Buckle your seatbelts Floris, the high schoolers of bright life are off to Lumberton, North Carolina After hours of grueling packing, repacking and sitting on suitcases to zip them up, 28 high school students congregated in the lower parking lot of Floris UMC. With many students bustling around, leaders checking people in and parents trying to hold it together before their baby’s left them for... Disaster Response Tim Wells:I have been blessed to be the coordinator for our disaster response mission teams for national disasters for the last 13 years. There have been over 600 Floris UMC team members on 46 teams since Hurricane Katrina destroyed /damaged 800,000 housing units in August 2005. Volunteers have... United to Love: Rally Day 2018 We knew they were coming. The group of white supremacists had been issued a permit to gather in Lafayette Park, on this, the one-year anniversary of the “Unite the Right” event in Charlottesville. At their 2017 gathering, Heather Heyer, a counter-protester, was killed, while others were physically injured... When There Are Strong Winds in Your Life - Cuando hay vientos fuertes en tu vida We were having two days of intense winds, and I was worried about my neighbor’s tree, a tall pine more than fifty feet high, and other trees in my yard.My husband had gone to work, and I had the day off. I was still in my pajamas when... Before I Go At the end of this year, my husband and I will be moving to Williamsburg. Between now and then we have a number of things to do and a very limited time in which to do them. Two of them are unavoidable: cleaning out the old house and... Contemplating The following blog posting is Based on the May 16, 2018 Devotion in the Floris UMC Racial Reconciliation Group Meeting: In his Dissent of Plessy V. Ferguson, 1896, Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote, “The White race deems itself to be the dominant race in this country. And so it is,... Scripture Mash-up I love song mash-ups where DJ’s, singers, and others mix portions of favorite songs into a new composition and in doing so, create something with a power all its own, separate from the effect of the individual songs themselves, strong though they may be. Let me do that here... What if you fly? Much of my life has been spent connected to the Church. The first time I attended church I did not walk in, I was carried. I was brought by my wise and loving parents, baptized and have been here ever since. Although I have fond memories of a... Transform Our Lives into Beautiful Tapestries "Be strong and courageous. The Lord your God will be with you wherever you go." Joshua 1:9I reminded myself of this verse as I started out my very first mission trip Thursday, May 24, 2018. I started out not knowing anyone at all on my mission team and... There is Value in Your Silence On Saturday, April 14, I had the privilege of joining about a dozen other leaders from Floris United Methodist Church and about two hundred others at Annandale United Methodist Church to participate in the Bishop’s Convocation on Race and Reconciliation. Most of us from Floris came because of... Not Your Parents' Brick & Mortar Church: Welcome to Restoration Worldwide I've identified as a Christian longer than I can remember. I grew up in a Christ-centered family, went to Sunday school and bounced around churches and denominations as I went through college and eventually struck off on my own. Yet, throughout my life as a Christian, I never... Facing Our Shadows Each year when Groundhog Day arrives I am inevitably reminded of the Bill Murray classic of the same name in which a disgruntled and unhappy man is faced with the question, "what would happen if we were forced to repeat the same day over again until we got...
