This has been a busy summer so far. We started out in June with scholarship awards to 3 Resurreccion young people. Mireya and Baudelina will be going to Skagit Community College in the fall. Ricarda will be going to Central Washington Community College. Thanks to everyone who contributes to our scholarship fund.

As soon as school was out Francisco and I headed for San Francisco in the van with 7 Resurreccion young people. They raised all the money to do this by selling tamales. Thanks again to our tamale customers. We stayed at St. Lukes / San Lucas Episcopal Church in Vancounver the first night, then continued on to the Church of the Good Shepherd in Berkely where our hosts gave us the house next to their historic church to call our home for the week. Carol Rodin from Christ Church, Anacortes, joined us in SF to help with driving, navigating and negotiating the big city. Our first morning there we helped parishioners from Good Shepherd to serve breakfast to Guatemalan day laborers at the Multicultural Institue which uses Godd Shepherd's parish hall during the week. Then we took off to play in the city. We rode the BART subway into the city and took a trolley up the Embarcadero. We saw the Aquarium where sharks swam over and around us and we took a tour of the Bay going under the Golden Gate Bridge and around Alcatraz. The next day, saturday we spent with the youth group from Santisima Trinidad in Richmond and went into the city again to go the the California Science Museum where we saw more underwater life and above water life, including an albino alligator! We went to see the Golden Gate Bridge from the top side this time and the beautiful windy views of the Bay area. Then the folks from Santisima Trinidad had a great dinner waiting for us back on the east side of the Bay.

Sunday we went to Eucharist with our hosts at Good Shepherd and had pizza afterward. In the afternoon we went into the city again on the BART for Open Cathedral - Eucharist on the street with the ministers from the San Francisco Night Ministry. After Eucharist and visiting with the street people who attended and form this worshipping community we went on to see the Juneteenth Celebration. Juneteenth celebrates Emancipation from slavery - June 18th or 19th is the day word reached Texas of the Emanicpation Proclamation and freedom of the slaves. Lots of great music and a real cross-cultural experience for our group.

Monday and Tuesday nights we went into the city at night (in the van) to learn about the San Francisco Night Ministry and walk the streets with the Night Ministers from about 10 to 1 am. These people have an incredible ministry of presence. We felt very safe on the streets with them (okay, after a little bit of getting used to the idea) because everyone who is living or working on the streets knows them and respects them and know that they are known and respected and loved in return. We walked the Haight-Ashbury District, the Tenderloin, the Castro, the Mission, and North Beach, seeing drug-addicts, prostitutes, the mentally ill, and people just plain down on their luck, as our beloved brothers and sisters. And they bought these great donuts for us at the end of the night. For more info go to www.sfnightministry.org 

During the rest of the trip we rode the cable cars, went to the zoo, visited the Dolores Mission, ate pupusas, and went to Grace Cathedral. Going to Grace Episcopal Cathedral was one of the high points. After visiting the tiny Dolores Mission and seeing a beautiful Lutheran church it was fun to look around and be able to say, 'this is ours!' We all walked the Labyrinth at the cathedral and the kids learned about a new kind of prayer. We were visiting San Francisco at the same time as the President of Russia and ran into him a couple off times - once when a SWAT team was called in at the Fairmont Hotel and once when he was going down Lombard Street just after us. I wouldn't want to drive a limo down Lombard!

We returned on thursday night - late! We got the kids home about 2:00 am and almost all of them were up and picking strawberries with their parents at 5 am! These kids are amazing and it is a joy and an honor to work with them.

On Saturday we had a Quinceañera and on Sunday we had our annual fundraiser. We had the Bailadores de Oaxaca at Saint Pauls where they put on a marvelous performance. Thanks to all of you who attended and to the members of our congregation who prepared pozole for a great dinner.

On July 8 I headed for a week-long mission trip in El Salvador with a group of young people from St. Thomas Medina. They played soccer (bear in mind that everything that went on during June and July was done in the context of the World Cup in South Africa), worked on a community water system, and helped repair a road, all in the scorching sun. Everyone had a great time. Bishop Martin Barahona sends his greetings to everyone in the Diocese of Olympia.  

And now we are just wrapping up a week of having a youth mission group from St Michaels and All Angels in Issaquah, here to get to know our congregation and the life of farmworkers in our community. We met with two of our parishioners who are learning the business of farming in conjunction with Viva Farms and WSU extension service. The kids did a great job of weeding their farm plot and were given a gift of vegetables staright out of the fields. Their afternoons were spent doing Summer Bible School at on of the migrant camps.

We have one more mission group scheduled for August. It is great to remember that we all as Christians are on mission. We are to be about spreading God's love and breaking down barriers so that we all may be one. I have been privileged to watch these youth missioners all summer be about that. Sharing God's love is about as good a thing to do as there is. Try it today!

Que Dios les bendiga,  

  JCBeecher 
  The Rev. Josefina Beecher, Hispanic Missioner
  Francisco López 
 Francisco Lopez, Pastoral Assistant