Don’t you love the sounds of summer… children laughing as they splash in a swimming pool, the ice cream truck driving down your street, and conversation at backyard BBQs? Yet, there is one summer sound that I would venture to say, we all hate to hear – the sort of hum/buzz that sweeps around our head, the sensation of a tiny soft landing which prompts us to slap the mosquito that is threatening the calmness of the moment. I have yet to find someone that likes mosquitoes. Yet, for the majority of us in St. Louis, mosquitoes are just pests. For our brothers and sisters in Catembe, Mozambique, mosquitoes are deadly.
Many of you might remember last summer that I had this God experience at 3:15 in the morning. I was in a dead sleep when a dialogue of questions and answers went through my mind;
“Does the pastor of Catembe have mosquito nets for her family? To which I replied, “I don’t know.
“Well shouldn’t they?”
“Well, yes.”
“How are they going to get them?”
“Well I should get them.”
“What about the United Methodist Women at Catembe? Do they have nets?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well…“
“Ok, we will take care of them as well.”
“What about the men’s group?"
"Yes, of course”
“And what about the whole church of Catembe?”
“What if the people of Catembe could have some way to tangibly show the love of God to their whole community?”
“Ok, ok, I get it… we should get mosquito nets for all of Catembe.”
Then I was back to sleep. The next morning, my sermon changed half way through and I shared this dialogue with you all and some of you probably thought, “There she is, going crazy again.” Others of you thought “Wow, what a God moment!” In a very short time we were able to raise enough money to purchase a mosquito net (220 nets) for every family of Catembe United Methodist Church in Mozambique.
We found out as we began to send in our money in that there wasn’t a structure in place to get our nets directly to Catembe, so we slowed down in our efforts to get nets to cover the entire peninsula of Catembe, Mozambique.
Recently we found out that the United Nations Foundation has been conducting pilot programs of mass deployment of mosquito nets in an area to greatly reduce malaria in that area. They have received a success rate of 82% in the reduction of malaria in those pilot locations. Carol Kreamer our Missouri Mozambique Coordinator, along with many other people in Misri, and Mozambique are meeting weekly through Skype to discuss the mass distribution project for six areas of Mozambique. Catembe will be one of the areas!
For this to happen, they will need to find community groups that will go and survey the needs of the community so that they identify what each family will need. Then they will distribute the nets, and help install them. They will have to stop by several times during the next year to determine the effectiveness of the project. What a great mission project for the Catembe church to save the lives of many people in their community and tangibly show the love of God! The goal for this new distribution will be to get an 85% reduction of malaria in an area.
The nets that will be deployed are not just repellent nets. A mosquito will die within 10 minutes of landing on the net. The nets will help protect young children, elderly family members, and reduce the devastating reoccurring illness of malaria. On average, $10 provides for the net. If the Spirit nudges you to sponsor a net, or two, or more just note it on the memo line of your check or put it on the offering envelop.
Although God hasn’t nudged me at 3:15 am again, I think the original question remains, “Shouldn’t we help if we can?” I think the original answer remains as well, “Yes, of course.”
Shalom,
~Pastor Kathleen
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Monday, June 7, 2010
Wilder View - June 2010
To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” - Ecclesiastes 3:1
I have had the privilege of sharing many seasons with Sharon. Our first season was when we were both in the exploration and wonder of going into ministry. We were both part time staff members at Webster Hills UMC and were filled with wonderment that God could call us and use us in ministry. It was a season of newness.
We shared another season as I was first appointed to Lafayette Park and Sharon served as our intern while she was in seminary. A season of questions – why do you do this, have you thought about doing this. What is the story behind… what if we tried this? This was a season of experimentation and learning.
And then we shared another season… a season in which we served the people of Lafayette Park. Time was spent on how we could better care for those we serve. This was a time of perfecting pastoral skills and learning administration. It was a season of preparing to be a seasoned pastor.
Now a new season begins. A season of soaring above the clouds! Shortly, Pastor Sharon will begin a new season, a season of serving as pastor to two churches. She will start the season of falling in love with more of God’s people. She will learn the unique gifts that are within those churches and will help those gifts become nourished and begin to grow.
We at Lafayette Park UMC also enter a new season. This will be a season of discernment as we seek out specific areas where we would like to grow. We will call forth gifts of ministry within the congregation so that we all may grow into using the gifts that God has placed within us.
Every season contains joys and sorrows, life and death, tears and laughter. Let us enter into this new season with the expectant hope of the God that is the giver of life and love, and ask God to plant within us the new growth we hunger for in our churches.
