{working title}: #ELCAWH15

Hope Evangelical (one of our hosts)

In January I went to San Francisco for a gathering of ELCA World Hunger leaders (yeah…a little slow on the blogging about it, but what else is new this year?). This meeting happens every 18 months at various locations throughout the country. As soon as I heard where it would be, I was SUPER excited to go…Nebraska in the winter is usually terrible. Unfortunately for me, the weather in Nebraska was actually pretty warm the weekend I missed. Oh well, I survived anyway!

Sanctuary at Hope Evangelical

In addition to the normal meeting that they usually have, this meeting also included the other young adults that are in the young adult cohort. This group of people is the group that is going to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women later this week. Some of the group also goes/will go to the International AIDS Conference every two years.

If you'd rather see how the conference went instead of reading my babble about it, find our storify page. Storify is a super cool tool if you're running a meeting/gathering/conference/super awesome super bowl party where you can pull in social media posts using your hashtag (#ELCAWH15 in this case), to see a visual representation of the event. There will be a storify for my trip to NYC later this week too that you can check up on!

Ministry Fair! This was the setup for "Bountiful Harvest"
--a food co-op in Omaha out of First Lutheran

Bird of Paradise
(my favorite flower!)

The theme of the event was "Congregations for Change: We are Church Together". There were large group sessions, small group training sessions, a ministry fair (showing the cool projects that people around the US were doing to combat hunger), and, of course, plenty of worship experiences sprinkled throughout.

Two of the coolest experiences of the weekend were the neighborhood walks and the small group time we had as a young adult cohort. I will probably talk plenty about the young adult cohort in the coming weeks, so I'll skip that for now.

Neighborhood Walk art

The neighborhood walks were very interesting. The idea behind the walks was that we are so familiar with the things in our own neighborhoods that we hardly ever take time to truly see them for what they are. We don't see the shortfalls because we are think we are familiar with the area...but we actually become blinded. But even more so, we don't see the potential for changing those shortfalls. We need new eyes to assess the area and its assets.

Walked through part of Oakland
to meet-up wit part of the group

With issues of hunger specifically, we think "Oh there are people that are hungry in big cities/Africa/developing countries," but we aren't so great at identifying hunger in our own areas. This was a dedicated time to discover hunger in our "own" area. Definitely a cool idea and provided lots of time for reflection.

We split into groups and toured different churches/ministries in the San Fran/Oakland area based on our interests. I chose to tour "Night Ministry" which is out of St. Mark's ELCA. It's a 50-year-old collaborative ministry for those who are homeless or out for a night-on-the-town in the Tenderloin (and thereabouts) district in San Francisco.

There are two parts to the ministry: 1) Night Ministers that walk the area each night from 10 pm - 4 am, 2) crisis intervention help-line counselors that answer phones on the crisis line each night during the same time period. Additionally, they have a weekly outdoor worship service for anyone that wants to come. They have not missed a single night shift in the 50 years they've been in operation.

"Remember Them"
Sculptures of several humanitarians

"Remember Them"

Miracles of Faith Church
We had a sack lunch and impromptu
(and passionate) worship service here.

The pastor I followed (there are 6 or so on call every night) was ordained in the UCC and also leads worship for an ELCA congregation and weekly prayer with some Franciscan nuns. He was well known by the men and women who lived in the area. We heard from other groups that many people were asking for him as well. The ministry has truly been a ministry of presence in the area. Sometimes the only thing a person needs is someone to listen. Some of the people we met shared their stories about what happened in their lives to lead to homelessness, some just said hello. Regardless, encountering people was amazing.

by-the-cup brewed coffee
nom.

Besides the neighborhood walks, we also had some training sessions on advocacy, fundraising, sustainable development goals, networking, and others. We also used some of the resources that the ELCA puts out about hunger education. A very well-rounded conference to touch on each of the tenets of ELCA World Hunger: Relief, Education, Advocacy, Sustainable Development, Organizing, and Networking.

made-to-order ice cream sandwich at the amazing #CreamNation
The best thing I've ever had (maybe).

St. Mark's (another host)

On the final day, the Young Adult cohort and some ELCA staff members took part in the MLK Day march. Whoa. That was super powerful. I've never been part of a political march like that...the closest thing I've come to is the Take Steps Walk for Crohn's and Colitis or the AIDS Walk every year. But this was far better attended than either of those walks. I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.