Thursday, June 22, 2006

6/22/2006 10:48 PM

Day two of the meeting! This morning I woke up early to upload this blog. I had to add the photos and figure out how to do it but I managed to get it done before the meeting at 8:30. This means I had no time for the treadmill or breakfast. Breakfast was eaten during the gathering music at the event.

Today was a Celebration of Sisterhood. We shared our dreams with our neighbors. It turns out that my neighbor had had two bypass surgeries so we both shared dreams of good health and cures for diseases.

Then there was a wonderful bible study of Genesis 2:46-3:26 by Marti J. Steussy who is the MacAllister-Petticrew Professor of Biblical Interpretation at Christian Theological Seminary. She is also a story teller. Her interpretation of this passage is so good you have never heard it spoken that way. I purchased the DVD of this bible study so that I can share this with you. To be brief she has a different story of Adam and Eve based on interpretation from the Hebrew. I will not call it feminist but it does make Eve the equal of Adam and not his slave.

Then there was a discussion of the history of women leaders in both churches. To sum it all up the women who because leaders in the early years of the church did not “Act well behaved” in other words take the status quo for granted. In the Disciples of Christ Church they founded a women’s missionary society and were able to send a missionary to Jamaica after only one year of saving about a penny a week. It took the men eight years to accomplish the same feat. It was said if all the UCC women and Disciples women would save 11 cents a week and donate it to Missions, they would have more money than they would know what to do with. I think we ought to think about saving 11 cents a week for missions (SOS or the Board of World Fellowship). Think about it, you would never miss it.

We prayed for the workers here in the hotels and in the convention center who are serving our needs so that we can be here in comfort. The conference will be giving these service workers in the Convention Center a tip and we were encouraged to do the same in our hotels.

We heard greeting from the Rev Sharon Watkins General Minister of the Disciples of Christ and John Thomas General Minister of UCC. John Thomas was kidded for being a man with all those women. He was going to drive a golf cart to help women who have trouble walking the halls of the convention center.

I have no photos of the morning because my battery was dead. I had forgotten to check it after I down loaded the photos last night. I went back to my hotel before lunch to get the spare battery.

At this meeting we have lunch and dinner together. They are able to feed 3000 people buffet style. The food was OK not great, but OK.

After lunch was choir rehearsal. I have sung in the choir in Synod and the choir directors were more organized than this person was. We spent the first 15 minutes getting music and they ran out of music. Then the choir director was singing the music by heart which did not correspond to the music on the page. She was leaving some things out. The two pieces we are doing are in Gospel style. Tomorrow I am going to a Discovery Group about Gospel music; I will see how I do. I have a feeling it is not for me, but I am open minded.

The next Discovery Group was to meet three African missionaries one from Kenya, Botswana and Angola. The woman from Angola was speaking in her second language as the language of Angola is Portuguese so I did not understand much of what she was saying. The other two women were fluent in English. All of the African countries are struggling with HIV Aides. They also wan to empower women so that they are working with their young girls.

The music at the evening worship service was sung by the Indianapolis women’s chorus. They were good. We had a stirring sermon by Rev Nancy Wood-Lyczak who is the Chaplin of the Indiana women’s prison. There have been tours of this prison at this meeting.

These meetings are long. I returned to my hotel at 9:00 and I could have gone to the hospitality suite to network, but I chose to write this blog and upload it tonight so that I can do my regular routine in the morning.

I wore my Eracism tee shirt today and everyone commented about it. They wanted to know where they can get one. I will put a notice in the conference newsletter about it.