Two from OIMC Attend Women's Division National Seminar

Nellie Long, Conference Coordinator for Social Action and Josephine Deere, Director of Women's Division, were among more than 200 United Methodist Women to attend the 2007 National Seminar at Scarritt-Bennett Center in Nashville Tennessee.

The theme for this quadrennial seminar that was held August 11th - 16th was "For Christ's Sake, Turn the World Upside Down." This is just what the participants tried to do as they tackled issues such as immigration, environmental justice, economic justice, public education, health care, community food security and militarism, peace and national security.

Each participant chose one of these seven issues to focus on during their week-long stay. Ms Long's issue was health care and Ms Deere's was economic justice.

On Monday, August 13th, all the participants boarded buses and traveled to communities in the Nashville area to see what it means to be homeless, an immigrant or without health care.

"The whole idea of community visits is to broaden our knowledge, to go beyond ourselves to gain insights and listen to the voices of those on the margins...," said elmira Nazombe, executive of the Women's Division, United Methodist Board of Global Ministries, the administrative arm of UMW. "This will help give us the landscape view we need to look for patterns and discern what the issues are telling us about our faith imperatives."

Nashville community groups served as guides for the women in visits to a mosque, landfill, community clinics, farmers market, community garden, homeless shelter, public high school and Civil War mounument. Each visit included one-on-one conversations and panel discussions and presentation on the related issue. The visits were an extension of workshops held throughout the event focusing on one of the seven issues.

The participants in the health care issue dealt with a number of issues. Nellie stated that she was surprised at the number of even the seminar participants that did not have any form of health care. It was mentioned that a lot of pastors spouses and children were not covered with health insurance due to the high cost of insurance. The health care issue participants were able to visit a health clinic.

Environmental Justice participants helped sort and salvage food for low-income families during their visit to the farmers market and Good Food for Good People, a community based organization committed to decreasing food waste and increasing accessiblity to fresh and healthy foods. The visit was part of the workshop on community food security, which examines the need for every community to have access to a safe, affordable nutritious food supply. Many low-income areas do not have large grocery stores that carry fresh fruits and vegetables.

A visit to Ft. Negley, a local Civil War memorial, kicked off a day of exploring reasons for war and the far-reaching impact of war for women taking the militarism, peace and national security workshops. The group heard presentations from two U.S. Army public affairs specialists about today's all-volunteer soldiers, saw a documentary about the munitions-making military industrial complex and listened to testimonies from a panel representing organizations and ministries working for peace and helping military personnel and families.

They also heard from Revs. John and Janie Dandridge of Nashville on how their lives changed when their son returned from Iraq after losing a leg.

Josephine spent the day with the homeless, eating lunch at a meal site and visiting a women's shelter. "I was moved to tears," said Josephine "as I saw these mothers and their children - their babies - waiting out in the heat to try to get into the shelter for the night to have a place to sleep. Realizing that this could be any of us at any time." The following day Josephine went to a memorial service the homeless were having for a young lady who was killed a year ago. She was pushed into the river while she was sleeping by two teenagers who had come to Nashville intending to kill a homeless person. To prepare them for spending time with the homeless, participants watched the movie "The Pursuit of Happiness."