For starters, the first 12 hours were crazy, especially for someone who likes to be organized and orderly. I missed my flight! Worse, I didn't even know I missed it til hours later! I thought my flight out was Monday morning at 8:05 a.m.; it was Sunday morning at 8:05 a.m.! I never would've agreed to a Sunday morning flight! So the lady on the phone tells me at 6:07 p.m. that I can fly standby on the last flight out Sunday night, at 8:50 p.m. I finish packing, my sister arrives to take care of the baby, we head to the airport, and my husband drops me off. The lady at the ticket counter says it's been too long since my original flight to fly standby, I have to pay the ticket exchange fees. Fine. What else was I going to do? Only other option would be to not go at all and I do have lodging reservations for both Sunday and Monday nights. Arrive at DCA early and catch the Metro at 10:16 p.m., take the bus the last two stops because the Red Line is closed for work, ask which way to P Street, and arrive at the hostel at 10:55 p.m. Find an empty bunk (on top, as all the bottom ones are taken), go to the bathroom, return, and lights are out. Grope in the dark to find my stuff and bunk. Forgot my phone charger, so rather than set an alarm, I figure someone else probably has and when I hear something it'll mean it's morning and time to get up. 1:40 a.m. someone else arrives at the hostel, into the ladies' bunk bed room, and my brain thinks it's morning. Did I mention I had a hard time sleeping? Someone's alarm does go off at 5:30 a.m., and I'm up with the early risers. Typical hostel accommodations (i.e., not great). 7:00 a.m. leave with some ladies I've just met to walk the mile to National City Christian Church.
The first thing is breakfast with your denomination, and I finally get to meet Bishop Minerva Carcaño. Her name comes up a lot when you talk about immigration or Hispanic/Latino Methodists. I also find the only people I knew before this trip - my colleague, Edith, and her family. I do all right with breakfast and I love meeting other Methodists, but then we move into the sanctuary. Between the horrible sound system, such that I can hardly understand anything, and being sleep-deprived (the coffee was not good), I find out from the registration desk where a Radio Shack and a CVS are (I had blisters from the mile walk). CVS is just around Thomas Circle from the church so I go there first - diet Dr. Pepper, band-aids, and... they sell phone chargers! One-stop shopping! With band-aids on my feet, more caffeine coursing through my system, and no longer worried about my phone dying, I can return to the sanctuary and pay attention. Here's what I heard:
"We are not a fear-based society." As in how God created us to be, not how we actually act, especially lately.
"Nothing is more powerful than the human story." This is one of the tidbits that makes it on Facebook.
"When we find a migrant, we find Jesus." So, what do you do with Jesus? Feed him? Or call border control? This was a saying shared by a pastor from Arizona whose church is 35 miles from the border. His church finds lots of migrants, because they show up on the doorsteps of the church and members' homes. So, their saying is, "When you find a migrant, you find Jesus," and the question is, what do you do with Jesus? Clothe him and feed him, like Matthew 25? Or call the authorities on him and hand him over, like Matthew 26?
Then followed a workshop on "Building teams for long-term, in-depth organizing." I take a page and a half of notes, and a lot of it just comes down to relationship-building - take seriously our biblical call to build relationships, create space for it to happen, the most powerful medium for transformation is relationship.
At lunch I join my fellow North Carolinians, of which there were a bunch because Church World Service in Greensboro had brought a ton of youth. I talk most with an intern who had an unusual reaction when finding out I'm a UMC pastor: (pause) Cool! Apparently I'm the first female Methodist pastor he'd ever met, and he sings at various UMC churches in the western part of the state.
After lunch, Miguel De La Torre, a social ethics professor at Iliff School of Theology, speaks, and while I still can't hear much, here's what I did hear:
"When one country builds roads into another country to take their resources, why shouldn't the people of that country follow their sugar, rum, and tobacco into the first country?"
"The job of anyone called to ministry is to raise consciousness."
"Do you fight for justice because you think you will win or do you fight because there is no other choice?"
Afterward we break up by denomination again, then within Methodism by Jurisdiction, and I meet a really interesting sociology professor from Ferrum College in VA. She's the kind of hands-on professor I would have loved to have had. As a group we discuss the challenges to building a movement in the southeastern U.S. and resources already present to meet them. One spokesperson from the Northeast Jurisdiction I think is Joan Maruskin, who wrote the book I brought along, "Immigration and the Bible: A Guide for Radical Welcome," but I can't find her afterward to see if it really is her.
Then everyone re-divides up by state. Methodism was the largest denomination represented and NC had the most from one state, which was interesting. I was among the oldest in the NC delegation, and we brainstormed our immigration goals for our state beginning with the year 2033 and moving shorter-term. I don't remember all of what was said, but this got on Facebook: "First goal said for 2033 is a Governor from an immigrant family."
"The job of anyone called to ministry is to raise consciousness."
"Do you fight for justice because you think you will win or do you fight because there is no other choice?"
Afterward we break up by denomination again, then within Methodism by Jurisdiction, and I meet a really interesting sociology professor from Ferrum College in VA. She's the kind of hands-on professor I would have loved to have had. As a group we discuss the challenges to building a movement in the southeastern U.S. and resources already present to meet them. One spokesperson from the Northeast Jurisdiction I think is Joan Maruskin, who wrote the book I brought along, "Immigration and the Bible: A Guide for Radical Welcome," but I can't find her afterward to see if it really is her.
Then everyone re-divides up by state. Methodism was the largest denomination represented and NC had the most from one state, which was interesting. I was among the oldest in the NC delegation, and we brainstormed our immigration goals for our state beginning with the year 2033 and moving shorter-term. I don't remember all of what was said, but this got on Facebook: "First goal said for 2033 is a Governor from an immigrant family."
That was the first 24 hours.
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