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[Church of the Brethren News Services]

Date:      June 4, 1998
Contact:  Nevin Dulabaum
V:  847/742-5100   F:  847/742-6103
E-MAIL:   CoBNews@AOL.Com

Newsline                                         June 4, 1998

News
1) Eleven young adults head to their assignments as Ministry
     Summer Service workers following orientation.
2) The Sixth Annual Shenandoah District Auction raises about
     $150,000.
3) A two-day training workshop for Congregational Life Team
     members, other General Board staff and district executives
     begins today in Elgin, Ill.
4) A symposium on the future of disaster child care was held last
     weekend at the Brethren Service Center, New Windsor, Md.
5) The July/August Source resource packet has been mailed.
6) The 1998-1999 Venture Forth outdoor activities schedule is
     available.
7) A 40-hour course in mediation and conflict resolution will be
     offered this summer in North Manchester, Ind., by Education
     for Conflict Resolution.
8) Remembered -- Annamae Rensberger.

Features
9) Sue Moore of Roanoke (Va.) First Church of the Brethren
     reports on the congregation's Lafiya emphasis weekend last
     week.
10) Cliff, Arlene and Miriam Kindy, Church of the Brethren
     members from North Manchester, Ind., and active participants
     with Christian Peacemaker Teams, recently toured three
     states and two Canadian provinces, speaking over 50 times.
     Cliff reflects on stories family members recounted from
     experiences in different settings.

1) Eleven Church of the Brethren young adults will head to their
summertime assignments this weekend as Ministry Summer Service
interns. Now in its third year, the MSS program provides young
adults the opportunity to spend a summer with a mentor in the
pastoral ministry field. This year's training is being held at
Bethany Theological Seminary, Richmond, Ind., and in surrounding
areas.

"Ministry Summer Service orientation is an intentional week of
walking close to God in community with other volunteers and
mentors in preparation for 10 weeks of leadership development and
service to a Church of the Brethren congregation," said Chris
Douglas, coordinator of Youth/Young Adult Ministry for the Church
of the Brethren General Board. "Orientation components will
enhance spiritual and leadership development, while exploring
God's call, congregational ministry, service, Brethren heritage,
polity and structure, and mentorship."

The group convened Friday night for worship and an introduction
from Judy Mills Reimer, MSS coordinator. On Saturday the group
participated in worship and in a service project at Concord
Community Development Center, Indianapolis. Throughout this week
it has continued participating in worship twice each day, and has
attended various sessions from a variety of Brethren leaders --
Allen Hansell, Fred Bernhard, Jeff Bach, Gene Roop, Dena Pence
France, David Shetler, Marcia Shetler, Jim Yaussy Albright and
Nancy Faus. They also met with Jay Matthews of Midwest Career
Center.

The 11 mentors arrived on Wednesday to participate in the
remainder of the training, which concludes at noon Friday.

This year's group consists of (name, hometown, congregation of
service, mentor) --
     * Holly Jo Berkey, Holsopple, Pa., Annville (Pa.) Church of
          the Brethren, Dick Schreckhise.
     * Keith Carter, Decatur, Ind., Briery Branch Church of the
          Brethren, Dayton, Va., Randy Cosner.
     * John Eshleman, Lancaster, Pa., Palmyra (Pa.) Church of the
          Brethren, Dennis Lohr.
     * Mary Gordon, Waynesboro, Va., Ellisforde Church of the
          Brethren, Tonasket, Wash., Ernie Bolz.
     * Angel Gullon, Castaner, Puerto Rico, Moorefield (W.Va.)
          Church of the Brethren, Mel and Lisa Fike.
     * Amy Haas, Overland Park, Kan., Nampa (Idaho) Church of the
          Brethren, Jim Hardenbrook.
     * Rebecca Lynn Hade, State College, Pa., Linville Creek
          Church of the Brethren, Broadway, Va., Paul Roth.
     * Jessica Hood, Flora, Ind., Germantown (Pa.) Church of the
          Brethren, Earl Eby.
     * Richard Stiver, Ansonia, Ohio, Happy Corner Church of the
          Brethren, Clayton, Ohio, John Jackson.
     * Rebekah Helsel, Altoona, Pa., Oakton Church of the
          Brethren, Vienna, Va., Kurt Borgmann.

2) Shenandoah District's Six Annual Disaster Response Auction,
held May 15-16 at Rockingham County Fairgrounds, Harrisonburg,
Pa., raised about $150,000. This auction raised an estimated
$32,000 from livestock and $100,000 from arts, crafts, comforters
and quilts. It also raised funds from the sale of Rubbermaid
products—since last year the district has received about a dozen
truckloads of various commercial-grade products that Rubbermaid
had written off.