May God bless Pastor Sharon and her two new churches as they enter into this new season of hope and growth. May God bless Lafayette Park as we enter into this new season of hope and growth.
“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” Ecclesiastes 3:1
~Pastor Kathleen
Time with Sharon: Practicing Our Goodbyes
 |
| From Lafayette Park UMC-Pastor's Blog |
June 2010
Now the LORD said to Abram: "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.” - Genesis 12:1
Some years ago, when I began the exploration of my call to Ordained Ministry, I met with a mentor, whose task it was to help me make some sense of the intense yearnings of my heart scrambled together with a boatload of objections coming from my head. When I finally realized I must leave my home church of nearly 20 years to go onto a new place for ministry, I was hit by the profound impact of leaving the community that I had grown to love and serve. My wise mentor suggested that if I was to become a United Methodist pastor, then I had better start practicing my goodbyes. She was referring, of course, to the itinerant nature of our ministries, moving from church to church as our bishop finds need for our gifts and graces.
Leaving my home church was painful and some of the goodbyes tear-filled. I had raised my children there, developed close friendships there, and come to a deeper, more vibrant faith there. Sort of like Abram, only in a car instead of a camel, and on a highway in stead of on a desert path, I trusted in God as I left what I knew and set out on a journey into the future. God’s path for me, via Highway 44, brought me to this place,
Welcoming and sending. Gosh, when you think about it, that’s an integral part of what we do in the church. Into our midst and heart, we welcome visitors in worship each week. We welcome as littlest members, babies fresh with the splash of the baptismal waters still upon their cheeks. We welcome home long-missed folks returning from journeys to other lands. And we welcome new workers to the vineyard. Together, we pray, we worship, we hear the Word spoken, and we respond. But it doesn’t stop there. If it did, eventually, the gospel message would die. No, at the end of our time together, we are commissioned, scattered, sent out. Like little Abrams, we journey with God to our places of work and leisure, to witness our faith in “the land that God will show us.”
And so, goodbyes are every bit as important a part of our loving God and each other as our hellos. I leave you, my friends, to take up a new appointment in the Gateway Regional District. My little rural churches are in a far-off land from LPUMC. As my season with you ends, I am assured of your blessings, and your love. I shall saddle up my little Prius, packed full of memories and experiences. Confident that you will continue the work of welcoming and sending that defines us as Christians, I will head west, “to the land that God will show…to me.”
Goodbye, and may God bless you and keep you always,
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| From Pastor Sharon Kichline Ordination |
Pastor Sharon
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Wilder View - May 2010
During the month of April our sermons have focused on ‘playing in God’s garden.’ We have been challenged to sow seeds of God’s love and justice wherever we go in the world. We have also been encouraged to look at the weeds in our lives differently – to find the value that they might bring to our lives and community. Finally, we were challenged to dream of what God’s vision for our community might look like.
What dream has God planted in your mind? Is it ending violence? Protecting children? Stopping hunger? Ending homelessness? Growing mature, spiritual youth and children? Do these dreams seem too big? Do they seem too impossible? The truth is that with God all things are possible.
We are in the midst of creating a community garden with McKinley Classical Leadership Academy. (The big school located on Russell Blvd. between Missouri and Mississippi) In the days and weeks to come, we will be tilling ground at the school, building raised bed gardens, and planting plants with the students, staff, and neighbors of McKinley. We will also create container gardens at Centenary that will be used for food at the Bridge and possibly even start a social entrepreneurship from our garden. Everyone is invited to participate in this exciting adventure.
This is only the beginning. We have been invited to sow seeds of tutoring in each of the schools we are connected to McKinley, Sigel, and Hodgens. There are construction projects we will be doing this summer in our various schools to create more nurturing learning environments.
Most importantly, we have been invited to sow life changing seeds through the process of mentoring one child at a time for a school year (or longer) if it is a good match. Just imagine meeting with a boy or girl for a year and building trust with them. Think about the power of cultivating dreams in young people who may have had their dreams crushed out of them.
It is exciting and great fun to play in God’s garden. So, roll up your shirt sleeves, and dig in! The harvest is great, and laborers are needed.
See you at the Harvest Party!
Pastor Kathleen
What dream has God planted in your mind? Is it ending violence? Protecting children? Stopping hunger? Ending homelessness? Growing mature, spiritual youth and children? Do these dreams seem too big? Do they seem too impossible? The truth is that with God all things are possible.
