Greetings! We are doing great things at Glide Memorial Church. Including our Reparations series, the Stupski Community Care Network, updating our Congregational Life Groups Mission-Purpose-Values statements, and creating amazing Congregational Life Moment – Witness.
We are happy to say that the first round of trainings have been completed by 39 members of our beloved Glide Church community and there are at least two more rounds to go! The trainings are regarding identifying potential serious/advanced/multiple illness, palliative, and end of life stage care for our community members in need and their caregivers/families that may need support in various areas.
We are intent on getting as many people that need resources and additional support connect to the resources and care that is appropriate. Our partner AC Care Alliance is supporting the referrals and matching participants with the necessary resources. We found AC Care Alliance through our lead collaborators University of California San Francisco’s -MERI Center, who are amazing as well. They are the medical healthcare professionals that created the curriculum for the training based on several meetings they had with congregants, community members, and staff at Glide Church.
So, since we had such a great group of eager trainees we are going to be celebrating them on Sunday, September 24th between 12:00 and 2:00 pm in the Sanctuary and Freedom Hall located at 330 Ellis street in the Glide Memorial Church Building.
You can catch our Congregational Life groups witnesses at the 9 and 11 am services almost every Sunday, on our congregational life page, and on Facebook/You Tube recorded services. It is amazing work that these groups have been doing and many have been in existence for decades, still going strong, and still served during and after the COVID shelter in place and pandemic.
I am blessed to be able to work with such dedicated and amazing people who constantly usher in the love, support, and grace of God through their actions and service. I hope you learn and love them as much as you possibly can as I do, they often do the work that no one else can or will and in this day and age we can all use and all need much, much more of that!
The challenge still continues regarding reparations for African Americans which is long overdue and is taking so long to attain. But we will win.. Most of us agree that the United States and many other nations around the world greatly benefited from the gruesome, inhumane, brutal, and illegal practice of enslavement; and have yet had to reconcile, repair, undo, or address the ugly legacy and continuance of systemic racism that still plagues our country.
Enslavement is one of the dumbest things that ever existed and it’s time that everyone faces that fact, and do the right thing. We would not be experiencing all the wealth and great things we have today in the U.S. if it had not been for the daily sacrifices and black lives lost and destroyed by life taking anti-black racism. Nothing will be right in America until we get this reparations issue solved and healed in the U.S. and around the world. When you take a deeper look into a lot of things that ail our society; they are rooted in racism, inhumanity, and othering people that don’t look or act like the dominant cultures or powers that be. We must turn it on its head and create a new equitable system that works for everyone.
If we solve the issues and conditions that infiltrate and oppress African American lives in San Francisco due to discrimination, prejudice, and racism; then in most cases we have solved half the problems we face in the city such as; the unhoused crisis, housing redlining, the judicial system, jails, prisons, health crisis, and a plethora of other ills affecting our daily lives in SF. This is all our shared challenge; and together we can overcome it all.