Peace Be With You

Welcome to the first post of what will hopefully be an ongoing project for the Saint Paul members of the Lutheran Volunteer Corps! We got a little jealous that Winona House had their own blog, so we decided to make our own. Ta-da? Ta-da! We hope this can be a space for us to share updates with our family and friends on the thing we're doing during our year of service, and also a space to connect with past and future members of Beth Shalom.

A brief overview of what we're talking about:

The Lutheran Volunteer Corps was founded in the 1970s when Luther Place Memorial Church realized that other denominations had super fun volunteer corps and the Lutheran Church did not. Formed around the core values of social justice, simplicity and sustainability, and intentional community, LVC places volunteers in houses across the country to serve in a non-profit capacity in hopes of inspiring us to a lifetime of service. Over the years 1,800 people have come through LVC. LVC is committed to doing the work of anti-racism through its "Journey To An Inclusive Community" programming and welcome of LGBT people as a "Reconciling in Christ" organization.

Beth Shalom means "House of Peace" in Hebrew and was named by the first volunteers to live there in 1993. It is the only house in Saint Paul, Minnesota though there are another 3 across the river in Minneapolis. The house is located in the Summit-University neighborhood and has moved several times for various reasons. It used to be very firmly entrenched in the Old Rondo neighborhood (a rich cultural center of the African-American community in St. Paul unceremoniously split in two by the construction of I-94), but last year we moved a bit further south, probably out of the bounds of Rondo proper. We're located two short blocks from Saint Paul Reformation Lutheran Church, which serves as our host congregation and a source of community support for us.

That's us!

This year there are four volunteers living in Beth Shalom. From left to right we are: Emily, Dan, Jamie and Anna. You'll get more thorough introductions from us soon, but for now all you need to know is that we watch this video at least once each week and have started a band called "With Or Without Dan."