Change is difficult but Newport News Shipbuilding has "to redefine how we operate," said Jennifer Boykin (right), president of Virginia's largest industry and a  member of First Lutheran, Norfolk, The company reported 19 cases of  COVID-19 virus among its 23,000+ employees at late April.

The president makes weekly reports  to employees. The changes made by the company "and will continue to make," are aligned with guidelines of the  Center for Disease Control centering on "social distancings and protective  equipment  temperature checks, sanitation, use and disinfection of common and  high-traffic areas and  business travel," she said.

In a facebook message online, she thanked employees for the ideas and questions they have provided. Their feedback is "helping us solidify our plans."  Childcare, transportation and face masks are the main issues  of employees' concern during the virus crisis.  The company is working with the YMCA of the  Virginia Peninsula for emergency childcare and with Hampton Roads Transit on transportation problems. And 50,000 face masks are on order.

 Boykin, a St. Louis native, holds degrees from the U.S Merchant Academy and George Washington University. In a long career, with the company which  designs, builds and maintains the world's most complex ships, nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines, she has held responsible positions as vice president  of engineering and design, vice president of quality and process excellence, director of facilities and waterfront support and program manager for the nuclear  engineering division. The first woman to head the $4 billion company, she was named president in 2017.

     During this time of remote learning, another group of students has formed RC Craft, a server designed to build an online community for students to interact with their peers during their time away from the campus. Any member of the college community can get information on the server from its website.

     At a time when the importance of staying socially connected is emphasized, one Roanoke student has a nationally recognized research project that is timely. Hannah Guthrie, a senior, has been working for a year on a research project on the relationship between social connection and childhood obesity. Guthrie, who grew up in Salem, was particularly interested in the 42 percent of Roanoke children who were overweight or obese. The Council on Undergraduate Research in Washington selected her project among hundreds for a posters session and she was one of 30 chosen to present their work to members of Congress.

     The Roanoke campus has been recognized by the Arbor Foundation as a 2019 Tree Campus USA. The program honors colleges and universities and their leaders for promoting healthy trees and engaging students and staff in conservation. To obtain this ranking, Roanoke met five core standards for sustainable campus forestry: establishment of a tree advisory committee, evidence of a campus tree-care plan, dedicated annual expenditures for a campus tree program, Arbor Day observance and sponsorship of student service-learning projects. The college is known for its trees. Dr. David Bittle, first president, planted a number and a rock elm next to the library was placed on the National Register in 2010.

I have to admit that I was a bit nervous about travelling to Guatemala for my FIRST MISSION TRIP EVER! We left for the airport at 3:30 a.m. on Sunday, March 1st - thanks to Gerald and Tina Britt for getting Abby and me to the airport!!

We arrived in Guatemala around 2:00 p.m. and boarded the bus to the Hotel Bambu. It was a long drive but the view was spectacular--- mountains, volcanoes, plants, flowers and beautiful purple flowering trees. What a beautiful country. The hotel was great, a beautiful setting with a pool and air conditioning! We ate breakfast and most dinners at the hotel --- the food was excellent.

On Monday and Tuesday we held clinics in Xojola, on Wednesday and Thursday, we   held mobile clinics in small barrios (Spanish for neighborhood) and on Friday, we held a clinic in Ixtacapa at the Partners in Development (PID) building. My main job was to help entertain the children while they and their mothers and fathers waited to be seen by the nurses and the doctors.

Mission members from Apostles,              Gloucester, on a trip to Gustemala.

 I worked with Linda Hodges and while the children colored pictures, we would show them how to brush their teeth and wash their hands (Linda was VERY good at this!!). I also got to help hand out health kits and reading glasses to people. On Wednesday, the clinic was at a school. It was a day of celebration for this village. Dr. Pete said it was really something for a medical clinic to come to their neighborhood.

The mayor stopped by and we met the principals of the school. They served us a delightful soup for lunch and they had music. That evening, Maria from PID invited us to her parent's home for dinner. It was delightful!! On Thursday, we were in a very small building with lots of people to be seen so I spent most of the day helping Betsy Liljeberg with the pharmacy by counting and bagging medications and vitamins, There is so much else I would like to share with you about this incredible trip and the people and children that I met.

It is one of the few times in my life that I felt like a thief.  You probably need some background for that statement. I was traveling back home from a Renew-145 meeting with Pastor Colleen Montgomery. We were following Pastor John Wertz to Vicar Brian Katz's house in Blacksburg to pick up some computers and TV's.

However, Vicar Brian wasn't home, so he gave Pastor Wertz the pass code to his garage and the three of us loaded six 55" TV's, computers, video cameras, small CPU's, and various cords into my Suburban. You should also know that our Suburban is probably a former government vehicle and is now loaded to the gills because 6 55" TV's is all you can get into a Suburban..

