Synod Delegates Talk About Their Mission Experiences

"I was hungry and you gave me food, 

I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, 

I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 

 I was naked and you gave me clothing,

 I was sick and you took care of me, 

I was in prison and you visited me." ~ Jesus

The 2016 Synod of the Eastern District was anything but a sit-still-and-listen sort of event. With its focus grounded firmly in Jesus' words from Matthew 25, The Synod sent all of its delegates into the world for a full day of serving those who are hungry, thirsty, strangers, lacking in basic necessities, sick and incarcerated. In so many cases, the experiences were moving and transforming. Here are just a couple of clips of Ohio Moravians telling about what happened last Thursday. Jill Westbrook (Sharon) talks about her time helping residents of a no-frills nursing home "go shopping" for the things that make their lives a little bit more comfortable.Sue Henriksen (Dover) discusses the day she spend serving in a soup kitchen. And Seth Angel (Fry's Valley) talks about touring a prison facility and spending time with some of the incarcerated men.

If you attend Brown Bags & Big Ideas today (noon-1:30 p.m. at Tuscora Park), I suspect you'll have a chance to debrief these and other memorable Synod experiences.

Eastern District Synod--Not Your Ordinary Kind of Meeting

Can you tell what's happening in this picture?

This is the plenary session during the first night of the Eastern District Synod. If you've ever been to a Synod or other convention-type gathering, you know that a plenary session is a meeting of the full group where presentations are made and business gets conducted. Usually during a plenary session, participants sit at tables, their agendas and important documents stacked before them, their attention directed toward the leadership personnel seated on the dais and speaking from the lecturn. 

But not this time.

This time the entire company of Synod processed from its usual meeting space to a gymnasium set up as a makeshift factory. There, each of us was handed a plastic apron and a hairnet. We were directed to work stations where we were assigned very specific tasks:

• Open the plastic bag, insert a vitamin/flavoring packet
• Hold the plastic bag beneath the large, yellow funnel
• Precisely measure and dump one of 4 ingredients into the yellow funnel: soy flour, dried beans, dried vegetables or rice
• Remove plastic bag and pass it to the weigh station for quality control
• Seal and stack the bags
• Pack into cardboard cartons for shipping

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

And what was the result? During our one-hour session, we packaged 32,000 servings of high protein meals destined to feed desperately hungry people in Haiti. 32,000!

Best. Meeting. Ever.

Eastern District Synod is Underway

Folks from all 7 of our Ohio congregations traveled to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania yesterday to participate in the Synod of the Moravian Church, Eastern District.I met up with some of them during breakfast this morning.

left to right: Carolyn McCoy (Gnadenhutten Moravian Church), Adelia Hobart (Dover) and Sue Henriksen (Dover).

Lynn Reichman (Sharon), Darrell Johnson (Gnadenhutten), Seth Angel (Fry's Valley), and Bob Geiger (Gnadenhutten).

Becky Canfield (Schoenbrunn)  and Denny Rohn (Schoenbrunn).

Synod officially opened in the afternoon with spirited worship introducing the theme of the whole event: "To Us, To Us This Task Is Given..." After greetings and introductions, we were quickly immersed in sensitivity training surrounding how to/how NOT to go about approaching mission and service opportunities.  Before long, we were being steeped in the challenge of doing mission! Stay tuned. We'll tell you all about what it was like to pack 32,000 meals for people in need....