A Full Copy of February 3rd’s Thursday Thoughts Can Be Found HERE
February 3, 2022
Dear Congregation:
I am so grateful for the support our congregation provides for our young people. Your prayers, gifts, encouragement, and support have given them a strong foundation from which to grow in life and faith. ERUCC gives our young people the space to explore their gifts, their faith, and their hopes for the world. They are engaged in justice issues and know that their church community is committed to creating a more sustainable and peaceful world.
This Sunday at 6 pm, I invite you to come to the Community Room and hear about the Ravensbruck Concentration Camp in the words of a daughter, whose mother survived the camps. You may remember that our youth visited the camp with our German partners last summer. The experience had a profound effect on all of us who were there. We spent many hours wrestling with what we would have done and discussing injustices in the world today.
When our German partners visit us this summer, we will engage in experiences that will cause us to wrestle with our nation’s history around slavery and racism. Our plans are to travel to Memphis, Tennessee to work with First Congregational on a program called, Freedom’s Journey. The week we spend in Memphis will include a visit to the Civil Rights Museum, a house that was on the Underground Railroad, and work with empowerment groups in the city.
Joe Adkins, Marc Kline, and I are on an exploratory trip to prep for the summer. Today we are in Lexington, KY where we want to stop on the way down. Friday we will be at First Congregational and work on the program schedule and then head to Nashville, where we hope to stop on the way home. Plans are to visit the African American Music Museum. We will spend the night at Uplands Retirement Community as we meet with former missionaries and UCC national staff, clergy, and lay leaders. They are eager to welcome our youth this summer for yet another conversation about their lives in the struggle for justice and peace.
Thank you for your continued support for our youth. Please plan to come to the discussion Sunday night and hear about our experience at Ravensbruck. Please reach out to our youth and if you do not know who they are, I will be happy to give you their names and contact information. They are pretty cool.
Rev. Dr. Barbara Kershner Daniel
Senior Pastor
Evangelical Reformed United Church of Christ
bkdaniel@erucc.org
301-662-2762
