For The Record

Submit birth, marriage and obituary records online.

Personal Ads

Meet new friends today!

Advertising

Put your message in front of 19,000 readers.

PDF documents on this site require the free Adobe Reader:

Get Adobe Reader

2012-02-01 issue:

One building, two congregations

Christmas dinner and auction bridge cultures.

by Calvary Mennonite Church

Print Article

The annual Christmas dinner and benefit auction on Dec. 4, 2011, was the first joint gathering of the two groups who meet regularly but separately at the meeting house of Calvary Mennonite Church, Liberal, Kan.

Members of Calvary Mennonite and Camino de Santidad gather for a Christmas dinner and auction. Photo by Elizabeth Raid.

Although everyone is always welcome at this gathering, this year Calvary Mennonite extended a special invitation to Camino de Santidad, the Hispanic church that has been meeting since spring in the Calvary building for Sunday afternoon worship and other weekly activities.

During the weeks of preparation, Calvary pastor Lou Gomez fielded questions from both groups. What do they like to eat? How will I carry on a conversation with someone who speaks another language? What to bring, wear, do—all these and many more wonderings filled the conversations. The 64 reservations that came in seemed overwhelming to the few at Calvary who had to make the preparations for the dinner and auction.

That evening, Calvary provided the meal staples, complemented by salads and desserts from attendees. Items donated for auction were also encouraged. In anticipation, people perused the items to be auctioned—handcrafted gifts, kitchen utensils, meals at local restaurants and tickets for events, and plenty of home-baked goodies—and chose what to bid on.

Pastor Gomez and Pastor Moises of Camino blessed the food and fellowship in prayer, first in English, then in Spanish. People laid aside misunderstandings and misgivings when they filled their plates with ham, beans, potatoes, leaving plenty of room for salads and desserts and sat down together. Conversations around the tables, some filled with Camino members, others with Calvary folks, Low German friends and relatives of other races and backgrounds, flowed in several languages.

Items were held up for all to see, and the opening bid given. There seemed to be no shyness or hesitancy as hands shot up from many directions. Plenty of laughter and light conversation mixed with the bidding added to the goodwill that seemed to build during the evening. Proceeds from the auction went to Mennonite Central Committee.