3) When the Church of the Brethren General Board's Congregational
Life Teams were created during the Board's recent redesign, they
were developed with the idea that they would work with
congregations and districts in resourcing, networking, leadership
development and in consultation.

It is the latter function that has all 13 CLT members at the
Church of the Brethren General Offices in Elgin, Ill., today and
Friday for training by Speed Leas, senior consultant at the Alban
Institute. Members of the General Board's Leadership Team and
Church of the Brethren district executives were also invited to
attend.

The need for such training by the CLT staff emerged from a
February meeting during which it was decided that consultation
skills are needed, said Glenn Timmons, director of Congregational
Life Ministries. According to Timmons, consultation means
"helping a congregation establish a focus or assess its own
ministries or identify the resources that it has." A person who
practices consultation skills seeks agreement on the process or
steps a group or organization could take, as well as "walking
with congregations." 

As envisioned by the CLT staff, the consultation skills they will
receive from this training will be used in listening, enabling
and clarifying roles, and in ways of "doing" ministry and
becoming a missional church.

The seminar concludes Friday at noon. From then until Saturday
noon the CLT members will meet at Highland Avenue Church of the
Brethren, Elgin, to work at clarifying their mission and focus,
drafting a mission statement and continuing with staff
development. They will accomplish this, in part, by meeting with
Bob Gross, director of On Earth Peace Assembly's Ministry of
Reconciliation. Saturday afternoon the group will meet in a
spiritual retreat.

4) "Symposium on the Future of Disaster Child Care: Year 2000 and
Beyond," was held last weekend at the Brethren Service Center,
New Windsor, Md. Sponsored by the General Board's Emergency
Response/Service Ministries, the attendees included
representatives from the American Red Cross, Church World
Service, Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Church of
the Brethren. ER/SM staff who participated in the symposium
included Miller Davis, Lydia Walker, Jane Yount, Helen
Stonesifer, Glenn Kinsel and Alex Kirculescu.

Its purpose was to gather information, assess current needs for
child care, affirm existing strategies and to work out new
approaches. According to Roy Johnson of ER/SM, the conferees
affirmed the continuing need for child care in disaster
situations. They also agreed that there is a need to reduce the
program's response time. 

5) The July/August Source resource packet, produced by the Church
of the Brethren General Board, has been mailed.

This edition includes --
     * an order form for copies of the two Annual Conference
          Wrap-up versions, video and printed.
     * a packet of curriculum order forms from Brethren Press.
     * a brochure describing Brethren Press' Generation Why
          Sunday school curriculum for youth. Generation Why is
          used by six denominations; it is produced              
          jointly by Brethren Press and Faith & Life Press.
     * a special issue of Focus, which features the 1998
          ministries of the General Board.
     * a flier to purchase the new deacon manual, produced by
          Association of Brethren Caregivers. This flier also
          describes this fall's deacon workshop tour -- training
          events for deacons using the new manual. 
     * A description of new initiatives by the Global Food Crisis
          Fund.
     * Brethren Volunteer Service's 50th anniversary poster.

6) Five Venture Forth outdoor hiking and cross-country skiing
events have been scheduled for 1998-1999, the 10th season these
activities have been offered by the Church of the Brethren
Outdoor Ministry Association. These events will be lead by Marvin
Thill, retired executive of Missouri/Arkansas District --

     * Aug. 1-6, "Peaceful Pines Hiking Camp." Four day hikes in
          the Sierras. Co-sponsored by Camp Peaceful Pines,
          Dardanelle, Calif.
     * Aug. 10-15, "Rainier Vistas." A 40-mile backpack on the
          North Loop Trails in Mount Rainier National Park.
          Kristin Thill of Greshem, Ore., will serve as
          co-leader.
     * Aug. 17-21, "Degradation and Recovery." An ecological
          backpack in the Pasaytan Wilderness of the North
          Cascades. A 40-mile backpack excursion, with an option
          for another 15 miles of day hikes. Co-sponsored by the
          General Board's Brethren Witness office.
     * Oct. 15-19, "Autumn Leaves." A 25-mile backpack along the
          Appalachian Trail in Shenandoah National Park in
          Virginia. 
     * Feb. 15-20, "Cascade Nordic Skiing." Four day treks into
          the backcountry of the Central Washington Cascades.

For more information, contact Thill at 815 947-3197.

7) A 40-hour course in mediation and conflict resolution will be
offered July 27-Aug. 1 in North Manchester, Ind., by Education
for Conflict Resolution Inc. This introductory course will cover
the basics of conflict theory and communications skills for
conflict resolution, win-win negotiations and community
mediation, and guided practice in the mediation process.
Presentations, discussions, stories, demonstrations and guided
simulations will provide a varied format for learning. The course
can qualify for continuing education credit. Cost is $350. For
more information, contact ECR at ecri@ctlnet.com or 219 982-4621.

