UM Woman show faith in ‘scary time’

 

 

7,000 glorify God, go
to workshops during
assembly in Anaheim

United Methodist News Service
ANAHEIM, Calif.—In a “scary time” when war, terrorism, environmental calamity, and unchecked poverty and disease are looming fears, United Methodist Women can still make practical expressions of their faith.
That was the closing message from Jan Love to participants at the 2006 United Methodist Women’s Assembly.
Women can deepen their understanding of their own salvation and express the joy of their faith, said Love, chief executive of the Women’s Division of the General Board of Global Ministries. Then they can “make every day a mission day,” she continued.
Under the theme “Rise, Shine, Glorify God!,” about 7,000 churchwomen—including a contingent from Southwest Texas—gathered May 4-7 at the Anaheim Convention Center for worship and workshops, exhibits and education, community building and contemplation.
“Continue with more determination to practice love, mercy, kindness and justice in your home, neighborhood, our nation and across the world,” Love said.
New members can be recruited and shown how United Methodist Women “embraces all God’s people” and advocates for women both inside and outside the church, Love said.
“Tell them that you belong to an organization that refuses to offer religious excuses or legitimization for violence, vengeance, deprivation and discrimination,” Love said.
For more than 137 years, United Methodist Women has offered the love of Christ and “literally saved and served the lives of millions of women, children and youth” through its mission programs, Love said.
During the assembly, sponsored by the Women’s Division, churchwomen:
n Filled out “money transfer forms” to lobby Congress for a more just budget.
n Raised more than $20,000 for mission through an early-morning, 3.1-mile walk.
n Delivered more than 2,000 handmade prayer shawls for later distribution by mission institutions.
Love said she considered the assembly “a great big family reunion,” strengthening community and “deepening people’s understanding of their own faith journey.”
The event opened with a grand procession of banners representing the 63 U.S. annual conferences. Three large puppets in rose pink, green and blue—symbolizing the assembly logo—followed, swirling and billowing up the aisles to the central stage.
Kyung Za Yim, Women’s Division president, welcomed participants and guided them in a call to worship accompanied by Latino, Tongan, African and Native American drumming.
Chikara Daiko, a group from Centenary UMC in the “Little Tokyo” neighborhood of Los Angeles, received an enthusiastic reaction for its Taiko—or classical Japanese—drumming.
Social justice issues were a key focus of speakers May 5.
Wahu Kaara, founder of the Kenya Debt Relief Network and a candidate in the 2007 presidential elections, knows told the women they must speak “with unflinching courage” on the injustices that divide the world into “haves and have-nots.”
Silvia Regina Lima e Silva, a Latin American theologian, called attention to the U.S. immigration debate. She condemned the proposed fence between the United States and Mexico and called increased border patrols “a manifestation of a growing racism and xenophobia, which are becoming part of everyday life.”
Anna Deavere Smith, known for her performance art about controversial issues—such as “Twilight: Los Angeles,” which focused on the 1992 civil unrest following the Rodney King verdict—gave an evening presentation about her journalistic style of interviewing subjects and then interpreting their words.
The Rev. Don Saliers, a composer of sacred music and professor at UM-related Emory University, and his daughter, Emily, one half of the Indigo Girls, demonstrated through song May 6 how music “takes us to places we wouldn’t have expected to go.”
Three women—Casimira Rodriguez Romero, the new minister of justice for Bolivia; Kim Hallowell, a young adult and advocate against child labor; and Christy Tate Smith, a disaster consultant for the United Methodist Committee on Relief—provided personal examples of how Methodist women shine their light on the world.
Their stories were incorporated in a Bible study led by M. Garlinda Burton, chief executive of the General Commission on the Status and Role of Women. She urged assembly participants to find their own way to shine.