Louise, Rick, Ross, Willie, Janer, Ashley, Eluvia, Claire, Rita, Susan, Katharine, Pat, Leslie, Michael
Ross presented a sister parish email address and access process. Jeff Rholl set up an email address for the SJA sister parish committee to use. The email address is sisterparish@stjoan.com. To access it, point your browser to http://mail.stjoan.com. You will be asked for a user name and password. The user name is the entire email address. The password will be given out at the committee meetings or you can contact Ross to get it. The address list of whoever wants to get SJA Sister Parish email will be maintained on that site.
Louise - Asked for Walk for Justice pledges. Ashley, Claire, Leslie are walking as well. In Guatemala, Alejandro and Shannon are walking, too. Contact any of these people to pledge, or go to www.walkforjustice.org and pledge on-line. Don't forget to include the name of a walker so they get credit.
Louise - NAB Report. 14,000 Guatemalans have been deported with reports of abuse and beatings in holding facilities. Also, child protection issue - kids are left alone/foster care. LIRS (Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services) is working to expose these issues. 10% of all Guatemalan citizens are in the US. Eluvia said they don't have work for those who are deported in Guatemala. 10% of the the GNP of Guatemala is money sent home by people abroad. NAB recommending creating a board member to focus on youth. Also, a person who is a youth to represent youth. Louise is now the president of the Sister Parish Board of Directors. Louise made copies of a Guatemalan election guide for information. Eluvia said the worst of the candidates are the ones that are leading in the pre-election polls.
Rita - International Ministries has gotten BIG. IM day will be Sunday, October 7th. The theme is "Transformed by Receiving". A speaker will be named for each part of the world SJA has linkages with. We need one for Guatemala. Pick photo that says something important for project and the speaker will talk to it. An afternoon speaker (Fr. George) will address international ministry with a broad focus. Booths will be set up for each group. Most of the last International Ministries meeting was spent getting the new people up to speed on the plans.
Eluvia brought a letter from Monica for Sarah. We are going to try to get more people at SJA involved.
Ross asked for a voluteer to be a temporary co-chairperson. Contact Ross if you'd like to do that.
Eluvia has enjoyed the visit so far. She has really enjoyed seeing old friends. She watched the video and was moved by the possiilities of the love in the hermanamiento and video to change things. She brought two letters, one from the committee and one from Josefina. Katharine read the one from the committee. Claire read the one from Josefina. She is having a great time and brings greetings from everyone in TN2.
We adjourned with a prayer after running out of time. The following items were not addressed:
Next meeting Sept 5th.