Partnership Conversations, Plans for 2009, Prayer Requests, and Politics in El Salvador

Please plan to stay after worship this coming Sunday, Jan 4th, for important conversations about CBC's El Salvador and New Orleans partnerships. The gathering will be facilitated by Marcus and Laurie. The goal will be to put together a document on these two partnerships that can become part of the church profile documents for the pastoral search process. Bring your own sandwich. Drinks, chips, and fruit will be provided.

For those of you who are looking ahead to the coming year and filling in your new calendars, there is a new 2009 Planning Calendar outlining key dates and events relevant to our El Salvador relationships posted at the top of the blog.

A couple of personal prayer requests from Ruth and Alex -- One of their good friends (seminary classmate and a pastor colleague) died in mid-December. They have had a long and special relationship with this friend and his family, and they feel a deep loss. Also, Alex's brother who lives in Los Angeles shared the news that his wife has been diagnosed with cancer. Ruth is very grateful that she will be able to spend a few days in Los Angeles visiting them on her way back from the Global Baptist Peace Conference in Rome.

As El Salvador prepares for their elections in January and in March, there is both great hope and great anxiety. There are a number of good on-line resources to keep informed. SHARE is doing a great job providing analysis of issues and updates about the political situation. Here's a quick list of links to some of the recent headlines from the SHARE website at www.share-elsalvador.org:

• Elections Watch: November Update

• Elections Watch: October Update

• Action Alert - October 2008

• Elections Watch: September Update

• Transparency and the MCC-Financed Transnational Highway

• The Dawn of a New Era? El Salvador's Upcoming Elections

• New US Grassroots Coordinator's Perspective on El Salvador

• Political Violence Increases in El Salvador as Elections Near

Hope to see a good group on Sunday!