The Committee's key issues are:

1. How to accommodate the increased usage by Congregational Retreats and Wayzata Community Church's youth camps

2. How to pay for upgrades to the facility to deal with the increased demand and extend the useful life of the camp.

Wade Zick, Associate Conference Minister of Faith and Formation for Children and Youth, and Rev. Robin Raudabaugh and Gigi Nauer, Site and Program Co-Directors, provided strong leadership for the 2014 camp program. We are sad to see Wade leave the Conference - he has been instrumental in the resurgence of outdoor and youth ministry in Minnesota. We wish him well in his new position. Gigi is returning for the 2015 season, Robin has resigned, and a new Assistant Director, Jenifer Busky, has been hired. Programs this summer will be on the theme "Sticky Faith."

In a few weeks we will gather together for the Annual Meeting of the Minnesota Conference in response to an invitation born of our theme "Going Deeper: Trusting in Sacred Conversation." Like the disciples in Luke 5:1-11, we will be called to face ourselves and trust one another in embracing a quest for transformation in our lives, in the lives of our churches, our communities, our conference and beyond... We will be called to trust God in this process as we address the reality of racism, a disease that affects all of our lives.

In the past months, we have been bombarded by news of almost weekly tragedies born of racism in its many places and its many forms.

Many of us have a heritage of families coming to this country seeking to live in a land of promise - a land of freedom, hope and respect for all peoples. My paternal grandfather came to the United States from Norway when he was in his late teens. My maternal grandmother came here from Germany when she was only 16.

They came on ships of hope; but others arrived on ships of pain like La Amistad, a schooner whose name means "Friendship". I cannot imagine what their dreams were or even if they dared to have them.

In 1975, a migration began when a people  known as Hmong left war-ravaged Laos and many wound up in Minnesota. Today, there are 66,000 Hmong living in the Twin Cities metro area. They are the largest urban population of their people in this country. In November 2015, they will celebrate the 40th anniversary of that migration.

This story reminds me of the words from a song by American balladeer Willie Nelson: "There's room for everyone in the Promised Land." May it someday be so.

2015 Annual Meeting

June 12-14, 2015 at the College of St Benedict

Register Here!

• White Fragility
  The theme of this year's Annual Meeting is "Going Deeper: Trusting in Sacred Conversations." The keynote presenter, Dr. Jennifer Harvey, will be inviting us into conversations about racism and what it means to be white.
  
  
  The question is how does one have a sacred conversation when, as for many of us, our first response is to feel defensive or guilty about having whiteness named and racism addressed? Robins DiAngelo's article on "White Fragility" helps us understand some of those reactions that can keep us from going deeper with conversations that are truly sacred.