Monthly Archives: May 2017

Shruti Merchant had a problem when she moved to San Francisco a few years ago.

She didnt really know anyone in the SF scene and, because she was working all the time, didnt really have a chance to get connected to a group she could call her own.

Its an old story for anyone moving out to a new place, but for Merchant, and others like her, the idea that there can be a better way to move to a place, and live in a city, has led to the creation of new co-living spaces.

In the old days, these spaces (once called communes by a generation less capitalizedbut perhaps no less idealistic) grew organically around shared interests and common themes and a rejection of what were the prevailing social norms of the day.

But now, as with many other things, the counter-culture of days past has been commoditized, capitalized and sanitized. The youthful idealism remains, but the song, certainly, is not the same.

Rather than sifting through online listings, or living alone in an apartment for one, we started HubHaus to offer an easy way for professionals to find quality shared housing solutions with a true sense of community, Shruti writes in a blog post about the new financing the company has received.

That shared community is young, urban, professional and mobile.

We do all the work from creating welcoming homes in neighborhoods you want to live in and setting up Wi-Fi and utilities to furnishing the place and finding people youll love living with, Merchant writes to her prospective customers.

General Catalyst has bought the pitch, leading the companys $1.4 million first financing. And other investors find similar magic in the co-living model (although Im not sure why). Common another apartment developer with designs around designing communities has raised $23.3 million in financing so far from investors, including 8VC, Maveron and Grand Central Tech.

Before both of these startups, there was Campus, which billed itself as a co-living company in the early days of the latest iteration of this particular living trend. The company launched, expandedand shuttered its doors in the span of a few years.

Our own former correspondent and longtime contributor, Kim Mai Cutler, took a turn in the co-living startup world when she worked at Roam Co-living, a multi-national twist on the concept that raised $3.4 million from investors, including the Collaborative Fund.

All of these fledgling startups pale in comparison to the true giants that are trying to muscle their way in to this new paradigm for urban (international) living.

WeWork, the $3.69 billion micro-office space real estate developer, is getting into the co-living game with WeLive, offering rooms for rent in Washington and New York, and the real estate owner, operator and developer Property Management Group, which launched PMGx to pitch to debt-laden, young, urban professionals.

Questions abound around all of these intentional communities and co-living spaces. How do they integrate with their communities? What are they doing to ensurefair rental and housing practices for minorities? What impact do these capitalized property owners and managers have on housing stores and the creation of real, lasting communities?

Lizzie Widdicomb, writing in The New Yorker roughly a year ago,laid out a beautiful history of the ever-changingconundrum that isliving for the city. She writes:

As a new, mobile workforce flooded into cities, demanding more freedom, boarding houses were largely replaced by cheap hotels designed for long-term stays. [Paul Groth, a professor of urban geography at the University of California, Berkeley] said, As late as 1930, maybe one housing unit in ten was some variation of a residential hotel. The Barbizon, a womens-only establishment at Lexington Avenue and Sixty-third Street, opened in 1927, when large numbers of women were beginning to work outside the home. To its guests, the Barbizon offered closet-size rooms and lavish shared facilities: a beauty parlor, a swimming pool, a sun deck, Turkish baths, a coffee shop, squash and badminton courts, a solarium, and a roof garden. To their parents, it offered the assurance of respectability: chaperones roamed the hallways, and men were not allowed above the first floor. Sylvia Plath, a resident in the nineteen-fifties, featured the Barbizon in The Bell Jar, where it appears as the Amazon, a hotel for rich young women who were all going to posh secretarial schools.

By the nineteen-sixties, hotel life had given way to the new dream: a place of ones own. In the sitcom That Girl, which premired in 1966, Marlo Thomas played an aspiring actress, Ann Marie, who moves to New York to try to make it while working a series of odd jobs: waitress, department-store elf. In the shows second episode, a friendly doorman helps her move into her own apartment. Standing on the threshold, she announces, Im my own occupant! Like Ann Marie, young women seized one-bedrooms near First and Second Avenues, which became known for singles bars and stew zoosbuildings packed with female flight attendants. The inaugural issue of Cosmopolitan called the neighborhood The Girl Ghetto: Thousands upon thousands of single girls flock to the upper East Side, cramming themselves into small apartments, subsisting on an apple and a quart of diet soda a day, waiting for a telephone to ring and having a mad, wonderful time.

