Good & Hot in Goodyear

Some like it hot – well, it was hot! For lunch, that is, when we ate under shade canopies around the fountain outside the church. Goodyear Presbyterian is meeting in a brand new building on the (very) far west end of the Phoenix metro area, so we’re celebrating the freshly finished multi-use sanctuary, and open-air patio. Enclosed Fellowship Hall? Maybe sometime in the future.

Our unusually cool spring temperatures finally gave way to triple digits just a few days before the June Presbytery Meeting, so the heat combined with sky-rocketing fuel prices probably kept a lot of Presbyters from traveling on Saturday. Nevertheless, the sanctuary was nearly filled, and everything needing done got done.

Responding to Immigration Talks presented the January and March meetings by Senator John Kyle and Arizona State Representative John McComish, both elders in this Presbytery, The Rev. Trina Zelle introduced Linda Brown of Arizona Advocacy Network and Roberto Reveles, founding president of Somos America/We are America. Linda and Roberto presented a strikingly different view than that offered in previous programs. They described the experience of Latino Presbyterians who are harassed continually because of their skin color or their speech inflections. They described the daily fear – of citizens and those on legal visas as well as those without documents - that a minor traffic stop might lead to detention and deportation. They described the dreaded knock on the door at any hour of the day or night, warrantless searches and demands for “proper” documents. They described Presbyterian children terrified that any day they will come home from school only to find that Mommy and Poppy have been taken away by the sheriff.

I think most of us present were shocked to hear that the legal category of having over-stayed one’s visa or crossing the border without documents is “misdemeanor” – exactly the same category of illegality as running a stoplight or getting a speeding ticket. By this standard, how many of us qualify to be labeled “illegals”?

(You can view and/or download the power point presentation by going to www.azadvocacy.org and clicking on "Issues" in the left hand column, then choose "immigration.")

On a lighter note, our Commissioners and Youth Advisory Delegate to this year’s General Assembly (June 21-38) were officially commissioned: Rev. Renato Alvarez, Milinda Benallie, Chuck Jarrell, Rev. Michael Hartwell, Rev. David Hicks, Bill Noyes, and (YAD) Kyle Harding. Linda Worsnop endured the dreaded “Examination on the Floor of Presbytery” which sounds as if she was x-rayed and prodded, rather than merely asked a few theological questions! Certainly some candidates FEEL as if they have been prodded. We celebrated The Rev. Deanne Hodgson’s retirement and welcomed The Reverend Troy Agema and The Rev. Al Straatmeyer.

Instead of wedging a Sidekicks’ Get-Together into the meeting agenda, I offered an Afternoon (Iced) Tea at my home which happened to be just up the hill and around the bend from Christ Church. Well, up the hill and 8 miles, but practically next-door by Arizona distances. Ida Borhauer arrived in full Pastor’s Wife regalia, including hat, pearls and white gloves. Others were not so properly attired, but we managed to have a jolly good tea all the same.

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