|
2008 Montana Synod Assembly & Theological Conference in Billings.
On June 6th we took a beautiful drive across Montana to attend the 2008 Synod Assembly & Theological Conference in Billings. The “big sky” was breath taking.
The theme of the conference was “Living Faith in a World of Fear: Global Mission - Global Mission.”
Pastor Benson presented the Bible Study to the assembly. He spoke on how we live out our faith in a fearful world. This means living by the river of life, beneath God’s tree of life....and the leaves of the tree are for healing. It was very well received!
Dr. Wanda Diefelt, was the keynote speaker. She is the Associate Professor of Religion at Luther College. Diefelt spoke about her life in South America. It was so interesting. She was the first in her family to achieve a higher education, giving credit to the Lutheran Church who awarded her scholarships. The Women of ALC sponsored one woman from South Africa to be theologically trained then return to their native land to teach. Rev. Dr. Wanda Diefelt’s story and what she has to say is definitely worth your time to read about.
There was so many interesting topics to pick from in the breakout sessions. I picked “Don’t Shake with your left hand: Culture in development.” Through real life stories we explored the importance of cultural context in development work and discussed how it is used effectively by ELCA World Hunger & Lutheran World Relief projects, by Mark Goitz, Montana Synod World Hunger Coordinator. It was excellent.
The second session I attended was “Developing Cultural Competency.” We did exercises on effectively communicating with all people in the room, where everyone was invited to participate in, presented by Stacy Kitahata, Region 1 Coordinator for Evangelical Outreach.
It was an honor and a privilege to attend, thank you for sending me.
Sara Hedahl
|
