I've participated in half a dozen events in the past month at the Presbyerian Center that have marked personal transitions of some sort or another. A month ago the Mid-KY Presbytery's racial ethnic task force - considering adopting a new name - bid adieu to Stephany Jackson, who has convened us - and welcomed Raafat Girgis, who will convene us. Bill (above), who's just replaced Vincent's former teachers's father, Doug, at Louisville's 2nd Presbyterian Church, attended the meeting, as did Tony (a former World Mission manager who staffs the presbytery's Latino outreach effort) (below).
Stephany (below) - who will be continuing to work with the denomination's Spiritual Formation effort from Maryland - but will no longer be leading a Presbyterian church in Louisville also - led a little more than half of the meeting.
Sally (above and below) had helped organize our presbytery-wide event with Presbyterian Women in late March.
Sarah (below), daughter of Crescent Hill church member Debby and a colleague of Raafat, will be helping us out.
Presbytery Executive Betty Meadows joined us for this meeting. Her colleague Peggy Owens sometimes joins us.
Raafat - who leads the effort to develop multiethnic and multicultural Presbyterian churches - was all smiles as he shared with us a video from Chicago's Second City performing company.
A couple of weeks later folks gathered on the 3rd floor to bid adieu to Vanessa Hawkins, who's worshiped often at our church and is one of a series of people who've worked with the denominations Racial Ethnic and Women's Ministries unit to have departed recently - some more or less voluntarily, some involuntarily. Vanessa is going to Ph.D. theology grad school in Berkeley. It seems like she's been around for a while, but she's actually been working with majority African American congregations for about three years, two years less than I've been around the Center.
Crescent Hill's Hunter Farrell, World Mission's leader, and Curtis Kearns, who was once Vanessa's supervisor's supervisor and is now my supervisor's supervisor, (b0th below) helped bid Vanessa adieu.
I missed some of the festivities when it looked like it was going to take too long.
A big to-do in the Atrium helped us bid adieu to four Office of the General Assembly staffers, including Evelyn Hwang (more on her later) and Joan Richardson, who I'd worked with some in Toastmasters and in a committee review. Evelyn, Joan, and a third woman had worked for he church for many, many years, and were taking voluntary retirement packages.
Gradye Parsons, the Presbyterian church's stated clerk and leader of the Office of the General Assembly - a former client - helped lead the good-byes.
This past Monday in Research Services we celebrated one birthday (of Ida) and the return of Becki, who'd been out on medical leave for several weeks (but whom I didn't get a picture of). Christy helped us celebrate.
So did Joelle (with the birthday person, Ida, in the background).
And Jack and Hilary.
Later this week Asian American Center staff celebrated the 48 years of service to the denomination - including work with presbyteries overseeing the progress of candidates for the ministry - by Evelyn. I'd worked some with Evelyn and colleagues in a study of challenges that Asian American, African American, Latino, and other candidates were facing becoming ordained as ministers and connecting with calls as pastors.
Eric Hoey and the Evangelism and Church Growth ministry area helped provide Asian food, including boat loads (almost literally) of sushi.
Unzu and Phil (like Evelyn - a Chinese American with roots in the metro NYC area) enjoyed the food and company.
So did David, a Korean American who took my old 2nd floor office and has worked with leaders of my father's old Korean American congregation in Torrance.
Eric (below, right) and other colleagues enjoyed the food too.
Lydia (below), who took the place of Bridgett and Noelle, is the latest Asian American to join the staff at the Center.
Below are two Korean American staff (Sun Bai and Hyo Jin) who work with Korean American congregations (in Hyo Jin's case - among others) in the (shrinking) racial ethnic congregational support staff. They have supplied me with databases for past surveys.
Ida - who's worked with Evelyn since the denominational staff's arrival in Louisville in the mid-1980s - sat immediately to Evelyn's left.
The staff gave Evelyn a plaque to honor her for her service and celebrate her collegiality. (As with other recent retirees, it became clear listening to people talk about Evelyn that she'd worked hard over the years to nurture aspiring Asian American (and other ethnic minority) pastors and church leaders.
Jung Ju - who's worked for two publishing wings of the denomination - sat to Evelyn's right.
Also to Evelyn's right was Jieun Kim, wife of the relatively new pastor of the Louisville Korean Presbyterian church (where he works with our friend Sarah) who also works with congregations and candidates for pastoral calls trying to connect with each other. I remember her because she helped try to get me on a list of Korean American staff and figured out my Korean given name and how to spell it correctly in English (Seungdo) and Korean.
Valerie - of mixed African American and Japanese American heritage - and Phil and Evelyn posed as the event was winding down.
This Friday - partly a group I've been working with as clients - the team of staff working on Environmental stewardship issues - celebrated the start of work of Katie Holmes - formerly with the disaster relief office - whose sole responsiblity is going to be working on environmental issues (an area that the national staff quit working on for a while - and a work area I know from glancing at the comments written in to a survey is still somewhat controversial).
Bill, Katie's now supervisor, who used to work on environmental issues for the denomination, introduced her. Carol, Bill's spouse, helped pick out and prepare the bagels.
Happy transitions, Stephany, Raafat, Vanessa, Ida, Becki, Evelyn, Lydia, Bridgett, Noelle, Joan, Shirley, Lesley, and Katie!
-- Perry
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