“You open your hands, satisfying the desire of all living things.” Psalm 145:16
Dear people of God of the Southwest California Synod,

You are hearing from me twice this week. Perhaps you saw the previous announcement regarding the SWCA Synod’s new staff member Pastor Joseph Castañeda Carrera. If not, please look for that good news announcement sent on Wednesday.

Today I am asking for GOD’S WORK. OUR HANDS stories. Were you able to observe GOD’S WORK. OUR HANDS during these days of social distancing and caution about how and where we interact with one another, as well as at a time when the wildfires have filled our air and skies with smoke and ash? If so, would you kindly share the story and perhaps a picture or two by sending us how you and/or your congregation cared for one another during these challenging times. Please send your GWOH stories to Ms. Samantha Henderson at shenderson@socalsynod.org, allowing us to compile them for a future message.

I want to share a favorite GOD’S WORK. OUR HANDS story with you as an example of how one action of generosity, love and care might be multiplied.

At a Synod Assembly in another part of the ELCA, people reached into their wallets and purses and put dollars and checks into the offering baskets. A portion of that was sent to their Companion Church in Southeast Asia. The people in the Companion Church said they would use that donation of several thousand dollars to buy lumber and furnishings to build a children’s and youth’s building in a remote village in the middle of a rain forest. As the people in the Synod learned more about the intent for their gift, a group of 12 people, from age 16 to 70, decided to travel at their own expense to that faraway island where they spent the best part of a week in that village helping the people to build that youth center on the church property. Wearing their yellow GOD’S WORK. OUR HANDS T-shirts and working side-by-side in the heat and humidity of a tropical rainforest with siblings in Christ from another land and culture, and using only hand tools, the building was raised up and dedicated in a short period of time. 
When the people returned from that experience and told their GOD’S WORK. OUR HANDS story and shared their pictures, another individual was moved by what he saw. He donated a much larger gift of $100,000 for an elementary school to be built in that same region. The economy of that country allowed the Companion Church with a gift of that size to build two multi-stories schools in two villages in the heart of the tropical forests on the Island of Borneo. These regional schools offering education to hundreds of children who would otherwise have no access to local elementary education.
It all started with individual voting members at an ELCA gathering reaching their hands into their wallets and purses and dropping an offering into the baskets. Those gifts of generosity were multiplied into a boatload of lumber that was sent down the river to a small village. Then people from two different expressions of the Lutheran World Federation, living on opposite sides of the world from each other, and not speaking each other languages, put their hands together to build a building for their youth. That small wooden structure inspired another gift to be given that is offering elementary and Christian education to hundreds of young children in an extremely remote region of the world. 

The evangelists tell us how a small child offered his meager lunch into the hands of Jesus, who broke the bread and the pieces of fish to feed thousands of people. The gifts from our hands into the hands of God may be a way to satisfy the desires of all living things.
 
Thank you, in advance, for any stories and pictures you are able to share.
 
Gratefully…to God and to you,
 
Bishop Murray D. Finck
Southwest California Synod of the ELCA| (818) 507-9591| news@socalsynod.org| www.socalsynod.org