Headwaters Mission Center. October 2016 Quick Notes

Transcription

1 Headwaters Mission Center October 2016 Quick Notes Headwaters Family Friendly Fall Gathering and Conference Boldly Go!! October 7-9, 2016 Apple Valley, MN Friday: 7:00-9:00 pm - Meet the Crew, snacks Saturday: 8:45 am - Breakfast 9:15 - Captain's log 9:30-10:30 - Explore New Worlds 10:45-11:45 - Seek out New Life 11:45-12:45 - Lunch 1:00-4:00 - Council Gathering 4:15-5:15 - Science! 5:30-6:30 - Dinner 6:30-9:00 - Feed my Starving Children Sunday: 9:30 am - Ordination service 10:30 - Worship service Guest ministers at our gathering are Apostle Robin Linkhart and Seventy Karin Peter. Sunday s ordination service will be for Caleb Brian and Matt Davidson. Members of the Mission Center participated in several events over the summer. We would like to share with you some of the experiences that were experienced by the generous support of the Mission Center.

2 It s a mission trip, but it s not What does the phrase mission trip convey to you? For many, it s a trip made by a youth group to a location where the residents there would like help with service projects like building homes. The Mission Trip that the Headwaters Mission Center youth and young adults took this summer turned out to be much more than sight-seeing and service projects. We are most thankful for the special relationships we made with two vibrant, loving Community of Christ congregations in Peru a congregation called Filadelfia in Lima, and the Monte Sión congregation. Community of Christ has existed in Peru since the 1960 s, when a church member from Japan went to Peru for business and started a congregation in Lima. Because of him, the dedication of Wilfredo Carlos and his extended family, and Community of Christ, the Lima congregation has continued to serve the community all these years. In fact, even though the Lima congregation s membership is small, this congregation chose to devote themselves to opening up another congregation about an hour outside of Lima in the steep Andean foothills, in a town called Monte Sión. The Muscatine, Iowa Community of Christ congregation was instrumental in funding the Monte Sión church s construction. The building is the biggest church up on the hill, and serves its community of younger families beautifully and lovingly. Members from the Lima congregation travel to Monte Sión every Friday and Saturday to provide classes for children and adults, to worship, and to support the new church leaders there. Sundays, these members provide dynamic, praise-filled worship at the Lima location. The first weekend we were in Peru, we experienced the classes and worships at Monte Sión and Lima. A weekend later, we took the lead in providing these classes and worships. We rejoiced in the sacraments of communion and three baby blessings at Monte Sión. During both weekends, we also worked together to put in a sidewalk and grass-filled decorative pavers in front of the Monte Sión congregation. Our new friends in Peru knew little English, and about half of our Headwaters group knew some Spanish. Even with the language barrier, we grew closer and developed meaningful relationships. Many of the youth from the Headwaters Mission Center said their favorite part of the trip was spending the day in Monte Sión, playing soccer and other games with the many kids there. Soccer, or futból as our Peruvian friends call it, is something that brings together people of all ages in Peru to play no shin guards or special shoes needed. Playing futból with our new friends also taught us so much about life there how the older siblings watch out for their younger brothers and sisters during a game, how men in their 60 s and 70 s can still play quite well with younger folks, and how a futból game brings a community together to play or watch. Another big highlight of the trip was the opportunity to be welcomed into the homes of our new friends in Lima after church on Sunday worship for lunch and fellowship. The generosity and

3 hospitality shown to the Headwaters Mission Center group was something each of us won t forget. We also are so thankful to the Headwaters Mission Center and Community of Christ for supporting this trip financially, by providing the leadership of Steve Hatch and John Glaser, and through prayer. We felt wrapped in prayers, which gave us strength and comfort as we dealt with uncertainties and new situations throughout the trip. We are thankful that we are keeping in touch with our new friends in Peru post-trip, through Facebook. We have celebrated the marriage of Éder and Maricruz remotely by seeing the pictures on Facebook. Recently President of Seventy, John Glaser, who served as our interpreter on the trip, learned that a nephew of Gladys was in the hospital, and shared the news with all of us that went on the trip so that we could join in prayer. We notice news stories about Peru and use Facebook to share the news with the team, which helps us continue to develop deeper relationships and understanding with our new sisters and brothers in Christ by understanding more about what is going on in there. We pray for opportunities to continue to connect, and even to see our friends once again, at World Conference, another Community of Christ event like IYF, or perhaps in a return trip to Peru. Somos muchos, somos uno We are many, we are one. Worship at Monte Sión, 2 July 2016.

4 Junior Camp August 6-9 th 21 campers, seven staff At Junior Camp this year we studied all about Paul s big ship-wreck. As a culmination of our studies, we had a team-building event to make boats to race across the ARC pond. Also at the pond were the water Olympics and snow cones. Class included camp log, camp stove cooking, and strategy board games. As usual, we had an awesome last day at Wild Mountain water park. Thank you to our fabulous staff!

