STINA’S MESSAGE

I think it is safe to say that the Asian Music Festival was a rousing success. The performers were awesome, everything went very smoothly, the new person in charge of these things at the Cathedral was incredibly helpful, there were a good number of new people in attendance, and we made a very respectable amount of money to give to our beneficiary. I had hoped for more attendance, but I think we are at the shift point where the attendance will increase now.

So what’s next? Diocesan Convention! This year, I hope you will seriously consider coming to the Friday evening Convention Eucharist, because the Asian Commision is organizing it. It will be somewhat similar to the EAM closing Eucharist, which was just wonderful. The preacher will be Dr. Jennie Te-Paa Daniels from New Zealand. We will be carpooling, so no one will have to drive after dark if they are uncomfortable with that.

But there is another part to this Convention, and that is the chance to tell our stories. The theme of Convention is From Tears to Joy. Each of the Asian-heritage congregations will put together storyboards that will be up for the entire convention. This means we need to quickly write down some stories that are important to us for our storyboard! Please think about this and get a paragraph or three about happy or sad times to me immediately! We will edit and organize all of the stories. When the convention is done, then I will see about bringing our storyboards back to SKK.

Other than the Friday evening Eucharist, only the elected representatives need to attend the business part of Convention with me on Saturday. I hope the rest of you will go to the Curry Cookoff put on by JARF over at Christ Presbyterian. I have tickets for that. This event is both to support a local endeavor and to build community. Our beneficiary this year is the Nichi Bei Foundation.

Finally, a word about disaster preparation. I have two brothers who live in Napa. One of them had a lot of damage. The Episcopal church in Napa also had a lot of damage. Our national church has encouraged us to think ahead and prepare for the worst. It is easy to put off thinking about these things, easy to put off actually making preparations. The Napa earthquake reminds us that we cannot afford to do that! Who is your “outside the Bay area” contact? We will be asking many more questions soon!

Stina

Comment from the website:
Sunday, 8-31-14.

Dear Rev. Pope and the Wonderful Seiko-kai Community,  my deepest thanks for all your splendid work in putting on the awesom Asian Music Festival @ the Grace Cathedral last Sunday!  For those who missed it–or didnt hear about it—they missed a most awesome performance!  I hope that next yr. you will be able to put on another performance!

SPECIAL THANKS
To everyone who is worked together to make the Festival a success: Carol Park-Li, Keiko Gishifu and the kitchen staff, Kei Nagai and Mary Vargas for the PR work, Joshua Hart for the graphics work, Kuni Koga and her ticket-taking crew, Lisa Tsukamoto for being the MC after an exhausting first week at school, Minoru and Tamae Akuhara for translations, Myrna Tsukamoto and Mary Vargas for organizing the table decorations, and Gordon Park-Li for being general manager.