September/October, 2016

Transcription

1 September/October, 2016 Weave is also available on our website at: FROM THE PRESIDENT We had a wonderful celebration of 40 years of Via de Cristo in North Carolina on September 24th in Concord. Thanks to Cheryl Bipes, Ellen Goodman and their committee for a great celebration! What a wonderful time and special memories, especially from those who were involved in some of the first weekends! And we received Palanca from our brothers and sisters in the Atlanta Via de Cristo movement, who originally brought VDC (Lutheran Cursillo) to North Carolina. Lay Director, Chuck Storla and his wife Karin, presented two beautiful banners to be shared by Eastern and Western VDCs. Simultaneously, at an Ultreya in Atlanta, our brothers and sisters were seeing identical banners for the first time. It was a wonderful symbol of our unity in Christ, and gratefully received. Please keep the 2017 Host Committee in your thoughts and prayers as they continue to plan for the National Gathering at Wake Forest University in July. There is a need for lots of volunteers to pull off the gathering, and not all have to be committed for the full 4 days. There are needs for daytime or day at a time chas from July 26 to 30. Contact Brett Koceja at brett@akacpa.com if you can help. Peace to all! Don Seeber, ENCVDC President

2 From the Rector of Mixed 94 Pam Petry My journey as the rector of Mixed 94 began with prayer. God directed me to focus on the following intentions: including racial diversity, making team meetings more interactive and using good teaching principals. So I will address these areas first. I recruited Warren Keyes to be my head music cha. Then I invited Beverly Foster, Rose Reuble and John Johnson to serve on my team. While John declined due to health reasons, Beverly and Rose joined the team. I reached out to the pastors at Abiding Savior and Prince of Peace and asked to give a temple talk on VdC. Both pastors agreed and I visited these churches in July and August. By the grace of God, Pastor David and Sally Sloop were present at Abiding Savior and David told the congregation that he would sponsor any guests that applied. I did not have a sponsor within the congregation at Prince of Peace, and perhaps that is why we did not get guests from that church. But we did have two guests from Abiding Savior. Halleluja! Judy Keyes and I met for our first time and agreed that we would try to do some things differently at our team meetings. We first agreed to begin and end our team meetings on time and to limit the time from 9:00am to 3:00pm. For our first team meeting, we asked our head chas to represent the mood and theme of the weekend through drama. We called this our funshop and after each dramatic representation, the small groups at each table discussed this part of the weekend and their role as a team member. This was very well received and allowed us to start our team in the direction of thinking outside the box. Our second team meeting was focused on team building and we did not have any rollo reviews because we had little time between the first and second team meetings. That worked out well because the team building time is so crucial. We critiqued the majority of talks on the third weekend. After the critique, our Professor Escort, Lynn Hess, encouraged the professors to use the feedback from the group and send their edited talks to her. She gave further feedback and was pleased that the professors included her suggestions in their talks. I believe the editing process from Lynn helped to make our rollos outstanding! During the weekend: We used the old fashioned method of having our guests and team take notes during the rollos. We did that because the research in education indicates that the process of writing the information helps us retain that information. We encouraged the use of stories and visual images in the rollos, because the research indicates that we can retain and recall visual images and stories better than didactic teaching. We intentionally had only 4 tables so that there were more guests at each table. This facilitated more conversation and made the evenings shorter each night because decuria did not last as long. We had the guests in bed by 9:00pm each night. Our team meetings were very brief and all team was encouraged to help with the rollo room and chapel each night so that the entire team went to bed early also. The other out of the box action that we took was to allow a guest to attend that had to leave on the weekend. We had one guest on dialysis and she attend Thursday night, and then her sponsor took her home. She had dialysis on Friday morning and then on outside cha met her at her home and brought her back to the weekend. She had copies of the Ideal talk and the first Grace talk. Our outside cha had conversation with her about these talks and she re entered our community just in time for the Laity rollo. Her team accepted her readily and she was an amazing guest.

3 Our team was blessed with support from Don Seeber and Tommy Oates, who were present to help unload and load the trailer. We had great attendance at the serenade and the closure. We give thanks to the community for that support. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to serve the VdC community and our Lord and Savior on this team. Faithfully, Pam Petry