Update Marlo Thomas careers to Instagram model, social influencer or no there are still department store elves but you get the idea. That picture of the late-20th century isnt really all that different from the beginning of the 21st.

As long as there have been cities, and single people who want to live in them,businesses will find new ways to cater to their whims and wants. The co-living phenomenon isnt that much different than what came before it except in its organization and its capitalization.

Still, Merchant believes in the dream and its magic.

Writing about the companys appeal, Merchant describes a living space and its notion of a shared community like this:

The real magic of HubHaus comes with the shared community that we havebuilt. Members immediately gain access to 100s of other people in thenetwork, and are invited to a variety of member-only events. Moreimportantly, theyre welcomed into their new family and bond withhousemates over monthly dinners, mixers, and just day-to-day life.While many members move in for the low rent prices, most end up staying for the connections that they make.

And there are pressures to make co-living more attractive. The rent in most cities is too damn high, and, in many cases for young professionals, their incomes are probably too damn low. Beyond that, theres something to be said for finding new ways to network and communicate in a world where everyone is LinkedIn, Facebook-friended, Instagram-followed and ephemerally Snapped. Real human connection can be hard to come by. Just ask these guys:

However, amid all the hubbub and hoo-hah around these new businesses springing up to cater to millennials whore tired of suburban living and want to be in dense, community-minded geographies, a counter-narrative is emerging.

Younger folks may be embracing the suburbs with the same zeal that their parents (or grandparents?) did. Community and culture may be key for the experience generation, but Im pretty sure that you can find those things any place where theres well community and culture. So, while this flirtation with co-living may be an option for urbanites, its not one thats particularly novel. Just a new melody for the same old chorus of moving, and living, in the world.

View post:

Co-living gets more cash as shared housing developer HubHaus raises $1.4 million - TechCrunch

The road through Santa Cruz del Quich is hectic, with tuk-tuks, buses, motorcycles and people carrying heavy loads of produce and wood on their backs through the narrow asphalt road lined with high embankments and yawning stray dogs.

It's the front door to the highlands of Guatemala, about four hours west of the capital, and to find the road north to San Pedro Jocopilas, I stop to ask locals for directions on street corners. I watch how their hands point, then I meander out of town and make a sloppy left onto a cobblestone road when I see the sign: Centro de Paz Brbara Ford.

The road is quiet, lined with open fields with harvested corn, small adobe houses and colorful laundry drying in the sun. Not too long ago, the 36 years of civil war between the state forces and the guerrillas separated families and took lives here.

The civil war began after the United States financially backed a military coup in 1954 that overthrew leftist Jacobo Arbenz Guzmn.

One of the most violent periods of this era was General Efran Ros Montt's 18-month presidency, which began in 1982 after a military coup, and resulted in about 200,000 dead, mostly indigenous people. There were death squads, executions, forced disappearances and torture of noncombatants.

Most of the human rights violations occurred under Ros Montt's destroy-all-opponents policy called "scorched earth." By the time the Peace Accords were signed Dec. 29, 1996, thousands had been killed or disappeared, families separated and the social fabric torn apart.

At the end of the cobblestone road is the Barbara Ford Peace Center, which sits on a serene, wooded property and houses a conference center, eco-park, sustainable farm with goats and rabbits, a professional cafeteria, honey production, and various entrepreneurial projects mainly run by young people. I have come to meet with Sr. Virginia Searing, a Sister of Charity of New York and the center's director who months after her 75th birthday reflected on her two decades of work in Guatemala and at the center, a nonprofit she co-founded that focuses on human and spiritual development through different programs.

