Agenda for Salvador Partners Meeting on February 10th

Our regular monthly meeting of the El Salvador Partners Mission Group will be this Sunday, February 10, following worship. Plan to join us for a full meeting! We'll provide a few healthy lunchtime snacks, and you can bring a sandwich if you'll be extra hungry. There are a number of important topics for discussion....

* Ideas and plans for Ruth and/or Alex Orantes to come to New Orleans after Easter to be part of the Alliance of Baptists convocation and to meet Rev. Boutte and folks at St. John Baptist. Be thinking about whether you might want to make the trip to New Orleans, too!

* Proposal for some changes in our financial support for Shekina and Shalom based on the January conversations with their pastoral teams.

* Options for some ways to remember the Romero Anniversary (March 24th) at CBC, including a resource packet from SHARE that highlights Romero's legacy and contemporary issues of environmental stewardship in El Salvador and the world.

Important reminders:

1) Don't forget to take part in the fundraising efforts our CBC youth are doing to support the Shekina and Shalom youth trip to Costa Rica. Thank you to Nora and others for organizing this! See the poster in King Commons to sign up. See more information.

2) If you plan to contribute to the 2008 Orantes Fund, it would be great if you could fill out a pledge form. It will help our planning to know what the level of giving will be. Pick up one of the brochures available in King Commons for more information.

3) SHARE is organizing a young adult delegation to El Salvador -- July 9 to 16. If you are entering your junior or senior year in high school or are enrolled in college, you are eligible to participate in SHARE's 2008 youth delegation. This year's theme is Una Gota de Agua or "one drop of water" and will focus on environmental issues. In keeping with SHARE's philosophy of accompaniment and inter-personal exchange, the youth of El Salvador will be the primary teachers and guides as we explore this subject. Read more at
Una Gota de Agua: 2008 SHARE Youth Delegation Let Caroline know if you want more information.

Photos from CBC Visits with Shekina and Shalom / January 2008

Dates for upcoming Salvador Partners meetings at CBC

These dates have been added to the CBC office calendar. Please add to your calendars at home.

Sun Feb 10th 2nd Sun

Sun Mar 9th 2nd Sun

Sun Ap 20th 3rd Sun

no mtg in May

Sun June 8th 2nd Sun (potential conflict with the church annual picnic, so this may be changed)

Invitation to give input on Sunday, Jan 20th

Last Sunday we had an opportunity at CBC to hear a report from Ron, Nora, and Marcus about their meetings with Shekina and Shalom. Now it's time for some conversations about "next steps." Here's what we envision as a beginning process....

Your input would be welcome as we work towards some specific recommendations! If you are free this Sunday, Jan 20th, after worship, Salvador Partners folks can join Caroline and Ron to help sort through ideas and figure out some starting points for options for future proposals. We'll get together in one of the downstairs classrooms.

Caroline and Ron, plus Katy from Outreach, will meet w/ pastors next week to share those ideas and get their input. We'll circulate more info to the Salvador Partners for further comment after the meeting w/ pastors.

Shekina Youth Bike-A-Thon and Report from Nora

Hola! I'm Nora and I recently got back from a delegation to Santa Ana, El Salvador, to visit Iglesia Bautista Shekina and to continue to develop the relationship between the congregation there and Central Baptist Church in Wayne, Pennsylvania. The youth there asked me if I would send you all, as friends and partners in their ministry, an email to update you on what they're up to these days.

As always, the youth have been actively involved in the inner workings of the church. There are youth representatives on many of the boards, some of whom report on behalf of those boards to the pastoral committee; they also play the music in the service. As far as community efforts go, the youth have been integral in the church's outreach workshops and have held events for the neighborhood children as well.

The main focus of their efforts, though, is a trip to Costa Rica. After unsuccessful attempts to take a delegation to the United States, they've decided to focus their aims more locally. Over Holy Week in mid-March, 25 youth from Shekina are hoping to travel to visit a sister church in Costa Rica. Their friends there are willing to pay any expenses that will be necessary during the trip, such as housing and food, so the youth group is now working towards bus fare to make their dream a reality.

In order to do this, Shekina is holding a bike-a-thon to raise the remaining funds. At $90/person the total needed is $2,250. They have already raised $400 through fruit sales, and one $90 ticket was donated. Through the bike-a-thon they are hoping to raise the remaining $1,760, and hopefully more to cover any fees at the national borders or any unforseen expenses.