5 Spectacular 2016 Spectacular 2016 was held July 23rd-30th on the Graceland University campus in Lamoni, Iowa. We had 20 campers, 11 young ladies, and 9 young men from Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois. We had 6 staff members; 3 male, Greg Long, Daniel Martens and Daniel Cook and 3 female; Karen Hill, Paige Warner and Holly Caskey. The HMC Spec delegation was a great group of youth and we were able to field a softball team, 2 mixed soccer teams, 1 girl s volleyball team and 1 mixed volleyball team. The softball team, both soccer teams and the mixed volleyball team all received gold medals. We had many wonderful experiences during the week as we explored the theme "Connect" together. We worshiped, attended classes, played sports and were entertained by a juggling magician and fellow campers with a musical play that they put together during the week and performed at the end of the week. One of our first time campers, Nicole Fry, performed an artful and beautiful dance routine in the talent show. We had several campers that ran in the track meet and several that competed in tennis as well. We were blessed to have a doctor (Greg) on our staff and we were blessed to not have any serious illnesses or injuries during the week! Overall, it was a spectacular week! Daniel Martens put together a video from pictures and videos he and the campers took during the week. Click here to view the video. Thanks to the Headwaters Mission Center for the financial support to make sure all who wanted to attend were able to do so!! Submitted by Holly Caskey Headwaters Spec 2016 Delegation Leader

6 Summer Gathering How do you explain Summer Gathering to someone who has never attended? Telling them it s a week-long family church camp might tell them what it is but it does little to convey why we go or why we re willing to use all (or some) of our vacation time to do so. It says nothing about the year of planning that directors, Matt and Chris Davisdon and their team put into this year s gathering whose theme was Of Water and Spirit. It doesn t express the joy we have of greeting old friends with hugs or the acute disappointment we feel when we realize other friends aren t attending. It doesn t share the anticipation we feel in meeting new people and making them friends before the week is over. No, week-long family camp doesn t say much about what Summer Gathering is. Summer Gathering is having your day started with a service of joy and celebration led by Krista Binnicker (and her little sidekick, Grace Borkowski.) It is attending classes to deepen our understanding and faith. The youth used the materials Of Water and Spirit to present activities designed to help them understand the daily themes. The senior high class, under the direction of Jeannie Davis also spent many hours painting a beautiful mural on the ARC office building.

7 Retired Apostle Dale Luffman agreed to come from Oregon to teach one of the adult classes. He used Tony Chvala-Smith s book, Understanding the Way as the text for his theology class. Michelle Iberg facilitated TED talks for the other adult class. (If you d like to know more about TED talks, see the information below.) Summer Gathering isn t just about sitting in class, either. It s also sharing together in afternoon activities. Swimming, yoga, watercolor painting, meditation, golf, chats, sports there is something for everyone. And if you just wanted to rest, read a book or visit with friends you had the opportunity for that too. It s also spending family time during an afternoon at the Wild Mountain Waterpark. Summer Gathering is also about the spirit-filled evening worships. We were blessed with words that each of our speakers, Dale Luffman, Dan Gregory, Caleb Brian, and Matt Davisdon, shared. On Wednesday we opened ourselves to the healing grace of the spirit during our Sacrament Service. We came to Summer Gathering spiritually hungry and we were fed. It wouldn t be Summer Gathering without campfire and the talent show and singing. It wouldn t be Summer Gathering without the fellowship and sharing and laughter and tears. It wouldn t be Summer Gathering without the joy and love we experience while we re together. No, week-long family camp doesn t say anything about what Summer Gathering really is. About the Ted Talks Course Summer Gathering 2016 Michelle Iberg The adult TED Talks Class was an exploration of bringing our own theological and spiritual philosophies together with the sometimes harsh and ugly but often beautiful and sweet aspects of daily life. The non-profit, non-partisan organization known as TED offers us people who are experts in their fields; people who have dedicated large chunks if not the entirety of their lives to the subject on which they are speaking. TED provides us unadulterated access to a wealth of information in 16-minute chunks. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design; the motto is ideas worth spreading. We watched a total of 14 talks in our 5-day class on topics ranging from The power of empathy (Brene Brown) to I m not your inspiration, thank you very much (Stella Young) to Why you think you re right even when you re wrong (Julie Galef). Discussion was lively, intriguing, and we often challenged one another. TED talks always generate conversation and are often controversial, and it was a joy to come together and be in a safe place where our opinions, however different, were accepted. The goal, and I think we achieved that goal, was to become more open to diversity of thought and to learn to go out in love as we interact with the global community.