How Margaret Got a Prayer Shawl

The Mennonite community I'm part of here in Tucson is Shalom Mennonite Fellowship. It's a small, vibrant, spunky group that does a lot of good work and has a lot of fun together, too, often times on Sunday mornings. Shalom of Tucson has a sister church, Teusaquillo, in Bogota, Columbia, with whom we exchange visits at least yearly and stay in communication through the relationships that have developed. When I first started attending Shalom I was impressed with the importance placed on this international relationship between churches, something I'd only read about in theory. We light a candle for our sisters and brothers in Bogota every Sunday, and every Sunday they light one for us.

While I haven't been to Columbia myself, a couple years ago a woman from Teusaquillo named Adaia volunteered a day with Community Home Repair during her visit to Tucson, and was sent out with me. We fumbled through the language barrier to do some electrical jobs together, but I hadn't been in touch with her since. This summer, a family from Shalom was in Bogota visiting when I discovered Grazelda, and they shared the news with the friends that had gathered with for supper. Adaia was among these, and immediately offered to pray for me at the monthly healing service that was to be held that week.

So it came about that yesterday, feeling well enough to go to church, I was anointed with oil and presented with a prayer shawl, originally belonging to Adaia, that had been prayed over by the fifty-some people at the healing service in Bogota as well as the people at Shalom.

While Shalom is unaccustomed to anointings (or maybe it's just me - I had to be told explicitly, "Sit on the box!"), the healing ministry is what comes naturally to our sister church. And regardless of your thoughts and experiences of the "God Paradigm" (thanks, Myron), it is a powerful thing to be so cared for by an entire community I've never met, except one day of electrical work. I am awed and grateful to be connected to so many people, from whom I'm usually separated by geography, culture, and language. And we are all hoping for healing.

Oh yeah, and I'm feeling so good today I went to work. No carrying shingles up the ladder, but I drove myself around and sat in the office working on writing grants. Week three (in the chemo cycle) is a good week.