Sr. Virginia Searing, director of the Barbara Ford Peace Building Center in Guatemala, celebrates her 75th birthday and more than two decades of work in Guatemala. (Kara Andrade)

When Searing arrived in the 1990s, she, Sr. Barbara Ford and a team of health promoters noticed the people they were helping still had nightmares and psychosomatic illnesses that were not talked about.

"We could walk down a street in Quich, and literally, it was ex-army, ex-guerillas, and it wasn't safe here," Searing said. "So people were still very afraid. Nobody talked to anybody until we started our mental health program."

GSR: What was your spiritual upbringing, and how does it relate to the work that you do now?

Searing: I never considered myself as someone who would become a Sister of Charity. As a matter of fact, I got the call from a sister who was putting a little pressure on me, and my first reaction was: "No way!"

I couldn't imagine I would be a sister. I always was in trouble in school. I used to always give the sister a hard time. I entered the Sisters of Charity in 1960, and I said, "Well, let me go, and if I don't like it, I will get out." But I have to tell you that from day one, Sept. 8, 1960, when I went to Mount Saint Vincent to this beautiful novitiate house on the Hudson River [in New York], I never looked back. I couldn't imagine that I was going to love it so much.

How do you see the Holy Spirit in the work that you are doing with the Barbara Ford Peace Center?

Any service, any teaching, anything that we do to create life among us is a part of my spirituality.

It is a question of living life so it becomes fully developed because community life was key for me. With the sisters and their intentional community, we learned to love one another and believe that in loving one another is how we were growing in our own spirituality.

Coming to Guatemala in 1993 and meeting these wonderful people taught me that they have an incredible spirituality. The Maya spirituality and also Mayans who were converted to be Christians because of the Spanish invasion, their beautiful Mayan spirituality just radiated right through them. When they talked about the heart of the Earth and the heart of the heavens they believe in a god that is tangible, present and, of course, growing with them and learning with them and sharing with them I grew deeper in my own spirituality.

My spirituality has always been about finding God in the present moment, living that present moment. Even if I met somebody and I had some kind of problem with somebody, I consider that a call for me to change that into blessing, to change that into the ability to be one.

Sr. Virginia Searing, director of the Barbara Ford Peace Building Center in San Pedro Jocopilas, Guatemala, speaks to a group of participants during one of the Centers comprehensive health programs in April 2017. (Kara Andrade)

Could you describe what is unique about what you and the other sisters who helped create this are doing at the Barbara Ford Peace Center?

I believe that being fully human is being fully spiritual. The mission is to create citizens men, women, young people, boys and girls to be critical, to be able to be in a process of integrated human spiritual development. They do that at their own level, the level of their family, the level of the community, and by doing that, they are allowing themselves and their communities to live in peace and in justice.

We have programs for what we call comprehensive health or integrated health. We also have human rights, and all of our programs do the same thing. For example, in the integrated health program, we work with teenage pregnant women, girls who were abused, violated, and young girls who did not become pregnant but were also violated. Sexual abuse is at the highest level, incest is epidemic, so how does one sit down next to a young girl that has been raped every day or a woman that has been raped every day and came out of the violence, and how do we do that in a way that is not obtrusive?

I do believe that in many of the practices we do, we are allowing them very gracefully and very slowly to begin to tell their story. We allow them to listen to music, to walk the music. We allow them to do painting. We do a lot of alternative types of education, all with the idea that they are slowly, gradually beginning to tell their story and to let the silent within them come out, and as it does, they begin to believe [in] the actions they are doing. There is a breathing exercise, whether it is saying words like, "I love myself, I trust myself, I feel like getting healed" whatever the practice that they are doing, it is helping them to really believe that healing is taking place.

In El Quich, it was a genocide. Every man, woman and children are now in the second and third generation, but we still work with midwives, with women working with other women, and without a doubt, all of them probably were raped, some by the soldiers, others by their own husbands after the violence was over, because many men who came out of being a soldier were being civil patrol or being part of the guerrillas even, so they never had a healing process to get [through] that anger and terrible experience of the war. So violence is still pretty prevalent within the home. So how do we allow these men and women to be able to get in touch with that finally?

