then this year by sending a service team to help lay the groundwork for a Shalom/Salaam community training event in 2018. Here's is our board member, Doug Smith's photos and initial report from Bethlehem:

INITIAL SITE VISIT MARCH 14, 2017

The nursery school at St. Joseph’s Center is filled with love. The children are happy and learning in a clean and healthy environment. The Center administrator, Sister Ellen, has six teachers who are devoted to the children. We enjoyed joining in the activities, first in each of the age-sorted classrooms and then in the new covered indoor-outdoor playground, which was partially funded by Epworth United Methodist Church through World Hope Corps. After the experience with the children, we met with Sister Ellen to discuss priorities for our visit. Her top priorities are developing the skills of the teachers and addressing financial concerns. We committed to doing three workshops for the teachers using principles of Asses-Base Community Development. Working with Sima Ghawaly, we established a plan for working with some of the “Mothers of Bethelehem” to address the issues − establishing sustainable income, women’s empowerment, and developing parenting skills.

First Training Event

St Joseph’s Center Beit Sahour March 13-18, 2017 There were nine participants in this workshop: six teachers and three Dominican Sisters. The session plan is listed here. The participants identified the following desired outcomes: 1. Develop new methods of teaching, including the use of technology. 2. Develop new way to work with children 3. Open our eves to new experiences 4. Work as a team and be interconnected (a new approach for this community) During the day, the WorldHope Corps team worked on identifying local resources that might be able to assist the Center and/or the Mothers in their community development work. We made contact with the Dalia Association, the Palestinian Working Women Society for Development, YWCA, Tomorrow’s Youth Organization, Aseela Women’s Cooperative in Bethlehem, and YMCA Shepherd’s Field. Several team members met with the Director of YMCA. The YMCA gave us copies of their 2014 report on local women’s resources.

Trip Report submitted by Dr. Doug Smith, WHC board member and team leader for Palestine Project
March 14, 2017

Mother Shalom

South Central, Los Angeles, was the neighborhood in the city where Communities of Shalom began in 1992. I met Marx Gutierrez from El Salvador who was there attending High School at the time. He remembers what happened at the corner of Florence and Normandy Streets in South Central, LA, when Reginald Denny was pulled out of his truck and beaten while the crowd looked on and the police did nothing; and how the Rodney King beating resulted in a not-guilty verdict for the police and resulted in a major, 3-day uprising in the neighborhood, until the National Guard came in and finally imposed law and order. He can still remember the fires, the bright orange night sky, the mass looting, 45 unsolved killings, the social chaos...And how the United Methodist Churches responded by creating a zone of shalom in 7 neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Today, Marx is a community organizer, and married to Jennifer Gutierrez, Conference Shalom Coordinator in the Calif-Pacific Annual Conference, and Rev. Vilma

First Generation Lambs Club Reunion

Fifteen of us gathered Saturday night at the Lambs Club for a 35 th year reunion of those who helped start the Lamb’s Church in Times Square in the mid to late 1970’s, including: Rev. Paul S. Moore , Founder of the Lamb’s Church of the Nazarene, and his wife, Tamara Dr. Michael J. Christensen , charter member and former associate pastor, and his wife Dr. Rebecca Laird Fr. William (BJ) Webe r, former Associate Pastor and Director of the Lamb’s Residency, and his wife Sheila who lived at the Lamb’s Jim and Dustee Hullinger, who were on staff together and made the Lamb’s their home for over 25 years Effie Canepa , who was the church pianist under 3 pastors, and her husband Peter Shirley Close, who attended the Lamb’s in the late 1970’s while studying, performing and teaching music and voice Carl "Chappy" Valente , former associate pastor Rev. Bob DiQuatto , lead singer of the Church’s “Manhattan Project” and staff member of the Lamb’s, and his son Jason Rev. Gabriel

Liberation Spirituality: Henri Nouwen and Gustavo Gutierrez in Dialogue

Liberation Spirituality: Henri Nouwen and Gustavo Gutierrez in Dialogue Lecture Notes: Presented by Michael J. Christensen, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Practice of Spirituality and Ministry, Drew University; and International Director, Communities of Shalom, The United Methodist Church Introduction “There is a little man in Peru, a man without any power, who lives in a barrio with poor people and who wrote a book. In this book he simply reclaimed the basic Christian truth that God became human to bring good news to the poor, new light to the blind, and liberty to the captives. Then years later this book and movement it started is considered a danger by [the USA, or Rome], the greatest power on earth. When I look at this little man, Gustavo, and think about [the President of the US, or the Pope], I see David standing before Goliath, again with no more weapon than a little stone, a stone called A Theology of Liberation (Henri Nouwen

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