The bike-a-thon will be held on February 17th after church. For each dollar donated, a member of Shekina will complete one lap. Though this is an event meant specifically to benefit the youth, all of the members of the church get involved; those who can't bike walk. While we are unsure of the exact length of the laps, I am told it takes about 10 minutes to complete one walking.

If you are interested in sponsoring the youth in their efforts, the information about donating is at the end of this email. I also have a directory of the youth with their current pictures and email addresses for those of you who would like to see the faces of those you are helping or be able to contact them directly. If you have any questions you can email me or José Luis, the newly elected president of the youth group (he speaks English, for those of you who may be a little rusty with your Spanish).

The youth of Shekina want you to know that you are always in their prayers and they thank you for your continued support.

With love from the south,

Nora P. and the youth of Shekina

* For specific details about how to make financial contributions for the Shekina Bike-A-Thon, send an email to salvadorpartners@gmail.com.

January Meetings in El Salvador with Shekina and Shalom

Marcus, Ron, and Nora are traveling to El Salvador from Jan 3 to 7 for meetings with Ruth and Alex Orantes and other members of Shekina and Shalom, our sister congregations in Santa Ana and Atiquizaya. They will be talking about future plans and ways to strengthen our relationships.

Join us to hear the report from their meetings on Sunday, January 13th, following worship. Bring your lunch and we'll gather in a downstairs classroom at 12:15pm.

Reflections on the School of the Americas protest weekend

Thank you to Kathy Stayton for this report on our experience in Georgia at the School of the Americas protests in Georgia. See earlier post for photos from the SOA weekend.....

It is SO quiet, I realized, though I, Gwyneth Lewis and Caroline Cargo were surrounded by about15,000 other people for the procession organized by School of Americas Watch. We were there to remember the thousands of Central and South American people who have been killed or tortured by men who had training at the U.S. Military’s School of Americas at Ft. Benning, in Columbus, GA. These were testimonies to the brutality that is exported from this training center. We were saying with our bodies,“No more!” The U.S. should not be in the extreme interrogation technique export business!

After a name of one who was killed or disappeared was called from the stage, we lifted our handmade wooden crosses with names of individuals or whole villages who had died and shouted “Presente”. That meant that named person was present with us in remembrance. They will not be forgotten. It took one hour and 45 minutes for names to be called about every 5 seconds before all of us had finally passed by the chain link fence across the road to the School, and erected by the School for this weekend, to place our crosses in it. All this in respectful quiet of thousands.

Respectful, yes, even spiritual, like a procession in a cathedral to honor a loved one, the solidarity among us was palpable. Police and military cameras were focused on us from outside the fences or police tapes that defined our area. Thirteen people chose direct action by either walking around the fence on to Ft. Benning property, or going over the fence. Why? To bring attention of the media of why they are there, to have a chance to give their case in a courtroom, and to express their outrage and their deep commitment to peace in a nonviolent manner. They ranged in age from mid20’s to late 70’s. Hundreds or thousands of Catholic high school and college students were there as were Jesuit priests and Sisters of Mercy and other orders. So was Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America!

This event was the end of a weekend of events—the Convergence of Hope & Resistance. Workshops, plenary sessions, and concerts were offered at the Columbus Trade Center and a nearby Holiday Inn, several miles from the School, now called Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. (WHINSEC) Nonviolence training, from minimal to extensive was offered. Criminal Justice issues, Indigenous values, Struggle for Civil Liberties in El Salvador, Torture Survivors speak, Film screenings, Free Trade, Immigration & US Foreign Policy, Network of Spiritual Progressives, a Theater of the Oppressed – just a taste of the choices of workshops for all of us.

An exciting presentation for us all was one by Rabbi Michael Lerner who, with Sister Joan Chittister, and Cornel West of Princeton, started Network of Spiritual Progressives, a project of the Tikkun Community. With a packed room, he challenged us all to consider their alternative to the status quo which “judges institutions and social practices as efficient, rational and productive to the extent that they maximize money and power. The New Bottom Line, which they advocate, is that institutions and social practices should be judged rational, efficient and productive not only to the extent that they maximize money and power, but also to the extent that they maximize love and caring, ethical and ecological sensitivity and behavior, kindness and generosity, nonviolence and peace.” He then spun out scenarios of the possible.

“A Theater of the Oppressed” caught the attention of Caroline and me. Hector Aristizabal, a psychologist, and a victim of torture in Colombia, acted out his life in a 45 minute drama. Then he took us through some activities that led to express through body motion what torturing would be like and then what we would feel if we were tortured— heavy stuff done effectively.

