Correction

Oops! Campbell Farms has a new website http://www.campbellfarmwa.org/ See their Wish List for opportunities to send them charitable donations! I need to pack right now....unfortunately, there is no room for a portable air conditioner!!!! Eastern Washington is hot, hot, hot!

Mission Trip to Campbell Farms

On Saturday morning at 7 am, I will depart from Lafayette with the youth group and their advisors from Lafayette Orinda Presbyterian Church.  3 of the other members of this mission delegation are my family (husband David and daughters Allison and Shannon).  I did a mental calculation and figured that between the 4 of us, we’ve done nearly 30 mission trips in the US, Mexico and Latin America, but never has that trip been with all 4 of us present.  So, this is a first.  It will be Allison’s last as a high school student.  We are going to Wapato, WA to Campbell Farms, a Native American reservation that is a working farm (entirely self sustaining). http://www.winbeam.com/~campbellfarm/

I hope to be able to provide some photos and other reflections from the week.  But first, I have to get my head around packing!  Right now my main prayer is that the heat wave of the Northwest subsides and that my heart is open and my hands willing to serve. 

saying goodbye

It's hard work to say goodbye and today, we do so as a church community. We bid farewell to a beloved pastor, loving sister and aunt, devoted colleague and friend to many, The Rev. Linda Ellen Regan. As a pastor at the church we she served and where she is the Pastor Emerita, I feel overwhelmed with that nagging feeling that I am not up to the task of helping others say goodbye. So much loss, so much grief, so much pain....what can I say? What can I do? I know it's not about me, but as a human being, I have the capacity to make it so. I must trust God to see me and the community through this time.

Linda's own Statement of Faith says, "Through grace: God's unconditional, undeserved, unearned love, I believe...." So I shall stand and claim that grace for myself and all others, for nothing, no nothing, can separate us from God's love.