COVID-19 Relief in India with Lutheran Disaster Response
Over the past two months, a surge of COVID-19 cases has ravaged India. Padhar Hospital, a ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Madhya Pradesh, has a ward dedicated to COVID-19 patients. Unfortunately, the hospital is currently being forced to turn away patients because it lacks the space and oxygen to support them. Lutheran Disaster Response is helping Padhar Hospital purchase an oxygen generator for its COVID-19 ward so it can treat more patients. For the past year, Lutheran Disaster Response has supported companion churches and partners throughout India and around the world as they raise awareness about COVID-19, provide personal protective equipment and distribute sanitation supplies to vulnerable communities. GIVE NOW.
A New Heaven and a New Earth
Each year, Creation Justice Ministries offers Christian education materials that equip faith communities to protect, restore, and more rightly share God’s creation. The 2021 theme is “A New Heaven and a New Earth,” with materials focusing on health, environmental racism, and eco-justice. SIGN UP | DOWNLOAD
Music is Personal and Universal | La Música es Personal y Universal
“How can I keep from singing?” In her May column for Living Lutheran, ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton notes that music, like God’s love, is at the same time deeply personal, sounding deep within an individual’s soul, and universal, ringing out to an entire community. Read her column in English: Music is Personal and Universal o lee su columna en español: La Música es Personal y Universal.
Featured Resources for June
LIRS (Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service) invites you and your congregation to infuse new meaning into the phrase welcome the stranger. Join us in celebrating the resilience and courage of refugees and migrants in America — and in your own community!
Migrant and Refugee Sunday (pick a Sunday in June)
World Refugee Day – June 20
2021 theme: Together we heal, learn and shine
World Refugee Day is an international day designated by the United Nations to honour refugees around the globe. It falls each year on June 20 and celebrates the strength and courage of people who have been forced to flee their home country to escape conflict or persecution. World Refugee Day is an occasion to build empathy and understanding for their plight and to recognize their resilience in rebuilding their lives.
World Refugee Day was held globally for the first time on June 20, 2001, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. It was originally known as Africa Refugee Day, before the United Nations General Assembly officially designated it as an international day in December 2000.
If you have questions or would like to share your plans for World Refugee Day, please contact hqwrd@unhcr.org. Access the World Refugee Day toolkit here.
Where in the world is?
Across a context as wide and different as NT-NL, the reality of Covid-19 is very different. As such, NT-NL synod staff are doing more in-person Sunday visits for worship and occasional meetings. However, as good stewards of time and travel dollars, we will be utilizing online meeting formats into our new hybrid future. Until we can assure everyone in attendance at a meeting are vaccinated, in order to protect those gathered, the synod staff will continue to wear masks unless preaching or presiding and sufficient social distancing can be provided.
Bishop Gronberg:
Jun. 6: Installation of Pr. Will Foster, Trinity, Fort Worth
Jun. 20: Family Baptism, Milwaukee, WI
Jun. 27: Ascension, Garland
Pastor Totzke:
Jun. 1: First Call Pastors retreat, Zoom
Jun. 3: Interim/Transitional Pastors meeting, Zoom
Jun. 6: Trinity, Wichita Falls, then to the Installation of Pr. Will Foster, Trinity, Fort Worth
Jun. 12: Faithful Innovation training, Conference Out West, Zoom
Jun. 13: Grace, Carrollton
Jun. 17-22: Vacation time
Pastora Bañales:
Jun. 1: DEM gathering
Jun. 2: Santa Maria (McArthur), Irving
Jun. 5: MEF board meeting
Jun. 7: ELCA Coaching Level 2 Mission Development & Congregational Vitality training
Jun. 9: ELCA Boundaries training
Jun. 10: ELCA Congregational Vitality – Revitalizing Training, followed by LIRS Orientation
Jun. 12: XV celebration, Santa Maria (McArthur), Irving
Jun. 19: Umoja International Chapel, Fort Worth
Jun. 22: LIRS Virtual Advocacy Day for World Refugee Day
Jun. 24: ELCA Congregational Community & Leadership all staff meeting
Jun. 29: Joy, Rockwall
Upcoming Events
With the ever-changing guidelines and recommendations in our world right now, as we maintain physical distance in social solidarity, please keep in mind these events may be moved online, postponed, or cancelled:
- Jun. 3: Transitional (Interim) Pastors monthly meeting, Zoom
- Jun. 8: White Supremacy & Racism: Facing Reality, Taking Responsibility – Derrick Bell, “Chronicle of the Constitutional Contradiction,” Zoom
- Jun. 12: Public Witness Team meeting, Online
- Jun. 22: White Supremacy & Racism: Facing Reality, Taking Responsibility – Selections from Bernestine Singley, ed., When Race Becomes Real: Black and White Writers Confront Their Personal Histories, Zoom
- Jul. 1: Transitional (Interim) Pastors monthly meeting, Zoom
Access our full online Calendar here. Updates made regularly.
Do you have news or announcements to share? Please submit to Jason (jason@ntnl.org) for consideration for upcoming editions of our weekly news.