The Barbara Ford Peace Building Center in San Pedro Jocopilas, Guatemala, has gardens that bloom in April 2017. The Center is a nonprofit Sr. Virginia Searing co-founded to help victims of Guatemalas armed conflict. (Kara Andrade)

How do we get them so they can learn how to relate to others in a nonviolent way? We have programs [for teenagers] that incorporate not just the opportunities per employment, but we have a lot of the integrated health so they learn how to deal with their emotions.

They do practices to actually have alternative ways [to manage their emotions]. They can use massage, they can use acupressure points: So much of it has scientific, biological background that just by doing some of these practices, healing takes place. Even if the situation of violence doesn't change, so many of the young women have learned that maybe they can't change their situation right now, but when I do have the circumstances I can protect myself, and I can't allow the violence outside to come inside.

What have been some of the challenges for you in working with this region and the work that you are doing? What challenges contributed to the center?

The challenge for me was with all the exhumations [in search of victims of Ros Montt's "scorched earth" policy to give them a proper burial], with the sleeping out in the mountains of Nebaj and some of those areas where we did the exhumations of clandestine graves. Strange as it may seem, these were some of the happiest years of my life because I was able to really be with the people, exhume the bodies of their loved ones and accompany them not only in that moment. With the mental health program, we sometimes went once or twice a month and listened to their stories, to their pain, and experienced how they cried and shouted out what happened to them, and then accompanied them and helped them find their loved ones in a clandestine grave.

This was out in the woods. They didn't bury those people in their village, they buried them in the mountains and that is where we went, that is how we spent weeks until we could finish the process. We were helping them with their mental health.

What is one thing that you have learned in your time in Guatemala and the work that you have done that you wish you had known when you started this work?

The truth that I would want every human being to know is, how do we accompany that young person, that young girl, that young boy, so that they can love themselves more, they can respect themselves more? The young girl who doesn't understand what her sexuality is, how could we help that young girl to say no, to love her mind and to love her spirit?

Sr. Virginia Searing, director of the Barbara Ford Peace Building Center in Guatemala, celebrates her 75th birthday and more than two decades of work in Guatemala. (Kara Andrade)

How do we make people who come to the Barbara Ford Peace Center, whether they stay for a year or two years, feel their lives are changed, that they are transformed and that what we did is, we helped them to be transformed themselves? If we give them the right words and the right experiences, they can truly live the rest of their lives in a way that is more peaceful, more full of justice lives that are full of dignity, which is what every human being deserves.

[Kara Andrade is a Guatemalan-American researcher, journalist and entrepreneur who focuses on Latin America, media, technology and society.]

Link:

Q & A with Sr. Virginia Searing, building peace after decades of Guatemalan civil war - Global Sisters Report (blog)

TRI-COUNTY TIMES | HANNAH BALL

Second-grade students at Linden Elementary created Mini Michigan, which is their interpretation of how a city should be built. They used boxes, construction paper, glue and other craft materials to build the police station, the school, and other structures.

TRI-COUNTY TIMES | HANNAH BALL

TRI-COUNTY TIMES | HANNAH BALL

TRI-COUNTY TIMES | HANNAH BALL

TRI-COUNTY TIMES | HANNAH BALL

TRI-COUNTY TIMES | HANNAH BALL

Posted: Tuesday, May 23, 2017 5:24 pm

Young city planners create their ideal cities Tri-County Times | Fenton, MI Hannah Ball Staff Reporter Tri-County Times |

Linden If it were up to second-graders at Linden Elementary, their city would have a college called Unicorn University and Hyatt Elementary would have a huge water park.

The youngest city planners unveiled their box city projects Thursday, May 11 at Linden Elementary, where they showed off their ideas to Linden City Councilor and Planning Commission member Ray Culbert and City Manager Paul Zelenak. Each school made its own city, which was laid out on the gym floor.

