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Dear Siblings in Christ,
 
I want to report on two events from this weekend, so anyone who couldn’t attend but might be interested can stay informed. First, I’ll share some of the questions that came up in the congregational meeting on Sunday after worship and a little of how answers are being sought. Second, I’ll give a brief update on the “So What?” conversations that the Circle of Indigenous Ministry is hosting to follow up on Truth Telling efforts throughout the Pacific Northwest and Oregon-Idaho conferences.
 
On Sunday, many congregation members and others gathered in the Friendship Room to discuss the four options for how to proceed with the sale of land to Habitat for Humanity. Leadership Board will be meeting this week to select the option that most closely aligns with our church mission and the project vision. Four questions came up at the meeting that may be of interest, although answers are not completely known.
 
First, in one of the options before us, Habitat would build a new parsonage and own the land under the new parsonage. There was a question about the length of time that the land lease would cover. Our Faithland Team is checking with Habitat about their recommendation and advocating for the longest possible option to safeguard the ability for the church to house their pastors.
 
Another question was about the possibility of considering a sale of land to someone other than Habitat and GROW to develop a Park and Ride for the new Pinehurst light rail station, set to open next week. Since this idea is inconsistent with the project vision our church set several years ago and the existing Memorandum of Understanding with Habitat for Humanity, it is not an option that anyone has looked into, nor is it likely that such a proposal could move forward.
 
The other two questions that came up were design questions about the possibility of fencing to restrict parking access from the neighborhood and the possibility of adding new parking spaces on the north side of the church building, along 133rd St. Both of these questions will be part of ongoing discussion with Habitat for Humanity, the fire department, and parking authorities in Seattle. These type of design questions will be the main focus of the new team that is forming, as of January 1. For those with interest and ideas about these kinds of questions, membership on that team is highly encouraged. Until then, the Faithland team will take note of any timely developments about design.
 
The other event I attended over the weekend was a conversation with people from UM churches around the four state region where the Circle of Indigenous Ministries is active. The goal of the meeting was to figure out how to follow up on the stories of United Methodists whose actions began an ongoing cycle of harm in indigenous communities in three regions. The first is the story of Father Wilbur, a United Methodist pastor who ran the boarding school on the Yakima reservation. The second is Jason Lee, a United Methodist pastor and missionary who brought malaria, a hard labor camp, and land appropriation to the Willamette Valley in Oregon. The third is the story of Camp Indianola, or Doe-Kag-Watts, as it is known in the language of the Suquamish people and how it came into United Methodist hands as a result of a family’s difficulties after the death of their son at a boarding school. Indigenous persons in the meeting described how all three of these stories and many others that haven’t been told, continue to cause harm in the native communities, where one symptom of that harm is that suicide is the leading cause of death among native youth. Our church is at a point where many options like formal apologies, name changes, and return of land taken need to be considered in conversation with tribal leaders. All United Methodists are invited to be part of the discernment through prayer and the open invitation to future “So What?” conversations.
 
May we proceed faithfully with God’s grace in these ongoing discernment processes, Pastor Laura