The Cross of Brokenness

Center stage today is the cross from the Mississippi Conference, made of broken items collected from the destruction left by Hurricane Katrina. Bishop Ward gave us an excellent sermon reminding us that God is always present and is over all, wherever our journey takes us. Bishop Wade is the episopal leader of the Mississippi area.

Bishop Thomas Bickerton is presiding this morning. He reminded us that we will be in session for 3 and 1/2 hours this morning and during that time 430 children will have died from malaria. It is a sobering reminder. On the positive side of this reminder, the delegations continue to raise money here for our Nothing But Nets campaign against malaria. As of last night at closing, the secretary reported we had collected (or pledged) over $350,000. Our SC delegation has collected over $2000, which qualifies us to receive one of the basketballs signed by all the bishops, which I imagine we will present at Annual Conference and may try to use to raise even more money.

Also, we have 68 petitions left to act upon and some are pretty big, including the budget for the next quadrennium. There are calls for us to use restraint in our comments, motions and questions. One good quote: "Kicking a dead horse harder don't make it run any faster." But the way it works is that everyone who speaks does so because they think the issue/comment is important. Yet we have also basically affirmed the decisions of the legislative committees on 98.6% of all the petitions, even those we dealth with individually. Even with that, we probably won't finish until late today.