Resolutions and Other Business

Resolution Wrap-Up

#1 - Streamline the Delegate Election Process - Asked that rules be changed for electing delegates to General and Jurisdictional Conference - Defeated

#2 - Policy for Clergy Reporting of Child Abuse and Neglect - A substitute motion was accepted, and it was accepted as substituted.

#3 - Mental Illness Awareness - Resolves that churches in the conference lift up the concerns of mental ilness through worship and other resources. Adopted.

#4 - Encouraging Virginia United Methodists and Virginia State Legislators to Go on a Two-Week "Welfare Diet" - Asks Virginia United Methodists limit themselves to spending the same amount of money for food that is presently allotted to individuals living on food stamps; urge legislators to palce families on a "welfare diet." Adopted.

#5 - Worker Justice -- Asks the conference to be a prophetic voice for worker justice. Asks that the minimum wage be raised. Adopted

#6 - Support for Fair Trade and the United Methodist Committee on Relief Coffee Project - Seeks an authentic Christian response to the plight of Third Word coffee farmers, their families, and their communities, the Virginia Conference urges all conferences and districts committees, local congregations, and church-affiliated organizations and agencies that use coffee to participate in the UMCOR Coffee Project (fairly traded coffee with small coffee farmers) Adopted

#7 - DNA Testing in the Case of Roger Keith Coleman - Resolves  that the conference requests the governor of Virginia to order DNA testing of the evidence in the case of Roger Keith Coleman who was executed in 1992 for a 1981 rape and murder. Adopted

#8 - Juvenile Death Penalty - Calls upon the governor and state legislators to enact legislation abolishing the death penalty for juvenile offenders in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Adopted

#9 - Advocacy for Services for Individuals with Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities - Asks the conference and lobbying groups to ask for no cut to funding for services to individuals with metnal retardation and developmental disabilites; increased funding for new Medicaid Waiver slots for individuals with mental retardation and other developmental disabilities; an increase in the payment rates for Congregate Residential and Day Support services to support an adequate, skilled workforce to care for brothers and sisters in Christ. Adopted

#10 - Increase in Virginia Cigarette Tax - Encourages Virginia legislators to raise the tobacco tax in Virginia to 75 cents and extend that tax to other non-cigarette tobacco products. Money raised to be used to advance health, education and welfare. Tabled

#11 - Recognition of Candler Class of 1954 -- Failed

#12 - Creation of a Conference Task Force on Peace and Global Security - Asks the conference to establish a task force on Peace and Global Security for two years to facilitate conversation on peace and global security; study terrorism; create public forums; draft a position statement. Adopted

#13 - Opposition to Virginia's Marriage Affirmation Act - Asks the conference to express its desire for the repeal of HB 751 to the members of the Virginia General Assembly in order to provide justic and equal rights to all Virginians.  Adopted as Amended

 

Closing Worship and Communion

The Rev. Ileana Rosas, the pastor of Gracia United Methodist Church in Northern Virginia, was the preacher for the service of Holy Communion, Wednesday morning.

Went to Puerto Rico in February to say good-bye to her father who had died. Even though there was no inheritance, the family was fighting. "I was the traitor. I was in the United States when my father died. There was not even one hug for me."

She said she realized she had to bring the ministry of reconciliation. People who haven't been reconciled with God don't know how to love each other.

As ambassadors of Christ we are the ones to teach the world to be reconcilers. If we don't do it, who will. 

She asked  God to help her with her family. She asked people who visited to tell her about them and about her father's last hours. The chapel was packed, people standing, but no one wanted to sit with Ileana. "I felt so lonely I started to cry." A cousin finally came to sit with her and held her two hands through the service. Her cousin told her she loved her. After that everyone came to hug her and cry with her. "They were coming because they were reconciled with me. Reconcilation feels good. You feel love. You feel the presence of God. When reconciliation happens everything changes."

Paul, with backgrounds from many cultures, Jew and Greek, was an ambassador of Christ. "He was like Puerto Ricans," Rosas said. "You must decide if you are Hispanic or American, but it is hard because you are both."

People will ask "Is there a place for us, too?"

And Paul would say, "Come and be reconciled with God."

Rosas was walking the street with the drunks in the community she serves. "Who's going to talk to them if we don't." One day one of them was killed -- stabbed in the throat. He was brought into a church. Members of the church were nervous about the dead man's friends being there, afraid more violence might happen. The dead man's friends started talking about how they missed him and they wanted revenge. She was the only woman, surrounded by 30 drunken men.

She told them they had to stop talking like that. She told them she wanted to see mothers stop crying. "I refuse to go to any other funerals. You must stop the killing tonight," she told them.

Rosas was not sure if they got the message. "I went home at midnight. I was scared." The next morning she went back to the neighborhood. "The Holy Spirit had moved. The hearts of these men had been touched and no one else was killed."

"It is not easy to bring this message of reconcilation, especially among the kids," she said. She talked about one child, a natural born leader raised in the streets. Rosas invited her to the church. She visits the church occasionally with her friends from the street. "We tell them about God's love. We keep loving them like they are ours. One day that seed will blossom. For that we pray. That's the only way we can stop the violence, the discrimination, the killings."

Bishop Pennel wanted to "fix the appointments" at the altar table, "symbolizing the sacred and holiness of what we are doing."

The Communion Service ended the service. The elements were served by the newly-ordained and licensed members of the conference, and members of the youth delegation.