This Week at a Glance
Thursday, February 4th
6:00 pm - ELL classes
Friday, February 5th
10:45 am - Centering Prayer
Sunday, February 7th
10:00 am - Bilingual Worship
11:30 am - Sunday School in separate languages
12:30 pm - Iowa Interfaith Exchange (more details below)
Tuesday, February 9th
9:00 am - ELL classes (no child care provided)
6:00 pm - ELL classes (child care provided)
Thursday, February 11th
8:30am-4:00pm - Role of the Dice Experience (more information below)
6:00 pm - ELL classes (child care provided)
Friday, February 12th
10:45 am - Centering Prayer
7:00 pm - Film An Act of Love
Sunday, February 14th
10:00 am - Bilingual Worship - Reconciling Sunday Celebration
11:30 am - Bilingual Sunday School
11:30 am - Potluck

 

Save the Date
February 12, 7-9 pm
"Act of Love," the story of Frank Schaefer, screening at Trinity
February 14th
Worship: Reconciling Sunday Celebration
After Potluck: Kitchen Orientation and Training
March 20, 2016
Palm Sunday Procession & Service for Peace
April 7 to May 19, 2016
From the Sanctuary to the Street
May 27, 2016, 6-9 pm
Do No Harm Statewide Meeting - location TBA

Speaker from Wadi Fouqin to be in Des Moines

Many of you have heard about the plight of the Palestinian village of Wadi Fouqin. Land confiscation orders, demolition orders for a playground and a new church sponsored soccer field as well as the destruction of 1,300 fruit trees are just some of the human rights violations endured by the villagers.

On Thursday, February 18th at 7:00 pm Mr. Fahmi Manasra, Director of program development  in the village will be speaking at the Des Moines Valley Friends House at 4211 Grand Ave.

Mr. Manasra will be speaking to raise awareness of the circumstances taking place in the village and elsewhere in the West Bank and will be raising funds for village improvement projects particularly the new soccer field. Later he will be speaking at a congressional briefing in Washington, D.C.

We hope you will be able to join us for this informative evening.

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Like many other Christian denominations around the world, the United Methodist Church is at a crossroads. The debate over same-sex marriage has reached a point where it threatens to irreparably divide the Church.

An Act of Love tells the story of an unwitting advocate in the fight for equal rights with the Church, Rev. Frank Schaefer, who had his ministerial credentials revoked in December 2013 after officiating his son's same-sex wedding. Will Rev. Schaefer's trial be the final breaking point for the Church? Or will his story be the final chapter in the long struggle for LGBTQ equality within the UMC?

At the beginning of his career...read more

For a flyer, click here.
For more information, contact Jan Ratliff at hartliff@msn.com.

 

When you come t the office Monday - Thursday, you will be greeted with the warm smile of our new administrative assistant, Monica Vandenberg.  Monica lives in Ankeny with her husband and two children.  She worships at Ankeny First UMC.

Please share our Trinity/Las Americas Hospitality.

"Let the Children Come to Me"

Now more than ever, with the newly cleaned & organized nursery thanks to the group mentioned & pictured above, it's time to offer your time and your love for kids by volunteering to help in the nursery during worship on Sundays. If you would be willing to help out, please contact Mary Kay Dial at 515.669.0088 or at rogermarykay@msn.com. Please let her know of your availability in the upcoming Sundays: January 24th & 31st, February 7th, 14th, 21st, & 28th. Thanks a bunch!
 

Kitchen Orientation & Training
Sunday, February 14th, after potluck 

A new kitchen means acquiring new skills so we're offering an opportunity to learn how to use: the dishwasher, the steamer, convection oven, & the cook and hold. There will also be an orientation on where to find: dishes, silverware, & paper goods such as paper plates, cups, toilet paper, paper towels, and MUCH more!

It's important for all of us to feel comfortable in our new kitchen, so please take the time following the potluck on Sunday, February 14th, for our Kitchen Orientation!

Which Metro Transportation Projects Should be Funded?
Consider adding your support to 6th Avenue's Streetscape Project!

One minute of your time is all it takes to provide critical support!

The 6th Avenue Corridor Streetscape Project is one of 27 local transportation projects being considered for federal transportation funding through the Des Moines Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO). The MPO is asking for community input as they consider which projects to fund. On behalf of the project, the City of Des Moines has requested $300,000 in funding for Phase II (College Avenue to University Avenue). More than $47.9 million in projects have been requested, while less than $13 million in funding is available.

Help the 6th Avenue Corridor Streetscape Project more forward by visiting this link, clicking the project on the map (purple line almost directly in the center) and submitting your vote of support. Once you click on the puple line, a pop-up window will appear. Then click "More Info" next to "Comments" and a new window will open where you enter your "vote." You can also submit comments to let the MPO know why this is such an important project. The public comment period ends on January 31st. 
 

