Tying Up Loose Ends

    I’m getting ready for the Walk About in Wyoming. As one of 6 nominees for bishop (election to be held 3/20), the Walk About is an 8 day trip around the diocese to let people in congregations get to know the nominees, ask questions, and help them discern who God is calling to be the next bishop of Wyoming. For me, planning for the Walk About has been like planning for any other lengthy trip away from home…with twice the anxiety! And the hardest thing about being on the road (besides deciding what clothes to pack) is tying up loose ends of home and office life so that chaos doesn’t reign and important initiatives don’t get lost.
    In this case, the home front is covered, thanks to son Chris who will feed the cats and bring in the mail. And I really think the diocesan office can survive ten days without seeing my face (although I plan to peek in my inbox when the tour passes through next week!). What I’m worried about is this little seed we planted the weekend before last at the Latino Ministry Workshop.
    Anthony Guillan, who is the Latino Missioner of the Episcopal Church Center led us in an exploration of the Latino/Hispanic culture, the spirituality of this diverse population and the challenges we have in the Episcopal Church as we try to welcome and partner with them in ministry.  About 25 people were present from 7 congregations. Three people in Cody even beamed in over the new video conferencing network for a few hours. These were not, as someone else observed, the usual suspects…the same old faces you see at every diocesan get together. I saw people I had not met before, intense with energy and passion for this ministry. We had several members of Latino/Hispanic descent with us, besides Anthony, to encourage and direct us. The three congregations in the diocese already intentionally reaching out to their Latino neighbors (in Powell, Jackson and Gillette) helped us see what is possible and went away with new insights themselves.
    I knew the workshop was a success when the next day I went with Anthony to worship at St. Stephen’s, Casper.  A Latina who had been at the workshop showed up and took communion for the first time in many years. The congregation was ready and willing to welcome her into their community. They had quickly added a Spanish hymn, provided translations of the readings for the day and they had “rescued” all the left over “culturally appropriate” goodies from Saturday’s meeting to share with their guests! Man, I thought, we can’t let this good start die away! But I wonder, how do we nurture it?
    One way to water that seed it this: Andy Kerr has been working with Anthony to create an on-line educational site for those of us interested in going deeper. Anthony has even offered to meet with us on web-site meetings to keep the conversation and energy around Latino ministry going. But this is steep learning curve for all of us. Have we, in just one intense workshop, created enough sense of community to inspire us to make the effort to come back together in the unfamiliar realm of the internet and web meetings? How much encouragement does it take to reconnect people once the face to face interaction is over? I am sure it will take less and less effort and time once we learn to do it…..but that first time is a huge speed bump for most of us. I’ll be watching…and praying that the seed we planted doesn’t wither before it bears fruit. I wonder what else we can do? I guess it's a loose end I'll have to leave dangling while I go finish my packing.....

(PS-If you would like to get on the Latino Ministry list and be part of the on-going conversations, however those may work out, please contact the diocesan office.)