4 From the Rector of Mixed 95 - Rik Zawadzki Brothers and Sisters in Christ, The Team of Mixed 95 has had some awesome first meetings. Positions were given and were received enthusiastically. God has chosen many to serve in various capacities. During the course of selections, planning and execution we have been trusting God to be the leader in what needs to be done and how it needs to be accomplished. Trust being a keyword. Being able to let go and let God is an enriching experience. Our team is actively pulling things together. Thank you all for your continued support and enthusiasm. The team verse for mixed 95 is from NIV Psalms 56 3 When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. I think we all know fears and are afraid of things, situations or life in general. But how do we put our trust in God to make them all work out and counter those fears. The truth is we don t have any right way to give our trust to God. It is simply something you just know is the right thing to do when call upon. We trust when we jump up in the air we will always come back down. Trusting in God is pretty much the same thing. Once we have entered a life path or make a decision which will impact ourselves and those around us we have to work hard toward that path or goal with a mindset that God is the goal and God is the path. As long as we keep our faith in him, we will be successful at anything we accomplish. Remember Jesus said in John 14:1 (NIV) Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me." Remember that our belief in God and Jesus is our foundation of trust and strength in why we work on these weekends. There are those who will just sit back and say, I trust God will take care of things. But then, we too have a certain level of responsibility to serve God. It will probably not happen or be taken care of if we don t initiate some type of action. Trusting in his will to be done through us with his help probably is a much better approach. Being actively engaged in our positions, Praying and being the leaders in our churches and communities is what it really is about. Our examples will draw others in to participate in the body of Christ. If we approached a Via De Cristo this way all will be successful. We need the collective prayers and talents of all the participants to make the Via De Cristo a successful and meaningful weekend. Our trust in God is based in our active participation and we all do our parts to the best of our abilities to serve God to, for, and through our brothers and sisters. We as children of God have an obligation to follow his teachings and to work toward the same goal. In our case, using the Via De Cristo method and our service to the Cursillio to educate and inform our brothers and sisters in Christ about God s grace and love of his children. Our Piety, Action and Study should constantly be a part of our lives and our service not just for ourselves, but for all our lives contacts. Always remember this is God s Via de Cristo, not the rector s, nor the Spiritual Director s or any one individual or group. We collectively are trusting in God s weekend. Every time we participate in the Eucharist we are reliving the sacrifice for our sins. The ultimate goal of successful service on a Via de Christo is trusting God and each member of the team has done their best to perform their duties to the best of the abilities for the greater good of the weekend. Even if we falter or fall, our fellow team members, reunion groups and our congregations will be there to help lift us back up and keep moving forward. Because through our trust we have unity of purpose. Remember we are counting on Christ and He is counting on us. God Loves You and So Do I, Rik Zawadzki Rector, ENCVDC Mixed 95

5 From the Rector of Mixed #96 Angie Martin But now thus says the Lord, He who created you, O Jacob, He who formed you, O Israel, Fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name. You are mine. Isaiah 43:1 Greetings Brothers and Sisters in Christ! I write this having just completed our Leaders Meeting for Mixed #96 and having attended the 40 th Anniversary of the North Carolina Via de Cristo Celebration. What a spirit-filled day it was! The Head Cha s from Mixed #96 met at Advent Lutheran Church in Charlotte yesterday and we truly could feel God s presence among us. We prayed together and discussed procedures, expectations, our weekend scripture, logo and song. What a blessing it was to be gathered with people who have such a strong, admirable faith, and a true passion for this movement and bringing others into a closer relationship with our brother Jesus. Brothers and sisters, God is at work within each of us already. Watching His plans unfold for this weekend has been and will be breathtaking. After our Leaders Meeting, some of us headed over to Calvary Lutheran Church in Concord where the 40 th Anniversary Celebration was already in progress. What a beautiful ceremony it was! I was utterly inspired. I knew the basic history of the VDC movement, but to actually hear from some of the founding members of the movement in North Carolina simply blew me away. I was struck by how they were truly living the Via de Cristo. They were called by God to use their gifts to further His kingdom. They prayed. They studied. They prayed again and again. Then they took action to do what must have seemed impossible at the time, create a Lutheran movement patterned after the Crusillo movement that would bring more brothers and sisters into a closer relationship with Christ. But they also knew what each of us know: God and I are an overwhelming majority and with God ALL things are possible! I thank God for the founding members Yes! Their actions created a movement in our state that have brought so many into the arms of God s grace. Thanks be to God! As we move forward in preparation for the guests of Mixed #96, we ask that you continue to keep us in prayer. Please pray for our team and for the guests that God is calling to this weekend. My brothers and sisters, God loves you and so do I! Angie Martin gmawmartin@yahoo.com 7136 Bovine Lane Harrisburg, NC Team Meeting Dates: October 15, 2016 November 19, 2016 December 17, 2016 January 21, 2017

