Our Work - Justice

We are happy to report on two significant events that have happened recently:

1) One of our Racial Justice Advocates has now become the REVEREND Angela Kutney. Angie was
ordained on June 9, 2016 at a beautiful worship service at Peace Lutheran Church in Dresser, her “home church.” Bishop Rick Hoyme presided at the ordination service and several persons important in the life of Angie also participated, including her Father, Rev. Wayne Deloach, her Godfather, Rev. Gary Nokleberg, and her sister, Rev. Amy Waelchli. Twenty-eight other pastors were also present at Angie’s service along with a large congregation of witnesses. Angie graduated from Wartburg Theological Seminary on May 15th and she will be installed as Pastor of Milltown Lutheran Church later in June. We are happy that Pastor Angie will remain in our Northwest Wisconsin Synod as a pastor and will also continue to do racial justice presentations as her time permits. Thank you to our Synod Women’s Organization for providing a seminary scholarship to Angie for all four years of her seminary education, and also for training her as a Racial Justice Advocate for our Synod. Our SWO has been making significant gifts to our women seminarians for many years and it is bearing much fruit. Please remember Pastor Angela in your prayers as she continues her ministry among the people of our Northwest Wisconsin Synod.

2) We are happy to announce that the SWO Board has voted to support the training of another Racial Justice Advocate for our Synod Women’s Organization! Nominated by two of our Racial Justice Advocates, Diane Kaufmann and Marcia Lindseth, Mary Beth Meieriotto is preparing to attend the Women of the ELCA’s Justice Ministry training retreat for the racial justice advocates network, also known as Today’s Dream: Tomorrow’s Reality (TDTR). It will be held August 25- 28, 2016 in Kansas City, KS at the Savior Pastoral Center Retreat & Conference Center.

There is some excitement around 2016’s training retreat as WELCA has been teaching women how to have helpful conversations about race since 1997 and in 2015 our Presiding Bishop, Elizabeth Eaton, asked congregations to start having conversations about race. Inez Torres Davis, Director for Justice for our WELCA, has re-written the TDTR core curriculum. Mary will receive training on the new TDTR core curriculum.

Mary lives in Bayfield and is a member of the Lake Superior Conference. She is active in her congregation’s ministry. She has conducted Faith Formation book studies and is currently preparing to become a Synodically Authorized Minister (SAM) to serve her congregation, Bethesda Lutheran in Bayfield. She has attended the Synod’s Lay School of Ministry for the past eight years and has attended several TDTR presentations. She has been involved in activities at the Red Cliff Band of

Lake Superior Chippewa Indians in her hometown of Bayfield, including participation in a Food Shelf Committee for the tribe and participating in the New Year’s Community Dinner put on by her congregation and members from the Red Cliff Band. Mary also assists Pastor Larry Jorstad with his discretionary fund which quite often is used to aid individuals and families on the reservation. Mary and her husband adopted a Native American son who is now 22 years old. We are hoping that Mary, when she finishes her training and given her background with Native American Ministry, will help our Racial Justice Advocates, and all of us in our Synod, learn more about and reach out to the six Native American tribes without our synod. Please pray for Mary Beth as she attends her TDTR training in August.

As a reminder, remember that we have four trained Racial Justice Advocates who are waiting for your invitations from units, churches, and conferences to come and speak with you about confronting racism. We appreciated the many people who chose to come to our presentations at the Synod’s “Walking Together” event in March and at a few church presentations we have done this past spring. As Inez Torres Davis has said, “We have great potential to address racism in powerful ways. Let us accompany one another on this road to healing of our church, our society, and our world.”

Marcia Lindseth mlindseth @ centurytel.net
Diane Kaufmann dikaufmann @ yahoo.com
Gail Lando gailk @ grantsburgtelecom.net
Rev. Angie Kutney angkutney @ gmail.com
Mary Meierotto, marymeierotto @ gmail.com