Red Sea

For the last several weeks the lectionary readings for the Hebrew Scriptures have been in Exodus. This last Sunday the reading was about Moses crossing the Red Sea.

For my children's time in the service I looked in my file and got out a booklet of children's art that I had collected quite a number of years ago from the children in our Vacation Bible School/Day Camp when they were talking about the Exodus narrative.

The picture at the top of this article is one of the illustrations of Moses walking through the midst of the parted waters. For some reason I had always assumed that the reason for using red for the water was simply that the red crayon was in the child's hand at the time. As we were talking in children's time I finally realized that the reason for the red water in the picture is because it was the Red Sea.

I was once again reminded that kids see the world in their own way. And if we pay careful attention we may see and hear the scripture in fresh ways by attending to a child's point of view.

Just Coffee

A request came in yesterday's mail from Churches United, our local church coalition, to help sell "fair trade" coffee to benefit their program. For more information look at http://www.churchesunited.net/.


I was reminded again that the second most traded international product, after oil, is coffee! Coffee is an international product that comes from warmer areas of the world - Central and South America, Africa, Sumatra and such. The best coffee is produced by labor intensive methods with hand picking, sorting, drying and packing. With coffee being such an important international product, it is actually pretty significant if people of good will change their buying patterns.


In the last several years there has been a movement to pay higher prices directly to coffee producers, rather than to have them sell to wholesalers at depressed prices. The resulting product is known as "fair trade coffee" because the price paid to producers seems more fair. These coffee growers participate in cooperatives that set high standards and coach the producers on such things as organic production, growing coffee in the shade and growing coffee in a bird friendly way.

Such fair trade coffee is marketed in at least three ways.

Some of the cooperatives market their product directly to consumers over the internet. Just google "just coffee" or "Mut Vitz" to find some of these botique producers.



Many church groups sell coffee at their churches to benefit these small producers. I know that in Rock Island I can buy excellent coffee at Broadway Presbyterian Church and St James Lutheran Church. They sell high quality coffee as a service to their members and as a mission project for the larger church. I bet the product that Churches United is selling is this sort of coffee.


The third way, and the way which to me shows the most promise, is to look for and buy coffee in my local market with the "fair trade" logo on the package. Target has several varieties with their Archer Brands label. I can find a "fair trade" coffee at my local HyVee, but I must look carefully. I can find one kind of Seattle's Best that is "fair trade." The reason that I like the logo option is for convenience. Also, if buyers like our family provide a market for a product it will be supplied. Our family buys no coffee other than "fair trade," and it is good to reinforce our local grocers when they do something right.



"Fair trade" coffee is for the most part excellent, high end coffee. It is a superior product that comes from folks taking pride in producing a product that they make with their own hands.


Another element to buying "fair trade" coffee is that it is a positive step the immigration issue. It is commonly agreed that most people would prefer to live in their home country and with their family if they are able to make a living while doing so. By providing a better price to coffee producers we help make it possible for some Mexicans from Chiapas and some Guatemalans to make a living while remaining at home.



Here are some photos. The Seattle's Best coffee shows the "fair trade" logo as the little black and white seal on the front of the package. The "Caracolillo" coffee produced by Just Coffee was purchased on the internet. Caracolillo means 'little snail' and corresponds with the illustration on the front of the package.

Home Damaged

Here is a clipping of the Lerch family home that was damaged July 21 in Rock Island.

Without Power

I drove to the church in a hard rain on Monday morning, July 21 to find that a very strong wind had blown through Rock Island. The closer I came to the church the more debris was in the street and when I came the last few blocks there was no electrical power.

At church there was neither electrical power nor telephone service. With our cell phones we received word that our Work Camps Director, Erin, was unable to come to church because a very large tree had fallen in the driveway of the family home and she was unable to move her car. There was a work camp group from Southern Illinois at the church waiting to go to work that day to help rehabilitate some housing. Our partner, Project NOW called to say that they were unable to receive the group.

I walked over to the parsonage and asked if they wanted to help alleviate storm damage. Their answer was "Sure!"

We drove to the 1400 block of 45th Avenue in Rock Island, where Erin's family lives. Their home is right next door to a family from our church. The church family had a 140 year old oak tree uprooted next to the driveway. It had fallen on the roof of their home. The family was in the yard. The house was uninhabitable. To date they living in a motel waiting for the repair of their home.

The work camp group helped several families remove tree limbs that had fallen. I think their presence also represented an encouragement.

Well, the church was without electrical power until Thursday, July 24. We served sack lunches in the front yard to kids who came for the summer lunch program. Our big concern was that we had hundreds of dollars invested in frozen food for the lunch program. In the photo above you can see my Honda generator outside the front door supplying power for the freezer.

We tend to forget how much we depend on electricity till it is gone for a time. The good point was that people actually talked with each other more since the television sets were off.

Confirmation Class

The confirmation class resumed last night, this was the first Wednesday after Labor Day. The Church of Peace was a German language congregation when it was first organized in 1895. At that time the denomination was called "German Evangelical" or Deutches Evangelische, and being part of the Lutheran family of churches, has taken confirmation pretty seriously since its beginning.

The class meets weekly during the school year for a two year period. I worked through the class schedule for this 2008-2009 year and there are twenty-seven class meetings! That means a youth should attend over fifty class meetings as part of their experience.

This year the major topics are the Bible and the History of the Church. The alternate year is the Mission of the Church and we talk about faith. One of the wonderful elements of the two year class taught by the pastor is that I get to know youth in the church pretty well. That is a privilege.

This church has kept careful records of those who have been confirmed here. When we had our 100 year anniversary we compiled the names of those who had been confirmed in this community of faith and published a booklet. There are some 1400 names. The names are listed both chronologically and alphabetically, so this booklet would be a help to those doing genealogical research.

Here is a photo of Courtney and Michael who were confirmed on Palm Sunday 2006.

Beautiful Gift

Last May a lifelong member of the Church of Peace, Nancy Snyder, died suddenly. She was a single person and her brothers and their families made all of the arrangements and when the funeral had been completed one of the brothers called me on the phone. He explained that Nancy had carried forward a collection of Hummel nativity figures that may have been established by their mother, Marge, or may have been begun by a family friend, Mildred Lamp. In any case, after family discussion, they wanted to make these figures a gift to the church.

In this photo they have been set up by our Altar Guild chairperson so that the council could see them. They are stored away and will be used at Advent and Christmas. What a beautiful gift. And beyond their beauty, what an honor that a collection made with love over years and years has found a place to be shared in the church.

Labor Day Parade

This morning a group of members from the Church of Peace participated in the Labor Day Parade in Rock Island. It was a nice, cool, day and we stepped off soon after the 9:30 start time and were done by 11 am. We ended at the home of one of our church members, Myrna Adams, and watched more of the parade from her front yard.

Our group was about twenty persons. Mainly it was the church brass band playing songs from the back of a hay wagon. The theme for the parade this year was trains - you know, "the Rock Island Line..." So the songs included Do the Locomotion, This Train is Bound for Glory, Gospel train and the Rock Island Line.

We also had walkers handing out candy and literature. Two persons carried the "God Is Still Speaking" banner published by our national United Church of Christ.

Here is a photo of my wife Nancy and I waiting for the beginning of the parade a few years back when the theme was "cartoon characters." I am Shreck and Nancy is Minnie Mouse.