Thanks be to God…

* The United Methodist Global AIDS Fund has raised $3.5 million since created at the 2004 General Conference!

* We are authorizing new central conferences with ministries in the following countries:

Ethiopia, Swaziland, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, and Niger, Belgium and Romania!

* We are changing the Malawi Missionary Conference to the Malawi Provisional Annual Conference because it has grown!

* We have added to the Social Principles our recognition that men are also victims of domestic violence and abuse, and encouraged communities to offer the same policies and protection as offered to women in similar circumstances

* We have added to the Social Principles a firm statement against sexual assault and a statement that all people have the right to live free of such assault, regardless of gender, dress or any other factors.

* General Conference endorses “20/20: Visioning an AIDS-Free World,” a campaign of the UM Global AIDS Fund Committee with practical steps of committing money, education, and prayer.

* We updated our resolution on the eradication of sexism in the Church, which continues to point to deep sexism in the church on lay and clergy levels.

* We passed a new resolution on maternal health, calling for support of UM projects around the world that work with maternal health and family planning.

* We expanded greatly upon our resolution against bullying, defining bullying and calling upon UM congregations with general and specific actions to reduce bullying, especially among teenagers

These are amazing things that God is doing through The United Methodist Church! Thanks be to God!

These petitions are all divided into 13 work areas, which means there are 13 Legislative Committees. Each Annual and Central Conference has a delegation with clergy and lay people, who are then divided into the various Legislative Committees. The Virginia Annual Conference is one of the largest conferences of the UMC, with 13 clergy delegates and 13 lay delegates. This means that we have 2 delegates on every Legislative Committees. Most conferences do not have this kind of representation.

This week, each committee is trying to get through as many petitions as possible. And so, most of the committees break up into smaller subcommittees in order to work through the legislation more efficiently. And keep in mind, each committee has persons from Africa, Europe, the Philippines, and the U.S. So translation and cultural differences/questions all factor into this process. It is fascinating.

Today is the last day of Legislative Committee work. Each group is trying hard to address as much legislation as possible, because anything that does not get addressed by the close of the session today will die. Starting Monday morning, the entire delegation (988 members) will convene and we will work through the legislation that comes from each Committee.

By the way, this entire process is done by Robert’s Rules of Order, from the 988 gathering to the subcommittees. Parliamentary procedure is alive and well among United Methodists, though it is misunderstood by many. And I have to concur with a twitter comment from one of my young delegate friends: isn’t it a shame that we have yet to come up with something better than Robert’s Rules?

Perhaps that is still confusing, but it is a broad scope of what’s going on. It is amazing and overwhelming. I marvel at the amount of work that this is, and I give thanks to God for so many persons of faith, who love Jesus, love the church, and give of themselves to try to lead the church faithfully through this process. Wow.

I have to go now…time is of the essence! But I will update later about some of the wonderful things that have already come out of this Conference!

This year, for the first time, 40% of the General Conference delegates are from outside of the U.S. Almost half of the delegates come from the Philippines, Congo, Germany, Zimbabwe…While the conference is being conducted in English, there is simultaneous translation into many languages.

What this means is that we have to work to understand one another. We have to be intentional to have a conversation between equals, rather than a conversation dominated by the native English speakers. On a practical level, this means that we will spend a lot of time just getting organized, because inevitably, the translation equipment won’t work.

This has been the case so far. The committee I am sitting in spent a good hour this morning just getting the translation equipment to work. And on the one hand, while it would have been nice if these wrinkles were ironed out beforehand (I wonder if the United Nations has to deal with these technical difficulties), I have to smile, because ambiguity is part of what it means to live in a multicultural reality.

I hope that you will take some time to check out the website: www.umc.org and watch some of the posts on General Conference. Look at the pictures. Watch one of the events streamed or one of the video highlights. It is really an amazing event.

Please keep praying for us!

There is a long standing tradition at Central that one of the United Methodist Women’s groups makes chocolate Easter Eggs to raise money for mission. This year we had a crazy idea: what if we bought some of these eggs and then delivered them to our neighbors around the church??? So we did just this. We asked if anyone would give toward buying Easter Eggs for our neighbors, and this morning, a group of 15 met at the church to walk door to door delivering eggs and meeting our neighbors.

We had such a good time! Some people weren’t home. Some people didn’t answer the door. But many did, and I believe were touched by this simple gift. We don’t live in a culture of gift giving. In our world, nothing is free. Everything comes with strings attached or a price to pay. And so, we surprised people. When I talked with people, I told them, “We are looking to share love with our neighbors today, and so we brought you this chocolate and peanut butter egg as a gift.” It’s amazing how people warm up when you make it clear that you aren’t selling something or demanding something.

I wonder if it really is that simple… We want to share love with our neighbors. This is what God calls us to do, from the very beginning of the Bible. This is what Jesus told us to do in his life and ministry. Maybe it’s not always as hard as we think.

We do not currently have much access to email, but Carl has access from time to time on his iphone. I encourage you to check our team blog at: www.vabrazil2011.blogspot.com as different team members update and write stories. We have an amazing photographer on our team, and there are a few photos.

Love from Brazil!

Kristin