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Dear Justice-Seeker,

This issue of MFSAVoices is jam-packed with resources and information. So much so that it won't all fit in your email message so be sure to click view entire message at the bottom of this email to view the entire issue. Our newsletters are designed to be used all month long. So take a quick glance and take note of important dates to add to your calendar but also come back in the following weeks to work your way through the action items. 

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We continue to see the urgency of our work to make broad systemic change. Change that honors the dignity and worth of all people, puts people over money, and honors the earth and all her inhabitants. COVID-19 continues to highlight the inequities in our society that has literal life or death consequences. Since 1907, MFSA has been shining a light on injustice and organizing to change it. 

You make our collective work possible by your witness for justice every day in your church, community, and Annual Conference. MFSA does not receive any financial support from the United Methodist Church's giving channels. 100% of our budget is funded through your membership dues and your generosity in giving.

Webinar: Celebrating a Healing Homiletic Preaching and Disability

Join the Association of Ministers with Disabilities and Methodist Federation for Social Action on Saturday April 17 1pm ET/10am PT for a conversation with Kathy Black, Chair of Homiletics and Liturgics at Claremont School of Theology and Disability Theologian, on the 25th Anniversary of A Healing Homiletic: Preaching and Disability. This important work of disability theology is one of the books that exist on preaching the healing narratives from a disability perspective. Please join us as Black discusses her thoughts on this book 25 years after its release and answers questions about her thoughts on where disability theology is today.

Webinar: Protecting the Right to Boycott

Join us Wednesday April 21 for a panel discussion with special guest Meera Shah, Senior Staff Attorney for Palestine Legal on "Protecting the Right to Boycott."  Thirty US states have passed so-called "anti-BDS" laws designed to limit our right to protest the Israeli occupation through non-violent boycotts and divestments.

Kenya MFSA joins Community's Fight Against Forced Evictions

Located in Nairobi’s Kasarani area, Thome Marurui is the name of a slum with a population of 15,000 families.  The Thome Marurui settlement sprouted in 1989 when what used to be the Marurui plantation, initially owned by white farmers at the height of the colonial period, was transformed into a settlement scheme so as to accommodate a significant number of people who worked in the coffee plantations for years.  The settlement came into being after local farmers, workers and the then local leadership advocated for the release of the farm to the community to meet the growing housing demands of the poor.

People who live in this land have not been issued any land ownership status and face constant harassment and threats of evictions by local authorities who want to sell the land to the rich.

Kenya MFSA is teaming up with the local community in seeking redress that allows the poor families to settle in the land with ownership credentials. The Marurui United Methodist Church is located in the slums and faces threat of evictions if the local authorities succeed in their attempt to sell the land.
 

Iowa MFSA co-sponsors webinar on Gender Justice

Iowa MFSA co-sponsored webinar "Get to Know Global Rights for Women."  Hosted by the Iowa Advocates for Global Rights for Women, an international advocacy organization active in the "movement to end violence against women and girls."  The webinar recorded on March 8th via zoom includes speakers Rekha Basu, Columnist for the Des Moines Register; Cheryl Thomas, founder and Executive Director of GRW; and Richard lhrig, former Board Chair.

Welcoming New Justice-Seeking Community:
Christ Crossman UMC

"Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread." (1 Corinthians 10:17)

Formed on June 29, 1997 when the congregations of Christ United Methodist Church and Crossman United Methodist Church merged, Christ Crossman UMC is located in Falls Church, Virginia.  Our newest Justice Seeking Community embraces and seeks to live into 1 Corinthians 10:17.  A “fully inclusive faith community welcoming all persons, whatever walk of life, ability, identity, ethnicity, & culture,” Christ Crossman believes “all persons are persons of dignity and worth” and that “the difference you bring is the difference you add to the whole of who we are.”  This genuine and generous welcoming of the “churched, un-churched, dis-churched” is at the core of Christ Crossman.  In the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Justice Seeking Community gathers via online worship, continuing to welcome all because “there’s a seat for you at the table.”

“What can we say? We're not one thing. And we're definitely not perfect. But what we share deeply is the belief in the power of goodness and love to make a lasting difference. So come and check us out!"

If your church, small group, ministry group, or community is interested in becoming a Justice-Seeking Community, please click the link and check out the JSC Covenant: https://bit.ly/2HUTgA1

The New Federation of Asian American United Methodists (NFAAUM) offers their first "Game Changers” Virtual Immigration Training for Youth and Young Adults on April 23-24, 2021.  The two-day virtual training, in partnership with General Commission on Religion and Race (GCORR), is open to all Asian American youth & young adults ages 14-35 years old who are active members of The United Methodist Church.  Mainly focused on worship, story-telling and leadership training regarding immigration issues, racial injustice and the challenges of COVID-19 specially among the most vulnerable people (immigrants, asylum seekers, refugees and undocumented), the two-day training will provide youth and young adults with the skills to organize their respective faith communities to support and advocate for the most vulnerable people.

Now's the Time for Action

Here are a few ways you can seek justice and work for broad systemic change:

1. Contact your elected officials to take an intersectional response to the incidents of AAPI hate and to center the needs of those most impacted, Asian American women and elders.
2. Check the State Voting Bills Tracker to find out if your state lawmakers have introduced one of the 253 bills aimed at suppressing voting rights, and contact your state lawmakers to demand they support voting rights.
3. Register for NFAAUM's "Game Changers" virtual immigration training if eligible and share widely. 
4. The Biden administration's 100 day moratorium on deportations has been indefinitely halted by a federal judge, BUT the Administration does not have to continue deportations and at its current rate.  Sign the petition and demand the Administration stop individual deportations.
5. Sign the petition and tell Congress to abolish the federal death penalty.
6. Has your country signed on to the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons?  Contact your elected officials to support the end of nuclear weapons in the world.
7. Check out the BDS Toolkit and learn what economic actions you can take to fight along the side of Palestinians and their struggle.
8. Manufacturing in an illegal Israeli settlement is a war crime.  Tell General Mills to stop making Pillsbury products on stolen Palestinian land by signing the petition, sending an email to the CEO, and #BoycottPillsbury.
9. Write a letter and join the grassroots organizing for the rights of refugees, asylum seekers, and immigrants.
10. Sign the petition and join Palestinian Cry for Hope: a Call to Decisive Action, a global movement set by Kairos Response that "rouses churches to action and awakens civil society to the reality of Palestinian suffering."
11. Take free online university courses on systemic racism.
12. Host a virtual Card Writing Party to write and mail letters to immigrants in detention via The Casa Mariposa Detention Visitation Program.
13. Call your legislators (202-224-3121) and advocate for permanent federal paid sick leave, expanded unemployment benefits, SNAP increases, and a moratorium on evictions, utility shut-offs, and payments. 

In Case You Missed It

1. Read the sixth and seventh devotions of MFSA's Lenten Devotional series.
2. Access recording and resources from the latest UMKR and MFSA webinar Apartheid Then and Now.
3. Watch the discussion with the I’m Black. I’m Christian. I’m Methodist. writers and editor Rudy Rasmus, moderated by M. Garlinda Burton.
4. MFSA Reflection on January 6 on Martin Luther King Jr Day

We at MFSA encourage you to be a witness and a good neighbor. Please continue to do your part in flattening the curve by practicing physical distancing.