February 11, 2014

I just finished meeting with The Reverend Damita Davis-Howard, our guest preacher for Sunday February 16. Damita is the Associate Pastor at Mt. Sinai Baptist Church and a member of the staff of the Oakland Community Organizations. Within OCO Damita leads organizing in several areas of our work, most notably public education reform and violence prevention/community transformation. She is an energetic leader, an astute strategist and a fine preacher.
For almost two years she has been the leader of the “Night Walks” in which members of the faith community walk designated routes in some of the most violence plagued neighborhoods of our city as a sign of caring, hope, connection and community. These walks are an integral part of the Ceasefire strategy, which also includes the regular presence of street outreach workers, evidence based allocation of police resources, and the call-ins. I look forward to you meeting her on Sunday.
Our guest soloist will be Professor Robert Simms, Mikki’s mentor. He will offer renditions of several well-known spirituals.

Prayers of the Congregation

• Charlene Wolf as she travels to North Dakota to visit her mom
• Our continuing commemoration of African American History Month
• Larry Sims for his family
• The residents of Grand Lake Gardens in the midst of a flu related quarantine
• Irene Jennings
• Fannye Leary
• Kay Baxter-Reid and family
• David Robinson for his mom
• Ted and Doris Evans and their extended family
• Jeanne Robinson, in midst of knee pain relief procedures
• Mary Karne for Maryla and Dianne
• Helen Harrison for the Denn family
• Phil and Gloria Meads for Carlos and Max
• Georgia Upshaw for Ginny
• Nedra Whiteman (Karen’s mom) for her brother Tex
• Our LOC as is works to improves outcomes for the Oakland Tech students
• Ann Fields for her family
• Carol Leicther for Steve and for her mom
• The OUSD Board as it establishes policy in regard to allocation of new revenue coming from the State of California
• Thanksgiving with Kimberly Bolich that her dad is doing well in chemotherapy
• Thanksgiving for the life of Shirley Temple Black
• Thanksgiving for the courage of Michael Sam, likely to become the NFL’s first openly gay player, and his family