Second-grade teachers Sarah Mawhinney and Elizabeth Clarke organized the event and worked with the kids.

Building this city truly is a fun project that helps children get a sense of what kind of characteristics go into a community. They needed to understand the basic parts of a community before planning to build their own city, Mawhinney said. Going through the democratic voting process to select the city name, as well as selecting plots of land to build on were very intentional activities to simulate real communities. This is an important and pretty creative activity to help guide our second-grade Social Studies curriculum in Linden.

Hyatt students named their city Eagle City and Linden Elementary students chose the name Mini Michigan.

Linden city officials talked with the children and told them what usually goes into a city, like residential areas, government buildings, stores, parks, churches, and other buildings. From there, the kids used boxes, construction paper, glue, tape and other craft materials to construct their buildings to create a city.

They designed hospitals, hardware stores, water parks, and other structures with their imaginations.

Culbert said it went wonderful this year. I think the thing that amazes me is how smart the children are. They seem to know right away what belongs in a city and thats great... I had one kid that said, You know what our city really needs is WiFi. He said thats the most important thing.

Posted in News for Fenton, Linden, Holly MI on Tuesday, May 23, 2017 5:24 pm.

Originally posted here:

Young city planners create their ideal cities - Fenton Tri County Times

May 23, 2017 | Budapest, Hungary | Costin Jordache, director of communication/news editor, Adventist Review

Attendees of the Reach the World Leadership Conference listen to Mark Finley preach during the Sabbath program [photo credit: Tibor Farago]

Close to 400 delegates from more than 60 countries made their way to a beautiful, old city to participate in a historic event from May 10-14. Amidst ancient structures perched along Europes iconic Danube River, Seventh-day Adventist ministry leaders from around the globe gathered in Budapest, Hungary for the first-ever International Leadership Conference focused on issues impacting families, women and children.

The gathering was unique as three separate departments from the Seventh-day Adventist world headquarters in Silver Spring, MarylandFamily, Womens and Childrens Ministriesjoined forces to address critical issues facing the three distinct, yet interconnected groups. The conference was themed,Reach the World, in line with the Adventist Churchs strategic plan to emphasize the unmet needs within communities around the world.

This event is like a magnifying glass that focuses the energies of the church on where to bring the hope of Christ, his grace and soon return, said Doug Venn, coordinator for Mission to the Cities and director of the Global Mission Urban Center for the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Venn coordinates the initiative to reach the fifty-one percent of the worlds population currently living in large cities. Throughout the event, Venns team displayed increasing amounts of postcards brought by delegates on a wall, surrounding a sign that read I Want This City.

Organizers emphasized this community-centered approach in a number of ways, including making intentional time for dialogue and conversation, allowing attendees to better understand how to reach families, women and children within their communities. "We will learn and grow together, said Raafat Kamal, president of the church in the Trans-European region, whose world church territory hosted the milestone conference. People are hungry for a spiritual diet of substance and hope.

A unique moment was marked with an introduction from the Hungarian Minister of State for Churches, Minorities and Civil Affairs, Mikls Soltsz. Soltsz emphasized the need for faith communities to address societal challenges by sharing Christian values. It looks like we live in a better age, said Soltsz. In many countries we have many opportunities. But there is a question. Do we recognize all the problems and fears that are all around us?

Tams csai, president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Hungary, recognized the significance of the Ministers address, stating that this means for us that the government would like to help all churches, including the Seventh-day Adventist Church, maintain Christian values, and we appreciative very much that he was willing to come and support our church.

The first keynote of the of the multi-day conference was delivered by Dr. Ella Simmons, general vice president for the World Church. Simmons was clear and direct in her description of the modern family unit, an image characterized by significant dysfunction. She shared her deep interest in in how families live together after the divorce of her own parents at an early age.