Contemplative Outreach of Central Iowa
18-Hour Silent Lenten Retreat: Exploring Forms of Silent Prayer
February 19-20, 2016

Begin the Holy Season of Lent with 18 hours of silence and explore several new forms of praying in silence. Breath prayer, prayer with images, reclining in prayer in a variety of postures, and others. There will be multiple periods of Centering Prayer to help you practice letting go into the silence.

They will come together for a meal Friday evening, have several hours of prayer, and then send you home to sleep and rise in silence, including guidance on praying during the midnight hour, if you choose. Saturday morning, they will re-gather in stillness, have a silent breakfast, more prayer time, and end the retreat with a lunch, including talking & fellowship.

All retreatants will receive instructions beforehand on how to prepare their homes and families for the silent overnight. This retreat is limited to 20 people, so register early.

Cost: $55, includes three meals
Contact: Chris Frantsvog, iowatreefarmer@hotmail.com

Register Here
 

Introductory Workshop to SoulCollage®
Saturday, March 5th, 9:30 am - 2:00 pm
Wesley Foundation, Drake University, 2718 University Avenue

SoulCollage® is a fun, simple, and powerful collage process for making a personal deck of collage cards to reflect your inner and outer worlds. If you can cut and paste, you can do this! You will be provided with a wide variety of images, and all the supplies needed to create a fun, creative tool for inner exploration and growth that will last a lifetime, and can be shared with others. 


Cost: $65/person - includes all materials & supplies, snacks, beverages, & lunch. To register, contact Deb Richards at Yobel49@yahoo.com or at 515.422.4510. Space is limited. For more information about SoulCollage® go to soulcollage.com

Sermon Sunday, January 31, 2016                                                  Pastor Alejandro Alfaro-Santiz

The reading for today’s scripture comes from Jeremiah. Barb and I talked a few months ago and we decided to start preaching from the Epistles and from the Old Testament following the lectionary, because it is important to discuss and talk about the different books in the Bible.  For me, personally, it is important to get out of my comfort zone; while I love the gospels, I also feel that it is necessary to engage with the other books of the Bible.

Would you pray with me?

We cannot talk about the prophet Jeremiah without acknowledging that he is commonly known as the Prophet of Wrath.  The rabbi Abraham Heschel writes that “Utterances denoting the wrath of God, the intent and threat of destruction are found more frequently and expressed more strongly in Jeremiah than in any other prophet.  However , it would be more significant to say that Jeremiah live in age of wrath.”  It seems as if several presidential candidates, or at that time king candidates, could have been talking to folks in Israel.  There’s anger on both sides… you are too liberal, you are too conservative, and the result?  More than 40% of people don’t even engage in the small, but important, process of democracy that are elections. 

But let’s dive into the text. We read today that before Jeremiah was sent as a prophet there was God’s calling: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew  you…”  Some pro-birth groups use this scripture to justify their position, however, for me this piece of scripture talks about how we all come from God.  I’ve heard Christians in Guatemala say that we are all creatures of God but that when we accept Jesus as our Savior then we become children of God.   I felt uneasy about these remarks, but I didn’t know what to say.  Have you ever experienced that feeling? When you know something is not right but you can’t explain it with words?  That’s how I felt… it wasn’t until I started to pay attention to the Old Testament (because I had to, I was in seminary) that I realized that God breathes God’s spirit into our nostrils, as Genesis says, and that God knew us before we were in the womb, as Jeremiah says, that I could explain why the creature-children dichotomy didn’t seem right to me.  By the way, think about this, “BEFORE I formed you in the womb I KNEW you”  Before we were in the womb! Where were we then?  Think about it… (pause)    This means we existed before we were in human form, I believe we were with God… that’s why we are made in God’s image.  So we come from God and we are going back to God.

So, we all are consecrated, set apart and we are all prophets…it means that we all have a purpose, we all have a mission in life.  It’s not just pastors, it’s not just Methodists or Christians; every person has a purpose.  I have experienced that this is not a detailed plan. God didn’t tell me, “You are going to be an ordained pastor in the United Methodist church in a land with subfreezing temperatures named Iowa.” Instead, it was more something like “You are going to work for justice…to remind people of all their possibilities and who they are,” which I thought was kind of inconvenient given the fact that I lived in Guatemala, the country in the hemisphere with the biggest disparity between rich and poor folks. At that point I wasn’t even aware of the racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism and all the others isms that are common in Guatemala… and the world. 

