Evergreen Annual Meeting

[Haruo]

Last weekend Evergreen Region held its annual meeting, our eighth, at New Beginnings Christian Fellowship (the closest thing our Region has to a megachurch) on the Kent-Renton line southeast of Seattle. The theme was "Who Is My Neighbor? (Luke 10:25)" (and, perhaps more importantly, "Who am I neighbor to?") The guest preacher was Rev. Liliana Da Valle, Regional Executive Minister of ABC Rhode Island, who spent the first eight years of her time in America as an undocumented immigrant (she had fled the terror of Argentina in the early 1980s, with her husband and two kids); very interesting and moving Saturday afternoon sermon on Leviticus 19:18 resulted. Very interesting movie Friday "With God on our side" about Evangelical Christian notions and attitudes towards the State of Israel and the Palestinian Arab peoples.

Lousy photo of Rev. Da Valle preaching, New Beginnings Christian Fellowship in the background

Sister Stephanie Commandest and Evergreen staffer Sister Clem Winbush "person" the registration table

NBCF narthex during Evergreen meeting

My apologies for the inadequate flash on my throwaway camera.

[Haruo]

The largest display in the NBCF Narthex was "120,000 Nikkei Voices of Gratitude", documenting the experience of Japanese Americans in the Seattle area during their wartime displacement to the Minidoka concentration camp in Idaho, and their experience of neighborliness on the part of American (then Northern) Baptists.

Below are a couple of representative pictures from the display, but first a photo of four Evergreen Japanese Baptists:

Standing: Yosh Nakagawa (former ABCUSA VP) and Rev. Brooks Andrews (JBC's Pastor of Visitation, and son of "Rev Andy" who pastored the church during their years in Minidoka)
Seated: Rev. Peter Urio and Hideo Hoshide

Minidoka...

Thanks, ABC... (The face obliterated by the flash is that of Rev. Andy, JBC's pastor during the internment in Idaho)

[Haruo]