Ken Hundrieser

FOR KEN

This stole is given on behalf of my son Ken.  Since conception we prayed for Ken, we dedicated him to God, we baptized him in the UMC.  He regularly attended Sunday School, sang in the children's choir.  He was confirmed in our church, and church was a second home to all of our families in our clan.

When we were called into missionary service to Africa, Ken and his siblings went with us, schooled out there, volunteered at the mission hospital every summer, graduated from secondary school out there with honors, went to the USA to attend University, and found out for the first time that the reason for his disinterest in dating girls all his life was because he was gay.  He went to graduate school, and post-graduate school and had a long string of successes.

He still sings in the choir, is still in leadership positions anywhere he goes.  But he cannot worship in the church of his fore-fathers and fore-mothers, because he should be silent about the gifts of God, not to express them, not to rejoice in the loving faithful relationship he entered into with his mate?

Shame on us, United Methodist Church, that we deny our children the Body of Christ.  Thank God I had the courage to join my son and his partner in Holy Union in God's presence and that of his family and friends.

With grief, but not without hope,

Rev. Erika Lemke Hundrieser
Chicago, Illinois

This stole was given to us in advance of the 2000 General Conference of the United Methodist Church in Cleveland, OH.  Erika and her family -- including her son, Ken -- have served the United Methodist Church faithfully across the globe.  That Ken is no longer welcome in this same United Methodist Church is a travesty.  Erika has been active in the Reconciling movement for many years, working for the full inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons into the life and leadership of the United Methodist Church.

In 1999, the Reconciling Ministries Network (RMN) inquired about the possibility of having a display of the Shower of Stoles at the General Conference the following April.  At the time, there were only around twenty United Methodist stoles in the collection.  We decided to introduce the Shower of Stoles to the Reconciling community by bringing the twenty UM stoles and about a hundred others to RMN’s Convocation in Denton, TX over the Labor Day weekend.  Stoles started to trickle in during the fall, and by February they began coming in droves.  In all, we received 220 United Methodist stoles – the vast majority of them arriving within eight weeks of the Conference.  Thanks to a monumental effort by a number of volunteers who pitched in to help record, inventory, sew labels and make last-minute repairs, all of the new stoles were present in Cleveland.  Twenty more people brought stoles directly to Cleveland, bringing the total number on display to 240.

Towards the end of the General Conference, twenty eight lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender United Methodists and allies stood on the Conference floor in silent protest over the Conference’s failure to overturn the ban on LGBT ordination – a profound witness and act of defiance for which they were later arrested.  As these twenty eight moved to the front of the room, another 200 supporters stood up around the balcony railing, each wearing one of the new United Methodist stoles.  Hundreds more stood in solidarity as well, in the balcony and on the plenary floor, wearing symbolic “stoles” made from colorful bands of cloth.  A group of young people from Minneapolis, members of a Communicant’s Class, had purchased bolts of cloth the preceding evening and stayed up all night cutting out close to a thousand of these “stoles”.  In less than eight months, a handful of stoles had grown to become a powerful, visible witness to the steadfast faith of LGBT United Methodists nationwide.

Martha Juillerat
Founder, Shower of Stoles Project
2006