Plenaries, concerts, southern foods and networking rounded out our time. Our dream is that we could have a van or busload from CBC and other nearby churches to attend next year. Hopefully it will be closed by then; only 6 more votes were needed to curtail the function of SOA in 2006. Your call to your congress people will help. Below are a number of peace organizations their websites that you can check out as you wish. I visited their tables. Check out the Columbus, GA newspaper coverage of SOAW in the church narthex. It was fair and the pictures give a sense of the street theater and the crowd.

Thanks to Caroline, whose parents live about an hour from Birmingham, she met me at the airport there and took me to the Civil Rights Museum in Birmingham. On the way back to Birmingham she took Gwenyth and me to Montgomery and we visited the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial and museum at the Southern Poverty Law Center.

What a privilege for us! We knew we had many supporters back at CBC for this, our first SOAW event. For this I give thanks for us all.

Kathy Stayton

Websites of some peace and justice organizations that participated in the SOA weekend

SOA Watch www.soaw.org

Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA: www.ghrcusa.org

The SHARE Foundation: Building a New El Salvador Today: www.share-elsalvador.org

Veterans for Peace: www.veteransforpeace.org

Witness For Peace: www.witnessforpeace.org

Network of Spiritual Progressives: www.spiritualprogressives.org

Just Faith: www.justfaith.org

Center on Conscience & War: www.centeronconscience.org

War Resisters League: www.warresisters.org

The Indypendent - a free paper for free people: www.us.indymedia.org and www.indypendent.org

Latin America Solidarity Coalition: www.Lasolidarity.org

Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America: www.bpfna.org

Conversations on Dec. 9th about El Salvador partnerships

Remember to plan to stay after worship on Dec. 9th for conversations about our El Salvador relationships. We'll plan to gather from 12:15 - 2pm. A simple lunch will be provided.

The main focus will be to get input for Ron, Marcus, and Nora to take to El Salvador in January for meetings with leaders from Shekina and Shalom. We're especially interested in hearing from any CBC youth who have been talking with Salvadoran youth over these past months.

There are a number of background reports to share with you to help shape our conversations:

• Report from Alex re: land purchase for Shalom, architect plans
• Report from Ruth re: "Open Doors" program at Shekina, successful medical delegation to Atiquizaya
• Ideas about Ruth and Alex attending Alliance of Baptists mtgs in New Orleans
  
• Delegation opportunities for CBC adults and young adults -- SHARE delegations in March and SHARE Youth/Young adults in June
• Orantes Fund updates and other finances
  
• January meetings with Ruth and Alex about future partnership plans, youth connections, and more
  

If there is time, we can also do a brief report from SOA events in Georgia and think about possibilities for sharing resources we brought back for CBC.

Photos from Nov 2007 SOA protests

Kathy, Gwenyth, and Caroline returned on Monday night from the weekend events at the SOA in Columbus, GA. We were inspired by lots of great music (Holly Near and Indigo Girls, for starters), great speakers (Rabbi Michael Lerner, Fr. Roy Bourgeois, others), workshops on non-violence, theater performances. On Sunday, we carried the set of crosses made at CBC and shared several of them with others in the crowd as we all took part in the solemn procession. We'll be writing up some reflections from the experience, and we brought home resources to share at CBC.

A few things to look for in the slide show above:

• college and high school students, grandmothers and grandfathers, Salvadorans, families, friends from SHARE and the Baptist Peace Fellowship
• "non-conforming" crosses from CBC being broken down to size as required by police before we could enter the vigil area
• chain link and barbed wire fence lined with crosses and one Star of David
• military police surveying the crowd from raised platforms and police helicopter circling the events
• giant puppet of Rufina Amaya (sole survivor of the El Mozote massacre) with outstretched arms placed against the chain link fence at the very end of the day
  

The SOA Watch estimates that there were 25,000 - 30,000 people attending the protests. (The police estimate was 11,000.) Eleven people ranging in age from 25 to 76, including one man from Pennsylvania, were arrested on Sunday for acts of civil disobedience and are scheduled for federal criminal trial January 28, 2008 for trespass - punishable up to six months in federal prison. Three others were arrested at the entrance of the vigil site for refusing to relinquish crosses whose size exceeded Columbus police regulations. Read all of their stories and see photos and videos from the weekend at www.soaw.org.