Hello Dear Ones!
As I take a moment to reflect on my first six months in this new role, I am so grateful to everyone who has offered their gifts of talent and service to bring our programming to life. We had an amazing offering of small groups this spring; our Sunday seminars have been well-attended; we had a wonderful group of women share their gifts at the Women’s Retreat earlier this year, and I am so excited about the workshops at our upcoming All-Church Retreat. I am so blessed to work alongside each of you to co-create our community. Thank you for sharing your gifts, for offering words of encouragement, and most of all, for your presence! We have 124 adults, youth and children attending retreat April 4-6; I am traveling with 33 adults and 11 chaperones, including myself, for our upcoming Work Tour in June – a group so large, I’m having trouble finding volunteer sites that can accommodate all of us! It’s a great problem to have, and I am up for the challenge. 🙂
Our beloved community has been in transition for a year now, and we will continue to evolve and grow together with Rev. Dr. Donna Schaper’s arrival in May. Yet, even as we’ve navigated uncertainty and faced the unknown, we have chosen to come together and stay connected through our shared interests and common causes, to offer comfort to one another, to do good things in service to our neighbors. In the past few weeks, I’ve participated in intergenerational ReBuilding Together projects, taken our youth on a field trip to the Butterfly Rainforest, arranged lunch for those fighting for the health and well-being of our climate, held and cried with a UCG visitor who had just learned of the death of a family friend, taught our OWL cohort how to safely use condoms, sandbagged Reimer Hall to protect it from water damage during a storm, and secured our Work Tour volunteer shifts at this year’s World Pride Festival. Sometimes I can’t believe my good fortune that I get to do all of these things and call it my job!
While volunteering with UCG ReBuilds, I noticed a beautiful hummingbird tattoo on the arm of one of my fellow volunteers. She explained it represented the Hummingbird Parable, which is about a hummingbird rushing to put water on a forest fire, and rather than feeling discouraged about how small an impact it could make, the hummingbird just declared it was doing what it could. We are a community that comes together to do what we can, and it is a joy and a gift to do what I can alongside each of you. Thank you for continuing to show up and stay involved during this time of growth and change!
If you are new to our community or would like to find ways to share your gifts, please reach out to me! We are better together, and with our many small groups, seminars, committees, community involvement and justice initiatives, we will find the opportunity that feels right for you to make a difference. <3
In your service,
Tami