But the timing! It could not have been any better. If I was writing this in Greek and I could get away with it, I would use a divine passive. This had to happen because God made it happen. Within a week of receiving the TVs, small CPU units, and cameras, the COVID-19 pandemic struck home with consequences not seen in our country or in our churches in a long time.

These TVs and other equipment came to us through a "holy innovation" grant from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). As a part of the grant, we are exploring how to work more closely together in the Highlands Conference of the Virginia Synod, ELCA. As a part of this grant, we met as pastors of the Highlands Conference last spring at a Retreat Center and read together a wonderful book, entitled Canoeing the Mountains.

We dreamed about how we could work better together, find new ways to do ministry together, and continue to support one another in a conference that encompasses most of Southwest Virginia. The TVs and other equipment enable us to zoom with each other, plan and provide worship together and the eventual hope is to place one in almost every congregation in the conference in order to facilitate worship services, Bible studies, meetings, and whatever us we dream of. One of the emphases is that Christian leadership needs to change in this day and age.

And what changes we have seen in the past few weeks! When we began to realize worship with our congregations was probably not a great idea on Sunday March 15th, our pericope group turned into a discussion about how to provide worship together. This was a natural outflow from our work together, and we never really considered providing worship without working together.

We continue to provide worship for the churches of the Highland's Conference via Facebook, YouTube, and any other method w can explore and use! We know that zoom, Facebook live, and YouTube are not always perfect venues, especially since these corporations seem to be overwhelmed with the demand on their systems these past few weeks. However, it was great to worship together, and our congregations seemed to appreciate the fact that we are working together during these unprecedented times.

Who knows what will come from this? We have talked about various ways to continue to provide ministry to the congregations in this area, especially the smaller and more remote congregations. We've talked about ways to streamline our ministry, take out some redundancy, and work together to provide pastoral care, encourage ministry, and empower all congregations and peoples of the Highlands conference to love and serve God and neighbor.

  This grant could not have come at a better time. Common equipment has become a valuable tool in the ministry we continue to do during these difficult times. We don't know what our future ministry may look like, but we are more and more certain that whatever it looks like, it will be done together.

(Pastor Jonathan Hamman, dean of the Highland Conference, 

serves the Rural Retreat Parish.)

The ELCA has approved a special coronavirus fund-raising appeal and Lutheran World Relief and the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy have asked congregation members to sew face masks to protect health care workers. Lutherans on local, regional and national levels are working to stop the virus.

   In an April 8 teleconference, the ELCA Church Council approved a fund-raising effort to support congregations, synods, relief and development, global mission and affiliated ministries that have been negatively affected by the pandemic, The Council asked that churchwide organization units and offices provide periodic reports on the appeal.

   Lutheran World Relief has launched a70,000 Face Mask Challenge and asked volunteers to sew cloth face masks that will be sent overseas to slow the spread of the virus.

    Kim Bobo, VICPP director, said face masks are needed for patients, bus drivers and farm workers. She suggested congregations with supplies of hand sanitizers, hand soap or wipes donate them to local fire stations or emergency transportation teams.

ELCA members may not have paid much attention, but their church adopted a significant policy statement at the churchwide assembly last year entitled, "A Declaration of Inter-Religious Commitment." To anyone familiar with our history, this statement will be seen as truly historic. Our particular theological heritage as Lutherans has been marked by a spirit of exclusivism which has discouraged building relationships with other religious traditions. For that matter, we have not been at the cutting edge of ecumenical (church) relations either. So what lies behind this event?

Besides an enlightened leadership in our church, one can see two factors exerting an influence: culture and theology, which, as always, are intertwined. For centuries, the world religions have lived as relative strangers to each other. They have occupied different corners of the world, shaping their own culture in virtual isolation from each other. Living today in a shrunken world, we are recognizing the imperative to reach out to Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, and so on. This greater contact has encouraged the building of relationships.

As to the theological factor, churches are rethinking the exclusiveness that has dominated their past. When those of other religions have been strangers, it has been too easy to judge or even condemn them. This statement makes the point that Lutheran theology is relational, with an understanding of faith as trust. Thus faith is not primarily about affirming beliefs, which should keep us from judging our religious neighbors simply on that basis.

At the core of religious faith is one's relation to God, and we should rejoice wherever we see the Spirit of God at work in the lives of people who are adherents of other religious traditions. When it comes to the Bible, it doesn't convey a uniform perspective regarding people of other religions. However, there are numerous stories in the Old Testament in which God is portrayed as working through those who practice other religions, and in Acts 10 we see the Apostle Peter recognizing that God is at work in the lives of righteous Gentiles.