Simmons focused most of her thoughts on the biblical story of Jacob and Esau, pointing out the significant dysfunction within that family unit. She concluded most of the alienation within families occurs due to lack of forgiveness present in broken relationships and she challenged Church leaders and members to take seriously the ministry of reconciliation entrusted to believers by Christ. Sometimes you cant just build the bridge, explained Simmons, you have to be the bridge to reconciliation.

Driving home the very reason the conference was organized, Simmons reminded attendees that if we want to reach the world we need to remember that the first victories must be won in the home life.

Another notable aspect to the conference was the presence of Dr. George Barna, well-known author, researcher and statistician, whose researched has informed the Christian community around the world for decades. Barna, who delivered two plenary session lectures, informed the crowd that even though his ancestry is Hungarian it was his first time in the Eastern European country.

Barna spared no time unleashing a slew of new US-based statistics, gathered by his current firm, American Culture & Faith Institute. He encouraged those from other countries to understand the principles behind the numbers that point to trends around the world. He spent most of his time unpacking the concept of worldviewa set of filters by which we perceive the world around usand the impact society is having on younger generations.

His 2017 survey revealed that while 58-70% of parents see value in their children being exposed to extended family gatherings, church services, art exhibits and the Bible, children on average spend only two hours per week on these activities. In contrast, 33-43% of parents do not see value in their children being exposed to professional sports, television news, online content and current movies, yet children on average spend seven hours per day on these and related activities.

Statistically a very small amount of younger people have what he called a biblical worldview, said Barnaonly 4% of 18-30 year-olds and 7% of 30-49 year-olds. We are in a crisis, Barna said. If the Church does not wake up and solve it, biblical Christianity in the United States is in jeopardy.

Barna then turned his attention squarely to parents, offering a statistical call to parental responsibility. He pointed out that while children form their worldview by the age of 13, only 5% of parents with 5-13 year-old children in the US have a biblical worldview. Our children usually make their spiritual choices by default, acquiescing to cultural norms, he concluded.

Barna ended on a positive note, emphasizing that though not easy, worldviews can be changed through proper asking of questions and meaningful dialogue with children and teens, in an effort to dislodge what culture has placed in their minds.

Barna sees tremendous value in the Seventh-day Adventist Church organizing a global summit to address family-related issues. The world is changing so rapidly and so radically, that traditional approaches and strategies are not enough, Barna toldAdventist Review. The Church needs to understand the latest research available, and the meaning behind the data if we are to effectively grow disciples.

Organizers, emphasizing the conferencesReach the Worldmotto, resonated with Barnas conclusion. Parents must be intentional about making sure sound biblical values are passed on to their children on a daily basis through family worship, and by modeling godly living, said Willie Oliver, director of family ministries for the Adventist World Church and one of the organizers.

You can't get more missional than this. Because, when we have strong families, we will have a strong church, that can share the gospel with power and joy, and help hasten the coming of Jesus Christ.

Attendees also reacted positively to Barnas research. Dr. Barna has done practical research on practical issues, said Samson Nganga a member who traveled from South Africa for the conference. So as a church, we cant remain nave about the things happening around us. Sometimes we preach from the mountaintop and were totally disengaged with the people in the flock. We need good research to give us insights into leadership.

Closely related to Barnas research was content presented by Dr. Kiti Freier Randalla pediatric neurodevelopmental psychologist from Loma Linda University Health. Randall, who works extensively with at-risk childrenemphasized from the beginning the role the home plays in childhood development. Although other supportive institutions in society play a role, it is in the family that nurture is effective and meaningful.

Randall contrasted the idyllic statement with the reality that children around the world are at risk from a great number of factors. Lack of access to education, especially for girls, is a significant risk, leading to other risk factors such as poverty, drug use and an increased rate of teen pregnancy and gang violence. Childhood obesity is another risk factor, leading to serious lifelong consequences.

