In advance of Ben’s Sunday morning worship Minute for Mission and next Saturday’s concert, 10 of us met bright and early at 8:30 a.m. Sunday to look ahead to the next month of Guatemala mission activities at Crescent Hill.
Since we had met last, Ben, Carlos, and Ellen had gotten together and also spoken with folks in Guatemala about the mission trip. Estoreño Presbytery leaders will pick up the six Crescent Hill folks (Ben, Ellen, Jane, Lowell, Luke, and Perry) in a van (no pick-up trucks!) Saturday afternoon in Rio Dulce. Those folks will stop at a church between Rio Dulce and El Estor and visit. Then the group will arrive in El Estor in time for a shared dinner. Sunday lunch and Monday lunch will be the two additional joint meals. Sunday breakfast, Sunday supper, and Monday breakfast folks on the trip will be eating with their host families. How folks go shopping with hosts for food is something that may have to remain flexible.
Also up in the air at this point is making hotel reservations in Rio Dulce and possibly wiring Soila money to cover the cost of lodging at the seminary, airport shuttle, and tickets for the bus between Guatemala City and Rio Dulce.
The mission trip folks will be talking with Estoreño presbytery leaders about a possible partnership covenant at the Espiritu Santo church (on Sunday or Monday or both?).
The Sunday group discussed a variety of ways people in the congregation can become more involved in the Guatemala mission effort (ways Ben was to underline during the Minute):
- Prayer partnership. Already some 20 people have signed up for this. On the Sunday that the congregation commissions the mission trip folks and their prayer partners, Ben may distribute “assignments” to prayer partners and there will also be a little training. These folks will be asked to pray for the person they’ve been assigned before and during the trip and also to write that person a note that he or she will be given at some point during the trip.
Since we had met last, Ben, Carlos, and Ellen had gotten together and also spoken with folks in Guatemala about the mission trip. Estoreño Presbytery leaders will pick up the six Crescent Hill folks (Ben, Ellen, Jane, Lowell, Luke, and Perry) in a van (no pick-up trucks!) Saturday afternoon in Rio Dulce. Those folks will stop at a church between Rio Dulce and El Estor and visit. Then the group will arrive in El Estor in time for a shared dinner. Sunday lunch and Monday lunch will be the two additional joint meals. Sunday breakfast, Sunday supper, and Monday breakfast folks on the trip will be eating with their host families. How folks go shopping with hosts for food is something that may have to remain flexible.
Also up in the air at this point is making hotel reservations in Rio Dulce and possibly wiring Soila money to cover the cost of lodging at the seminary, airport shuttle, and tickets for the bus between Guatemala City and Rio Dulce.
The mission trip folks will be talking with Estoreño presbytery leaders about a possible partnership covenant at the Espiritu Santo church (on Sunday or Monday or both?).
The Sunday group discussed a variety of ways people in the congregation can become more involved in the Guatemala mission effort (ways Ben was to underline during the Minute):
- Prayer partnership. Already some 20 people have signed up for this. On the Sunday that the congregation commissions the mission trip folks and their prayer partners, Ben may distribute “assignments” to prayer partners and there will also be a little training. These folks will be asked to pray for the person they’ve been assigned before and during the trip and also to write that person a note that he or she will be given at some point during the trip.
- Towels. Amy has prepared towels that mission trip folks will give as gifts to their hosts, suitable for appliqué or other decoration. So people in the congregation may help out by taking one of these home and decorating it. These may end up functioning more as wall hangings than as actual hand towels.
- Promoting the March 7 Leslie McClure concert. Soni has been coordinating this Guatemala mission fund-raiser. Leslie and band will sing for an hour, then there will be a half-hour intermission, then Leslie and band will return for another hour. People will be able to go to the Fellowship Hall to sample Guatemalan and Dominican desserts during the intermission and after the concert. Information about the concert has gone out on several listservs. Additional promotion is in the works. But people in the congregation telling your friends, neighbors, and family members about the concert is very important too.
- Preparing for the 6 p.m. Wednesday, March 18 Guatemala mission conversation/supper. Jane and Ellen will help work out the questions for the group to consider. A group of folks will get together in the Fellowship Hall the night before (Tuesday, March 17) to help prepare Guatemalan snacks for this supper, and folks could help with that. Donations will be accepted at the Wednesday event for the cost of the food only.
- Driving to and from Cincinnati. Ben got us tickets out of Cincinnati to save money. The mission trip group will be leaving from church at 10:30 a.m. Friday, March 27, and will be flying into Cincinnati at 2 p.m., Thursday, April 2. Driving mission trip folks to the Cincinnati airport on Friday or picking them up on Thursday is another way folks from the congregation can be involved.
The group also discussed some logistics, including asking the adults going on the trip to complete a background check form that all must complete before working with Crescent Hill youth and asking everyone on the trip to complete a health, etc. information sheet. Trip participants need not complete the Sexual Misconduct Policy Form. Trip participants should make three copies of their passports (and keep one of those copies for yourself). Trip finances depend in part on receipts from Saturday’s fund-raiser. Ideally, the trip would not completely deplete this fund. So trip participants were asked to make a second (and presumably final) installment payment of $400. This payment, completed forms, and passport copies should go to Patti, who will pass on some of this to trip leaders. Any trip participants for whom this second installment payment is a financial hardship should talk with Jane.
Trip participants and others will huddle next at the end of the Wednesday, March 18 supper and conversation.
The group also discussed some logistics, including asking the adults going on the trip to complete a background check form that all must complete before working with Crescent Hill youth and asking everyone on the trip to complete a health, etc. information sheet. Trip participants need not complete the Sexual Misconduct Policy Form. Trip participants should make three copies of their passports (and keep one of those copies for yourself). Trip finances depend in part on receipts from Saturday’s fund-raiser. Ideally, the trip would not completely deplete this fund. So trip participants were asked to make a second (and presumably final) installment payment of $400. This payment, completed forms, and passport copies should go to Patti, who will pass on some of this to trip leaders. Any trip participants for whom this second installment payment is a financial hardship should talk with Jane.
Trip participants and others will huddle next at the end of the Wednesday, March 18 supper and conversation.
-- Perry
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