Hello, I'm Tony de la Rosa.
Coming up on Keeping Faith, Wrath and Reverence, the NRA comes to Louisville.
Poisoned water in Flint, Michigan, Presbyterians respond.
And the lies, you know, like we feel lied to.
And in Manhattan, Hope, as a congregation invites the homeless into their sanctuary.
I like the communion with everyone that comes on Tuesday nights.
As the poisoned water crisis continues in Flint, Michigan, frustration mounts.
Yet one Presbyterian pastor says she has never felt more cared for, which gives her strength
to minister to those in her congregation who are still without water.
Overall, there's just a sense of shock, because we're talking about something basic here, water.
Clean water is, for goodness, we live in the Great Lakes States, and we can't drink our water.
Something's not right here.
There's nothing you can even do about it.
You just, you're, you're, we're nobody, you know?
So it definitely is that sense of environmental racism.
There's a feeling that things were intentional and the lies, you know, like we feel lied to.
The city says don't drink the water, use the filter, but they said you can do your dishes
in the filtered water.
But the nurses at the dialysis clinic have told us no.
I had like a hundred bumps all over me, now I've been doing my showers that my mom and
dad, they live out of Flint, and I still wash my hair here, and I think that's what's still
giving me a few of them, you know?
My dialysis nurse said it's from the lead, period.
You know, so there's mixed messages, so what, you know, what to do.
When it became apparent that this was going to be a long-term major concern, a crisis,
we knew that PDA was equipped to assist us in that.
Primarily we, our mission was to be a presence, to let the people of Flint know that Presbyterian
disaster assistance in the Presbyterian church cared about them.
And we could see that because of the situation there was a great deal of stress visible in
the pastors who we were dealing with.
To come into a crisis and to bring that warmth and that kind of presence that's calming.
So that's what I get from Gail.
For the congregation to hear that the National Church is interested and is taking time to
take part in this, that means that speaks volumes.
And I've been, you know, living with a filter on my water faucet and, you know, life goes
on, but it doesn't go on for everybody because there are different perspectives and different
pressures on different people in different socioeconomic classes.
And everybody needs to be cared for.
I mean, it's one thing to read about it in the book of order or, you know, yeah, we're
connectional, we're connectional, but then to live it.
It's still amazing because people are still calling, wanting to know how we're doing.
It makes me even more glad that I'm Presbyterian.
I think knowing that PDA was thinking, praying, caring, organizing on our behalf, it gave
me energy.
It's very nice to know how far those ripples go in a pond.
70,000 people, 500,000 square feet of firearm displays, while the National Rifle Association
held its National Convention in Louisville, we visited an art exhibit full of holy places
crafted from parts of armaments and ammunition.
Well, it's quite a conflict when I see these holy places made of the parts of ammunition
and weapons that I'm quite familiar with.
I mean, I grew up with guns.
I've got three shotguns of my own.
I think Presbyterians and anybody else who has a heart for other people ought to be working
to reduce gun violence in this country.
The thorniest part of that issue is what to do with all the guns that are already out
there.
I mean, there's more than one gun for every person in this country.
I think one of the downsides of that is at a time when we live in a nation that is so
fearful of everything, immigrants, change in the social order, it just doesn't fit with
my understanding of where we ought to be.
In Manhattan, a new worshiping community is being formed thanks to a nearly 140-year-old
church that believes all God's people are holy.
So many of our people are feeling the depths of poverty and poverty, not simple poverty
of no money, but a true poverty of spirit, a poverty of neglect, a poverty of feeling
like nobody cares.
This congregation that had been strong and mighty years past and now dwindled in numbers
had the bones to do something really significant.
We have always been eager to have the most marginalized people among us.
We serve the outreach population during the week, and they are here and very present and
eager.
And we have on Tuesday evenings a meal, and we serve between 110 and 150 people depending
on the week and the day of the month.
And so we thought, why not move worship to when the people are available, recognizing
that it's the people who are holy and not the day.
So we had made a couple of announcements.
We'd posted a few things around the neighborhood.
We opened our doors, and we had a great group of musicians, and they started to play.
And within 15 minutes, we had 65 people sitting in our church waiting for worship.
Now that we have launched a new worshiping community on Tuesday evenings, we see that
beloved kingdom magnified.
By the end of a worship experience, golly, 45, 50, 55 homeless or sheltered men and women,
maybe seven or 10 or 15 people from the Upper East Side, the standard third most wealthy
zip code in the United States population here as well, all worshiping and caring for one
another in a true just community.
I like the communion with everyone that comes on Tuesday nights.
It sticks in your head, the sermon or the message that they give.
You look forward to it.
When I leave this place on a Tuesday night, my life has been transformed because of these
people.
It's great.
I know.
It's great.
It really is cool.
It's so exciting.
Thanks for joining us for Keeping Faith as we engage in God's mission to transform the
world.
May the peace of the living Christ be with you.
This gathering here, especially the people of faith, lets us know that we stand not just
in solidarity with each other, with the families of those who have been touched by gun violence
and some of these are those people, but also with Jesus Christ, who knows very well what
it means to suffer and to hurt and to be in pain.