6 Via de Cristo Celebrates 40 Years in North Carolina! Ps. 126:3 The LORD has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy! Thanks be to God! The 40 th Anniversary Ultreya, celebrating Via de Cristo s active presence in North Carolina is now in the record books. Thanks to all who came out to join in the celebration at Calvary Lutheran Church in Concord, NC on Saturday, September 24, 2016! Together with our brothers and sisters from Western NC s Movement, we had just over 220 guests in attendance! We had a wonderful time singing God s praises, hearing God s Word, communing at His table together and hearing some powerful testimonies, from those who had attended as pilgrims in the earlier days, to those who have attended within the past year. Special thanks to Pastor Scott Anderson and to Pastor John Propst for leading the worship service, along with Pastor John Kahl, who assisted with communion. It was awesome to see so many familiar faces, along with meeting many new brothers and sisters in Christ! Thanks to all who traveled great distances to be there with us! Thank you to those who have shared your stories with us, either in writing or at the podium, especially Mike Fisher and Deb Oesterling for your poignant presentations at the Ultreya. Vicki McCombs assembled booklets with all the written stories received over the past several months and copies were available at the Ultreya. We were blessed by music from the praise band, as well as from Cantamos, a VdC choir from the Western NC Movement. Many stayed and shared in food and conversation following the worship service and testimonies. It was fun to reminisce through the scrap books on display from the early days. There were also door prizes to be shared. We do regret if you had to leave before our time together in the fellowship hall. Thanks to the many wonderful reunion groups who helped to provide table palanca for the guests! What an amazing outpouring of love was felt through your contributions! Thank you to those who came early and stayed late, helping to set up and decorate, who assisted at the registration table, as well as to tear down, put away and do all that was necessary to put things back as we found them for Calvary. We couldn t have done it without you!! Thanks also to Calvary Lutheran for sharing your beautiful facility with us! We received a special gift from the Atlanta VdC, in the form of two very beautiful banners. These banners were handmade with love and each contains a special message stitched on the back in recognition of NC s 40 th Anniversary. These are currently in the possession of the Western Movement, but will travel back and forth between Western and Eastern and also be displayed at the National Lutheran Secretariat Gathering in Winston Salem next July. They were presented to us by Chuck and Karin Storla, of Marietta, GA. God has indeed been good to us, and we are filled with joy! Let s move forward to begin another 40 years of sharing the grace and love of our Savior and brother Jesus, whom the world so desperately needs to know. Via de Cristo has given us an incredible means to help make that happen. Shine your light for all the world to see! God Loves You And So Do We! Your 40 th Anniversary Committee Vicki McCombs, Joyce Werhle and Cheryl Bipes

7 From the Operations Chair Do you have tablecloths, aprons, or other items that need to be returned to the VDC storage bins? Please contact Jessica Stygles at to make arrangements to have them returned to our inventory. Palanca Our next weekend is November 10 13, 2016 so please plan on joining the prayer vigil team and commit to praying for the Team and Guests of Mixed # 95 in November. Link Or go to the website to find a weekend retreat that you would like to pray for and join their prayer Vigil. It has been my extreme pleasure to serve on the North Carolina Via de Christo Secretariat as the Palanca chair. Prayer Palanca is an extremely powerful gift that is long time remembered occasion, one that is top of the list of my favorite parts of a Via de Christo weekend when curistas are asked about their weekend experience. Many of you have been faithful contributors to the Prayer Banner and I give you thanks and praise for your devotion. Please join me in welcoming Valerie to the Secretariat as my replacement as Palanca chair and please continue to give her the same support you have given me over the last 5 years. God blessings to you and your families and always remember, God Loves You and So Do I. Namaste Terry Park

8 Weekend Opportunities Guest Applications for upcoming weekends should be sent to Eastern North Carolina Via de Cristo, c/o Lynne Hoffman, 8222 FieldCrest Lane, Fuquay Varina, NC, or by at Please ensure that all guest and sponsor information is complete on the application including names, addresses, telephone numbers, and e mail addresses of both the guest and the sponsor. Upcoming Weekends Mixed 95 Rik Zawazki Camp Agape Nov , 2016 Mixed 96 Angie Martin Camp Agape Feb , 2017 Mixed 97 Pete Hauser Camp Agape Sept , 2017 Prayer Banner Contacts for ENCVDC Please contact the following people if to reserve a time for personal prayer for an upcoming weekend. Charlotte Area Chris Rasmussen crasmussen@carolina.rr.com Beach Area Rik Zawadzki rik@brunswickcounty.org Greensboro Area Brett Koceja brett@akacpa.com Raleigh Area Stephanie Rodelander usmcmama@aol.com Eastern North Carolina Vickie McCombs- mmccombs4@carolina.rr.com Valerie Lepko - lepkovalerie@gmail.com

9 Oct. 22 Last Team Meeting Mixed 95 Nov , 2016 Mixed 95 Feb , 2017 Mixed 96 May 6, 2017 Renewal Day #4 July 27 30, 2017 National Gathering Sept , 2017 Mixed 97 Nov. 9 12, 2017 Mixed 98 Dates to Remember We Remember in Prayer Those caring for aging family members. Those preparing for the 2017 National VdC gathering. Those living in war torn parts of the world. All refugees and families left homeless by war, poverty, or crisis. Please send prayer requests for healing and celebrations to the editor at bipestuff@gmail.com so that we may all lift up those in need and those with whom we rejoice.

10 Eastern North Carolina Via de Cristo Secretariat Officers: President...Don Seeber Vice President...Maurie Lockley Treasurer...Ray Prill Secretary...Melanie Barker Chairpersons: Pre Weekend...Lynne Hoffman Operations camps...jessica Stygles Fourth Day...Cheryl Bipes Leaders...Ellen Dickson Palanca...Valerie Lepko Communications...Tom Bipes Spiritual Director...Pastor John Petry Spiritual Director...Pastor Jim Lockley Spiritual Director...Rev Dwight Shellaway Outreach...Lindsay Daugherty Outreach...Vicki McCombs Music...Warren Keyes Archivist (Database)...Jeff Dozer Archivist (Web Master)...Bob Northrup