{"id":728,"date":"2012-04-28T10:41:42","date_gmt":"2012-04-28T17:41:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/gc2012\/?p=728"},"modified":"2012-04-28T10:42:40","modified_gmt":"2012-04-28T17:42:40","slug":"connecting-and-inter-ethnic-observermonitoring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/connecting-and-inter-ethnic-observermonitoring\/","title":{"rendered":"Connecting and Inter-Ethnic Observer\/Monitoring"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kathleen Charles, a delegate from Freetown, Sierra Leone, speaks during the local church committee’s discussion of proposed legislation on April 26 during the 2012 United Methodist General Conference in Tampa, Fla. A UMNS photo by Paul Jeffrey.<\/em><\/p>\n

General Conference 2012 has been a whirlwind since I arrived in Tampa earlier this week.\u00a0\u00a0The daily schedule is packed with briefings, worship services, special events and legislative\u00a0committee\u00a0meetings. Throughout the 12+ hour days, there’s always opportunities\u00a0to meet\u00a0and dialog with\u00a0delegates, staff, fellow volunteers, and reconnect\u00a0with friends.\u00a0\u00a0My highlight\u00a0as we approach Day 5, has been the\u00a0opportunity to\u00a0connect\u00a0with people in the\u00a0moments of downtime at general conference: sharing a meal\u00a0with\u00a0sisters and brothers in Christ between committee meetings, making new friends when going from room to room at the Convention Center, to engaging and listening in on Holy Conversation.<\/p>\n

It has been a blessing to attend General Conference\u00a0as an oberserver\/monitor\u00a0for the National Federation of Asian American United Methodist<\/em>s (NFAAUM), one of five caucuses that\u00a0are part of the Inter-Ethnic Strategy Development\u00a0Group (IESDG).\u00a0 My role as a monitor, along with 50+ other monitors\u00a0from across the U.S., is to interact with delegates to hear and understand the importance of racial ethnic ministries as an integral part of\u00a0our church\u00a0and its ministry.\u00a0 Our team has been observing and monitoring General Conference\u00a0proceedings to become better informed and to interact with\u00a0and assist Delegates in recognizing the importance of issues critical for the further development of Ministries.\u00a0 It’s been great to exchange stories with friends from all over the world.<\/p>\n

I look forward to my last few days at General Conference\u00a0for more listening, understanding and\u00a0learning, as petitions and amendments are\u00a0being further deliberated on in\u00a0full committee.\u00a0 But I really look forward to the chance\u00a0to connect and fellowship with friends and colleagues in ministry\u00a0during these last few days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kathleen Charles, a delegate from Freetown, Sierra Leone, speaks during the local church committee’s discussion of proposed legislation on April 26 during the 2012 United Methodist General Conference in Tampa, Fla. A UMNS photo by Paul Jeffrey. General Conference 2012 has been a whirlwind since I arrived in Tampa earlier this week.\u00a0\u00a0The daily schedule is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":779,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-728","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-conversation"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/sl-delegate.jpeg?fit=640%2C426&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-bK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=728"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":781,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728\/revisions\/781"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}