At the same time, malnutrition and starvation continue to present a risk to children around the world, in addition to abuse of various kinds. Randall explained in detail the effects of trauma and abuse, including showing a brain scan that showed a visible difference in the brain of an abuse victim. Trauma, abuse and neglect actually change the architecture of the brain, said Randall, who also informed participants that if a child is born healthy and they die before one year-old, the number one reason they will die is because their parents will kill them.

Randall also spoke to a controversial subject, the risk factor involving technology addiction. Too much, or misused technology can impact a childs physical and mental health, she explained, leading to negative impacts such as sleep disturbances, depression and anxiety. To spontaneous applause from attendees, the pediatric psychologist challenged parents not to expose children under two years of age to technology. It is wrong when technology is raising our children, she said.

In her second presentation, Randall offered a bright spot to the daunting realities she began with. Science is focusing increasingly on the idea of resilience, the capacity to maintain or develop competent functioning in the face of major life stressors. Factors such as social support, connectedness, meaningful activity and exercise all lead to increased resiliency.

When asked by theAdventist Reviewhow these insights impact the Adventist Church, Randall said that from her work of 30 years with the highest at-risk children in the world, she realized that what they need, our church has to offer. Our church has all the elements that we need to change trajectory to a positive one. We have the ability to provide meaningfulness and hope in life. We have the ability to provide nurturance and relationship with healthy adults, and access to health activities. If you look at the scientific literature of what we need for resiliency in our children, concluded Randall, those can all be answered as a mission of our church and I believe were called to do that; to give of our ourselves in a positive healthy relationship to spend time with young people and make a difference in their life.

Mental health professionals in the audience agreed. I completely agree with what Dr. Randall said, shared Dr. Gabor Mihalec, a practicing family therapist and the director of family ministries for the church in Hungary. There has to be somebody who breaks this chain right here and right now. And I think that we as a church; we as pastors, as members; as family life educators have a very special gift and a very special opportunity to have insights into the lives of families where the things are happening.

Once again feedback was positive, even as delegates grappled with the realities presented. Without knowing the risk that our children are going through, we dont have the church of tomorrow, said Zodwa Kunene, Children and Womens Ministries director in the Southern Africa Union Conference. I believe that its up to us as leaders, its up to us as parents to impact our churches; we can win back our communities.

Each of the three departments hosted seminars throughout the afternoon focusing on elements specific to their area of ministry. Among other topics, Family Ministries directors Willie and Elaine Oliver facilitated a dialogue surrounding LGBT issues and questions. Dr. Ekkehardt Mueller, associate director of the Biblical Research Institute (BRI), gave an overview of the subject, highlighting research done by BRI in gathering biblical insights into the matter.

Mueller spent significant time in Romans 1, a biblical reference where homosexuality is specifically mentioned. He made it clear that the Seventh-day Adventist Church does not condone the sin of homosexual activity. However, he reminded attendees that we distinguish between homosexual orientation and homosexual activity.

As Adventists we respect all people, whether heterosexuals or homosexuals, Mueller presented. We acknowledge that all human beings are creatures of the heavenly Father and are extremely valuable in Gods sight. Therefore we are opposed to hating, scorning, or abusing homosexuals.

Mueller also reminded delegates of the broader reality of sin, even within Romans 1. Sin is serious business whether sexual sin or other sin, whether heterosexual sin or homosexual sin, he explained. Romans 1begins a longer discussion on the state of all human beings. A painful diagnosis is provided. We are all sold under sin and have to expect death. But this diagnosis is given in order for us to long for and appreciate the power of the gospel of salvation which is available to everyone who believes (Romans 1:16).

A second presentation was delivered by Virna Santos, a representative ofBy Beholding His Love, a ministry focused on equipping individuals, families, churches, and schools with biblical-based training, while teaching the methods of Jesus to understand issues related to sexual identity struggles and facilitating healthy, genuine and intentional connection between Church and LGBTQ communities.