8) Annamae Rensberger, 60, of Pomona, Calif., died May 26. 

Upon graduation from college, Rensburger entered Brethren
Volunteer Service. She served assignments in numerous European
countries, including Germany, Sweden and the former Yugoslavia.
She then joined the Church of the Brethren General Board staff as
assistant director of BVS training, a position she held for more
than 11 years. She resigned from the General Board staff in 1977.

Rensberger then joined the staff of Woodbury University, where
she served as an administrator for 17 years prior to her
retirement. She was a member of La Verne (Calif.) Church of the
Brethren, where sang in the choir and designed liturgical
furnishings. 

Memorial gifts are to be sent to the General Board's designated
fund for Brethren Volunteer Service.

9) Sue Moore, coordinator of the Roanoke (Va.) First Church of
the Brethren's Lafiya Steering Committee, files this report on
the church's second annual Lafiya weekend retreat, held May
29-31. Moore is president of Good Samaritan Hospice in Roanoke
and is active with Association of Brethren Caregivers ministries
--
 
"My father gave [James Campbell, his assailant] premeditated
forgiveness," said SueZann Bosler at "Forgiveness: Going Against
the Tide," Roanoke First's second annual Lafiya weekend retreat. 

Years prior to Bill Bosler's death at the hands of Campbell in
the parsonage of Miami First Church of the Brethren, Bill had
emphasized his opposition to the death penalty by explaining to
his daughter that if he ever was murdered, he would not want the
death penalty for the killer. Her father's words have come back
to SueZann hundreds of times since December 1986 when her father
was murdered and she was brutally attacked and left for dead. 

Powerful, thought-provoking statements permeated the story that
Bosler shared with 52 people from 13 congregations Friday
evening. Her goal to spare Campbell's life "for my Dad and for
God" was realized one year ago when his death sentence was
commuted to life in prison. When she looked at Campbell in the
courtroom and said, "James Campbell, I forgive you; whether you
accept it or not, I forgive you," she felt, from that moment on,
"incredible peace."

Julie Hostetter, coordinator of the Area 3 Congregational Life
Team for the Church of the Brethren General Board, led
participants to consider seriously the theme of forgiveness as it
flows throughout scripture. Small groups studied individual
passages and insights through skits, hymns and prayer.

Later in the retreat, participants shared expressions of their
own experience. Gerald Roller, a Roanoke First member, reflected
on how forgiveness has been part of 42 years of marriage that he
and his wife, Eleanor, celebrated June 2. Roller concluded by
reading a poem he wrote, saying: "To love another requires at
times the need for one to say 'I dropped the ball, I didn't see
the hurt along the way.' It's then forgiveness, give or take,
depends so much on me." Others shared poignant poems about
forgiveness in families and after a child's death by suicide. The
retreat ended with participants anointing each other in an act of
love and healing.

Our desire for the weekend was for people to look at forgiveness
on a personal rather than church or societal level. Because of
SueZann and Julie's leadership, we went from hearing one person's
story of forgiveness to writing our own stories within a
relatively short period of time. One person shared with me that
she learned a lot about herself during a period of quiet
reflection and that the Lord's Prayer has taken on a deeper
meaning. We are thankful that the presence of the Spirit was
apparent throughout the weekend.

10) Cliff, Arlene and Miriam Kindy, Church of the Brethren
members from North Manchester, Ind., and active participants with
Christian Peacemaker Teams, recently toured three states and two
Canadian provinces, speaking over 50 times about the various ways
they had witnessed the resurrection spirit of Jesus. Cliff
reflects on his family's experiences and its speaking tour --

There is a tidal wave of nonviolence sweeping across the globe.
It is a nonviolence birthed in the faith community and fueled by
the resurrection spirit of Jesus. It is evident in stories as
diverse as the People Power Revolution that ousted Ferdinand
Marcos in the Philippines and the dramatic changes in South
Africa as Nelson Mandela rose from prison to the presidency and
apartheid was ended. It is visible as well in the yet
unsuccessful pro-democracy movement in China (remember the lone
student standing unarmed before the tanks in Tiennamen Square?)
and the fall of the Berlin Wall. The unexpected changes across
eastern Europe and the present resistance in Serbia and Kosovo
are also parts of that nonviolent tidal wave. 

Walter Wink relates a story from 1989 when the Soviet Union had
the second strongest military in the world. The Soviets had
massed troops and tanks on the borders with Latvia, Estonia and
Lithuania. In one of the largest nonviolent actions our world has
ever witnessed, three million of the seven million people in
those three tiny countries formed an unarmed human chain, 350
miles long, standing before the tanks --- and the tanks turned
back.