We know that our non-Christian neighbors today, particularly Jews and Muslims, are

experiencing discrimination of all kinds. In response, the statement relates Luther's explanation of the Eighth Commandment to our neighbors of other religious traditions, that we should "come to their defense, speak well of them, and interpret everything they do in the best possible light."

The statement recognizes that working to achieve justice and peace in the world is a

concern for every religious tradition, a divine calling for people of faith. In this statement our church enhances that calling when it commits itself to pursue justice in cooperation with those of other religions. Given the critical importance of religion to the common life of humanity, I for one am thankful to God for my church's expression of love and understanding toward those nurtured by the traditions of other world religions.

(Dr. Paul Jersild, First Lutheran, Norfolk, is retired from the faculty at Southern Seminary.)

To offset pastors' educational debt load, the Virginia Synod and other synods in Region 9 have received a matching grant from the Lily Foundation. Virginia is eligible to receive $125,000 in matching funds over the next three years to help  address the burden facing ministers and to strengthen stewardship education and ministry.

The average educational debt load for a pastor or deacon is approximately $47,000, according to Pastor John Wertz Jr., Synod director for evangelical mission and assistant to the bishop. This debt has a direct impact on a rostered leader's ability to accept a call and their ability to be a steward leader in their congregation.

The synod is planning a program to invite financial gifts matching the grant money for pastors' debt reduction. Last fall, the synod received the first gift of $20,000. With the match from the grant, $40,000 is available for the new ministry.

Rostered ministers may apply for an educational debt reduction grant which will be paid directly to their lender.

Applications will be reviewed by a grant administrator who will process the application. Awards will be made, based on available funds and individual need, by a team of lay and rostered leaders from Synod Council. Successful applicants will participate in a financial education program before receiving the grant.                                                                       

"It's very humbling to have a disease for which there is no cure," said Dr. Steven Mussey, a Fredericksburg physician and a member of Christ Lutheran.

  That disease, coronavirus, has caused "a lot of busy time" in his practice. His staff is busy screening patients electronically by "televisits," as well as seeing them in the parking lot.

   His staff was alarmed when the daughter of a receptionist appeared to have the virus but she recovered and the mother stayed on quarantine.

   His office does not do testing so he doesn't know if they are positive. He's keeping track of two people "but they can go from not sick to sick very quickly."

   Mussey said Fredericksburg does not appear to be a hot spot for the virus as a result of good isolation. Isolation "has really kept the cases down." He favors "a cautious release" of restrictions.

      Bishop Bob Humphrey said several synod congregations have reported infections among members and their families but he has not heard of any deaths caused by the virus.        While doctors, nurses and medical staff cope with the crisis that hit the nation seven weeks ago, Virginia Synod congregations and their members responded to the challenge with what Humphrey called "a multitude" of services, Bible studies and ways to worship online. Some met in parking lots and worshiped by radio. Music, council meetings, a prayer chain and even virtual fellowship were reported.

      June 10 is the date the governor's "Stay at Home" order expires but Gov. Northam has said there may be a phased relaxation of the restriction after 14 days of declining infection. Humphrey said a return to worship and in-person gatherings will require careful planning and restrictions to keep people safe.

     "The last thing we want is to act impulsively out of our understandable desire to return to worship and deeply regret it later as we see members or their families become ill. The church needs to be a good leader and model for the rest of society on how to respond with patience and always with great care and caution for the sake of others," the bishop said.

       With time on their hands, Virginia Lutherans faced the isolation challenge in many ways. Many walked through their neighborhood or on greenways or hiking trails. Others worked puzzles, read, cooked or cleaned house. Pastor Scott Mims wrote about this extra time in the Shepherd's Horn, newsletter of Good Shepherd, Virginia Beach: "..there is an upside to having fewer places to be and less busy and frenetic schedules and that is that we have more time---more time to connect with one another and especially right now, more time to connect with God. Perhaps in all these things we are experiencing, it is an important thing to remember these bright spots, especially as we celebrate the season of Easter."

Gail Midkiff, parish nurse at Holy Trinity, Lynchbnrg, reminded her members of the importance of washing hands and  praying during the coronavirus:  "Another important health choice is therefore frequent and effective hand washing. The ancient Celtic Christians gave  us a good example by having special prayers for all routine daily tasks. The 30 seconds (some say 20) it takes for effective hand  washing could be an occasion for a short prayer. We could thank God for good health, pray for continued health, pray for healing   for those who are sick and those who are suffering financial hardship, pray for the safety of workers who are on the front line of   danger and pray that the virus will be soon under control.