Santos, who shared her own journey as a formerly practicing member of the LGBT community, offered insights into the struggle parents of LGBT children initially go through and the significant struggles that young LGBT individuals go through along their journey. Theyre tormented by fear and rejection from the people they love the most, their parents, Santos said. Santos also offered insights into how parents can interact with children who are open about their struggle with sexual identity.

With parenting in general, its amazing what you can learn if you just listen, explained Elaine Oliver, associate director of Family Ministries for the world church. Sometimes we become impatient, forgetting that God is never impatient with us. The same principle applies to the way we should interact with children wrestling with sexual identity questions.

We need to be careful not to cherry-pick when it comes to sins, concluded Willie Oliver at the close of the panel discussion. We need to be like Jesus. We have to genuinely love others. Youre not going to reach anyone for Jesus, unless you genuinely love them.

Meanwhile, the Womens Ministries Department hosted seminars centered on women interacting meaningfully and purposefully with women of other faiths. Department director Heather-Dawn Small and associate director Raquel Queiroz de Costa Arrias, invited guest speakers to both teach and inspire women how to reach out into various communities of women.

Weve got to help our women look beyond themselves and the ones they know to the ones they dont know, said Small, to the ones who dont look like them; the ones who dont speak their language and whose culture is different. That was the main focus of our training here.

For some, this track was the most impacting. I am from Mongolia and we, too, have women of other faiths among us, said Oyuntuya Batsukh, Director of Womens Ministries for the Mongolian Mission. Unfortunately, many times, we are afraid and stand far off. Its critical that we learn how to reach women in all communities, creating meaningful relationships with them.

Across the hall, the Childrens Ministries department, led by Linda Koh, director, and Saustin Mfune, associate director, was exploring a topicamong otherswith an unexpected twist. Seminars focused on impacting and ministering to children from affluent homes.

Presenters shared several of the leading causes contributing to the possibility of emotional troubles within affluent environments, including excess pressure to excel exerted by parents attempting to stay ahead of the success curve. Another risk factor includes increased isolation typically experienced by children as parents become more affluent and, in general, busier and less connected as a result. Various principles and ideas were shared for effective ways to minister to children in these circumstances.

While the topics covered and the dialogue facilitated were both practical and critical for mission, it was the unprecedented collaboration of three world church departments that stood out most.

This has been a tremendous collaboration between these three departments, shared Geoffrey Mbwana, general vice president of the General Conference, withAdventist Review. In as much as they are dealing with common issues, addressing people that make up families, this has been a very profitable experience where they have brought the experiences of the three departments to a common front. I think this has been a big savings of money, but also weve had an opportunity now to see how we can cross bridges of departments to be effective and impact the community and the church as a whole.

The visible synergy created by the departmental triad inspired leaders from around the world. This is, as far as I know, a first, said Audrey Andersson, executive secretary of the Trans European Division, and just the collaboration, to see how these areas intertwine with each other and how each feeds into and can support the other, that has been a real blessing. Musa Mitekaro, Family Ministries director from the East-Central Africa Division agreed. I was impressed by three departments coming together for mission.

Measuring success is many times a moving target, yet organizers of the global conference expressed confidence in the events positive outcome. Willie Oliver summarized this by drawing, in part, from a panel discussion on the last day of the gathering featuring several departmental leaders from various countries. Many shared new convictions established during the conference by listening to compelling truths that were not clear to them before, said Oliver. Especially the fact that areas they once believed had nothing to do with their respective ministries, were obviously also their concern.

Im a convert, shared Carla Baker, Womens Ministries director for the North American Division, at the close of the conference. I do believe that Womens Ministries can do a lot to reach the mothers. I will be doing something about that.

Oliver also pointed to requests for future events as an indicator of success. This level of new synergy, as well as requests by many conference participants to repeat this kind of event in the near future, are indicators of a level of success we expected as an outcome of this shared effort by Children's, Women's, and Family Ministries.

We want to inspire leaders to see how we can encourage and empower children, women and families to reach out to the world, concluded Koh. This is what he hope to accomplish.

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The Power of Collaboration - Adventist News Network