We are in the midst of creating a community garden with McKinley Classical Leadership Academy. (The big school located on Russell Blvd. between Missouri and Mississippi) In the days and weeks to come, we will be tilling ground at the school, building raised bed gardens, and planting plants with the students, staff, and neighbors of McKinley. We will also create container gardens at Centenary that will be used for food at the Bridge and possibly even start a social entrepreneurship from our garden. Everyone is invited to participate in this exciting adventure.
This is only the beginning. We have been invited to sow seeds of tutoring in each of the schools we are connected to McKinley, Sigel, and Hodgens. There are construction projects we will be doing this summer in our various schools to create more nurturing learning environments.
Most importantly, we have been invited to sow life changing seeds through the process of mentoring one child at a time for a school year (or longer) if it is a good match. Just imagine meeting with a boy or girl for a year and building trust with them. Think about the power of cultivating dreams in young people who may have had their dreams crushed out of them.
It is exciting and great fun to play in God’s garden. So, roll up your shirt sleeves, and dig in! The harvest is great, and laborers are needed.
See you at the Harvest Party!
Pastor Kathleen
Time With Sharon - May 2010
On May 24th, 1738, John Wesley, founder of the Methodist movement, felt something remarkable happening to him as he attended a worship service in London. He later wrote in his journal:
“In the evening, I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate-Street…and I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation: and an assurance was given me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine…”
Together with his many brothers and sisters, John Wesley has been involved in church his whole life. His father was an Anglican priest in the Church of England, and his mother, a strong, caring Christian whose stalwart faith greatly influenced her 10 surviving children. John studied at Christ Church College in Oxford, and at the age of 25, was ordained as a priest in the Church. But it wasn’t until that evening on May 24th that he experienced the power of God’s Holy Spirit stirring within him, affirming God’s love for him as a beloved child of God. It was that service to others, it increases the probability of experiencing God’s stirring in our souls. To some it feels like the flutter of butterfly movement of God’s Spirit that propelled his ministry to re-vitalize the church with greater zeal and dedication.
This month, we will celebrate the 272nd year since John wrote about the occasion of his warm heart. Maybe you have your own heart-warming experience. I’d sure love to hear about it. Or maybe you are still waiting.
God’s Spirit can move anyone at anytime, under any circumstance. But it seems that when we place ourselves in service to others, it increases the probability of experiencing God’s stirring in our souls. To some it feels like the flutter of butterfly wings, and to others, like being hit with a brick (in a nice way). But most certainly, it leaves the recipient amazed and craving another encounter.
So I invite you to find a way to serve others with your gifts and graces. Cook a meal, offer a ride, participate in a Hands in Mission event, sit with someone at Fellowship Time after church that is sitting alone. Give of yourself. And while you’re busy, and least expecting it, may God stir your soul, and your heart be strangely warmed.
See you Sunday,
Pastor Sharon
“In the evening, I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate-Street…and I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation: and an assurance was given me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine…”
Together with his many brothers and sisters, John Wesley has been involved in church his whole life. His father was an Anglican priest in the Church of England, and his mother, a strong, caring Christian whose stalwart faith greatly influenced her 10 surviving children. John studied at Christ Church College in Oxford, and at the age of 25, was ordained as a priest in the Church. But it wasn’t until that evening on May 24th that he experienced the power of God’s Holy Spirit stirring within him, affirming God’s love for him as a beloved child of God. It was that service to others, it increases the probability of experiencing God’s stirring in our souls. To some it feels like the flutter of butterfly movement of God’s Spirit that propelled his ministry to re-vitalize the church with greater zeal and dedication.
This month, we will celebrate the 272nd year since John wrote about the occasion of his warm heart. Maybe you have your own heart-warming experience. I’d sure love to hear about it. Or maybe you are still waiting.
God’s Spirit can move anyone at anytime, under any circumstance. But it seems that when we place ourselves in service to others, it increases the probability of experiencing God’s stirring in our souls. To some it feels like the flutter of butterfly wings, and to others, like being hit with a brick (in a nice way). But most certainly, it leaves the recipient amazed and craving another encounter.
So I invite you to find a way to serve others with your gifts and graces. Cook a meal, offer a ride, participate in a Hands in Mission event, sit with someone at Fellowship Time after church that is sitting alone. Give of yourself. And while you’re busy, and least expecting it, may God stir your soul, and your heart be strangely warmed.
See you Sunday,
Pastor Sharon
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