What is visible here is a different type of power. It is a power
that stands for justice; it is a power of truth, a witness to the
love of God's reconciliation (2 Corin. 5:16-21). It is the power
of weakness and vulnerability, the power that rolls back the
stone and defeats even death.

In March, Arlene, Miriam and I traveled on a speaking tour for
Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT). Across five states and two
provinces we shared about peacemaking discipleship to Jesus, our
experiences in CPT and the tidal wave of nonviolence inundating
this world. We were in public schools -- junior high and high
school as well as state and provincial university settings. We
were invited into Mennonite and Quaker high schools and Lutheran
and Mennonite colleges and seminary. American Friends Service
Committee and Mennonite Central Committee staff meetings placed
us on their agendas. Denominational boundaries served not as
barriers but as passageways as we spoke with Church of the
Brethren, Mennonite, Baptist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Anabaptist,
United Church of Christ and Catholic folks. A Lutheran
coffeehouse, a Catholic retreat center and house meetings
provided additional settings for our peacemaking stories.

Arlene, just back from a CPT delegation to Chiapas, Mexico,
shared about her experiences there and in Haiti with CPT. Her
visit with the survivors of the December massacre in Mexico of 45
members of Las Abejas (the Bees) pointed to the costliness of
this Jesus way of nonviolence. Committed to the justice --
seeking goals of the Zapatistas but refusing to use the weapons
of war in the cause -- the Bees were praying and fasting in a
chapel for an end to the violence engulfing the state of Chiapas
when they were slaughtered by armed para-military attackers.

Miriam, 17, in January had been part of an international
inspection team in Wisconsin investigating ELF, the United
States' extremely low frequency radio system used to contact
submerged nuclear submarines. She was near Ashland, Wis., with 14
mostly high schoolers from CPTNI (CPT Northern Indiana), a CPT
training group from Chicago and about 75 other concerned people
at a winter rally protesting this communication link.

I had been part of CPT-Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank
from early November through mid-January. My seven visits with CPT
to Gaza Strip, Israel and Palestine provided a plethora of vivid
stories of peacemaking in action from those volatile settings.

One story came out of my participation last spring in a 700-hour
(29 day) liquid fast protesting the 700 Palestinian homes
threatened with demolition by the Israeli occupation. It was a
tale of a bulldozer confronted by human bodies. Anne Montgomery
(a 71-year-old full-timer with CPT) and I had been part of a
presence that apparently deterred a bulldozer when soldiers had
promised to be back in two hours to demolish the home of a young
Palestinian family in the Hebron District. We were there two days
later as a flatbed truck drove up loaded with a bulldozer. It was
backed off and parked in the driveway across the road from the
originally threatened house as the driver went to the soldier's
jeep for his orders. The grandfather, busy pruning his vineyard,
surveyed the situation and then backed up to the bulldozer blade
and sat down. The fifth-grade granddaughter, arriving home from
school, also examined the situation and, without talking, joined
her grandfather on the bulldozer blade. I followed suit as Anne
reached into her backpack and drew out a camera. The bulldozer
operator came back to his seat, surveyed the situation, and then
returned to the jeep. In a few moments he was back, reversed the
bulldozer, loaded it on the truck and departed.

Now, clearly the bulldozer was stronger than Grandpa,
Granddaughter, Anne with her camera, and me. But a different kind
of power, the power of right, the power of justice, had come into
play. It is a power that seems to be understood best among the
powerless.

In Regina, Saskatchewan, 75 international intervarsity Christian
Fellowship students, most of whom were Chinese, gathered to hear
our stories. Caution kept the Chinese students verbally quiet,
but they were riveted to the stories and their eyes were alive
with the spirit of the pro-Democracy movement. 

In contrast, North American society seems wrapped up tight --
even in the church. We, for the most part, are unavailable to
this resurrection Spirit. Our security is sought in the
accumulation of wealth and defended without our protest by the
most powerful military this world has ever known. Here and there
lifestyle questions penetrate the wrap and nonviolent models of
grappling with conflict spring forth, but those tender quests
require loving nurture.

Clearly we are approaching the time of a testing of the powers on
a Mount Carmel (see 1 Kings 18). Just as Elijah proved the power
of Yahweh on Mount Carmel, so perhaps now is the time to ask the
question: Which is stronger? The military might of the occupation
force and the emperor's seal or the angel from Yahweh come to
roll back the stone?

There is a Pentecostal Spirit loose in the land. Will we venture
out, take the risk of being infected by that Jesus tidal wave of
nonviolence?

Newsline is produced by Nevin Dulabaum, manager of the General
Board's News and Information Services. Newsline stories may be
reprinted in newsletters and other publications, including web
sites, provided that Newsline is cited as the source and the
publication date is included.

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