Friday 14th June It was an early start, leaving the house by 7.15 am, as Gay had a Leader’s Breakfast arranged with about 20 people for me to meet with. It was in a room above a large supermarket (an unusual but actually ideal setting), where we went down to the shop floor to choose our food for breakfast from the delicatessen counters (with wonderful vegan choices) and then brought it up to the room to eat together and talk. When we had eaten our food I as was asked to speak. There was 75 minutes to speak and respond to questions. There was huge attention as I spoke, taking the background to my book and its themes as my focus. There was so much eagerness to discuss the many of the issues I raised. I really enjoyed the time, being received so generously. I also sold about 9 books, which was great! Later in the day Gay told me that she had received two emails from people who had been at the breakfast saying how much they had appreciated what I had to say – she said getting emails of appreciation after a leader’s breakfast had never happened before – so I am very encouraged. Once we had packed up everything Gay then took me on a tour around the area, en route to their home for lunch. First we went to a food pantry at the Jerusalem Evangelical Lutheran Church in Schwenksville where Rich volunteers. It is run from the church hall at the back of the church building, staffed entirely by volunteers. There were big freezers, rows and rows of shelves stacked with foodstuffs. It is partly funded by the government and the remainder by the church community. It was smaller than the one in Elkhart, Indiana but bigger than the one in Fort Edward, New York State that I had seen. This is just one of many in that Pennsylvania county alone. It is the real face of poverty across the USA. The lady in charge was full of enthusiasm to do the very best for people in a way that would restore their dignity. It is one of those places that both enrages me that it is necessary yet inspires me with all the passion and compassion I saw in the team. Gay then took me to the ‘Living Hope’ farm that grows food for the community. It was purchased by the Mennonites a few years ago and works at a number of levels. First it attracts people to invest in the farm and in return they can come and collect the equivalent of what we would call ‘veggie boxes’ each week with seasonal food. They also grow food that is then passed on to ‘food pantries’ in the area. There is also a residential home for people with mental illness on the farm site, so they can enjoy the benefits of living out in the countryside. We met the farm manager, a young woman who along with four interns ran a very smooth operation. It was impressive. Our next call was the local Mennonite church, ‘Spring Mount’, where Gay and Rich are members. I had met their pastor, Chris Nickels at the leaders breakfast earlier and was impressed with him. He is part of a network of young enthusiastic leaders that includes people I now know from Elkhart, Winnipeg and Abbotsford. Our final call was to the offices of the Franconia Mennonite Conference where Gay works. They are closed on a Friday so it was very quiet. It is a different building to the one they were using when I was last visiting in 2008. Ertell Whigham, who is the director of the Franconia Mennonite Conference, was there and it was great to have the chance to chat with him there. We have met up in the UK a couple of time since 2008. He and his wife Pat are a remarkable couple, I really love them. They have not only done some astonishing church planting and church growth work in a really tough part of inner city Philadelphia, but their passion is interacultural church, where all aspects of all the different cultures within the community are genuinely given equal respect. I was thrilled to learn that both of them would be coming around fro a meal at Gay and Rich’s that night. We then returned home where Gay began preparing the food for the evening meal at 6.30 pm. I was utterly exhausted. The jetlag from the day before was finally overwhelming me. I slept for nearly 4 hours! The meal was very special. We were a small but significant group. There was of course gay and rich, our hosts. There was Ertell and Pat. There was Samantha Lioi, who works as a Peace and Justice minister and advocate across the Franconia churches, she is just a delight. There was also Jenifer Erikson Morales, who is a support overseer to a number of churches in the Conference. She has lived and worked for many years in very poor gang-ridden neighborhoods and told us stories of how she had been able to intervene in situations of high-violence and brought about peaceful solutions – they truly were astonishing. Everyone around the table was saying, “Jennifer, you simply must write these down for people to read!” The conversation was rich and inspiring. Pat was telling us of her profound experiences of meditation. Ertell - a very accomplished saxophone player - told us of his experience of meeting his jazz hero in New York and having the opportunity of both play and talk with him. He asked him, “What do you do if you play a wrong note?” He replied, “There are no wrong notes!” “But what if you play an F-sharp when it should be a simple F?” “That’s not wrong, it’s the note that you play next that is the important one!” The more I think about those words, the more profound I realize they are, especially when I think of them in terms of how I live my life each day. What an evening we had! Everyone left much later than they had planned, but we all knew it had been special.
Posted on: Wed, 19 Jun 2013 04:14:20 +0000
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