Like Jeremiah, I complained that I was too young, I was 14 years old and in love with archeology. I’m not saying this because I think I’m cool like Jeremiah (yeah, I know, not many people put the word cool and prophet in the same sentence), but because I think God starts to call us at a young age.  What did you yearn for when you were a teenager? What did you want to do?  What was your passion?  We live in a world that has “domesticated” the fire of young people. The dominant narrative says that young people are lazy and that they only care about video games and technology, but that is so inaccurate.  Let us help the young people connect or reconnect with their dreams and passions and we’ll start seeing more stuff like this: (SLIDE).

Hundreds of high school students, from at least 12 high schools in Minneapolis walked out of school to protest recent ICE raids. White, Brown, Black, urban and suburban kids got together and said loud and clear: deporting families, mothers and children who are fleeing violence does not align with our values; it is not who we are as a country. 

This did not happen in 1968, this happened last week in Minneapolis, in January 2016! Talk about modern day prophets!

We all have a purpose, we just have to listen, slow down, pay attention, get in touch with God, talk to others, learn, and be in community; you’ll find it.

If you are young don’t let the adults tell you that you are too young to follow your purpose.  If you are not young, don’t let society tell you that you are not young enough to follow your purpose.  There’s a quote from Pablo Picasso that I love. He said, “When people tell me that I am too old to do something, I hurry up and do it right away.”

Last Thursday I had the privilege to be in solidarity early in the morning with some of the 36 fast food workers that went on a strike for the first time ever in Des Moines.  Workers from five McDonalds, Dunkin’ Donuts, Wendy’s, Taco Bell, Long John Silvers, Popeye’s, and Arby’s restaurants went on strike demanding a living wage of $15 an hour and the right to form an union.  I was at one of the McDonalds locations and heard from a Latina, an African American, and a white worker about the struggles that they go through.  Angelica has worked at McDonalds for 17 years, she started making $6.50 an hour and she now makes $9.90 per hour.  With three children and a grandchildren $9.90 is not enough.  Her car broke down and she can’t fix it; she has a medical condition and without benefits or health insurance, she has to pay for her medicine out of pocket, which means more often than not she doesn’t take it.  We are the wealthiest nation in the history of the world and anyone working full time should be able to afford food, a roof over their heads, health care, etc.  You don’t need to be a prophet to share that…

But wait, on a second thought, you, and you, and you, I… all of us need to be prophets, share these stories, and let people know that it is not just high school students who work at fast food chains to earn some spending money. 

Thursday evening I joined a march in solidarity with the fight for $15, of more than 700 people in downtown Des Moines. There were workers from Des Moines, Iowa City, Kansas City, Chicago, Milwaukee, DC, and other cities all around midwest. We marched from the Peace Plaza to the HyVee Center where the Republican debate was happening.  I have never attended something like that here in Iowa. The energy, the love, the chanting, elderly people, children, young people, black, brown, white, it was amazing, it felt like what I believe worship should feel like! And on the way back, as one minivan was harassing the slowest people (children and the elderly) I met her: Pastor Donna, from St Mark’s Lutheran Church, Kansas City, with a bucket drum on her waist, marching with the people, drumming with the people, and caring for the people.  Early in the morning I was happy to join two other Des Moines clergypersons: Ryan and Debby, both Disciples of Christ. It gives me so much hope for the church…It made me think of Archbishop Romero’s words:

“A Church that doesn’t provoke any crises,

A gospel that doesn’t unsettle,

A word of God that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin

A word of God that doesn’t touch the real sin

of the society in which is being proclaimed-

What gospel is that?”

 

What can we do as Christians?

I think that’s what the last part of today’s scripture is referring to: “I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms,  to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant."  Let’s use the example I just shared with you:  we need to destroy the idea that the only people working fast food jobs are teenagers, we need to overthrow the narrative that it is not economically feasible to raise the minimum wage to $15, we need to build a new way of looking at workers and workers’ rights, we need to build a movement where black, white, brown, we all work together, with all our diversity ( diversity in sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, education, socioeconomic status, mental and physical abilities) because in doing that we’ll plant the seeds for a more just world. 

 

My favorite sign of that protest read “We all do better when we all do better.”  We are all in this together because every being in this planet comes from God… now, there are some beings, some people, that have forgotten this, and act in ways that don’t reflect the image of God.  Like the mini-van driver who was trying to run over the last of the protestors… or like the United Methodist pastor from Guatemala who thought a lot of things about said driver, things that should not be said out loud, while he took pictures of the car’s license plate.  But then, an African American women from out of state brought him (me) back to his (my) senses. As she kept walking calmly she said,“I’m sure he is not used to these protests in Des Moines, he is just afraid.” . It was God talking.  Do not let fear win, because even that driver comes from God…

 

It is my prayer today, that we remember that every human being comes from God, especially those who act in ways that don’t reflect this reality, and that we have love and courage, to not give into hate and fear when interacting with them. AMEN.