Page 8 - Mid Valley Times 9-5-19 E-edition

Miss
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Her work experience includes babysitting and cleaning homes. She volunteers for Adaptive Sports and has played soccer for Dinuba High in her freshman and sophomore years.
Medina plans to attend Fresno State and major in child development or biology. She would like to become a pediatrician.
Medina’s platform is Helping Hospitalized Children. She chose the platform because it has always been something she wanted to do. Susie would like to help children who are ill and light up their faces with smiles. She said she believes that children
are the purest and most innocent human beings on the earth and they deserve the world.
Medina would like to be Miss Dinuba because it is an amazing opportunity to be a leader in her community and it would also allow her to get involved with her town. She would like to mentor youth and build them up with leaderships skills and her kind heart. She said she would be more than honored to carry the Miss Dinuba title and believes she is ready to work hard to promote her platform.
Bianca Ruiz
Bianca Ruiz, I7, is the daughter of Jose Evaristo and Margarita Ruiz and a senior at Dinuba High.
Ruiz has been a member of the choral department through her entire career at the high school. She has participated in advanced women’s choir, concert choir and Madrigals. She volunteers by helping serve at service clubs, including the Women’s Club, Lion’s Club and Rotary.
She said she plans to attend Fresno State and major in education. Her goal is to become a high school math teacher.
Ruiz’s platform is “The Bullying Aspect of Eating Disorders.” She said she chose this platform because she has a personal connection and believes everyone is different in their own way and shouldn’t be picked on
because of it.
Ruiz said she would
like to be Miss Dinuba because she would like to be more involved with the community and make a positive change. Also, she said she would like to be able to bring awareness to her platform.
Vanessa Hernandez
Vanessa Hernandez, I7, is the daughter of Angie Guerra and is a senior at Dinuba High.
She is involved in various activities at her school and a member of the water polo team, swim team, drill team and choir.
Hernadez is enrolled in a nursing assistant course offered through Dinuba High. In May 2020 she expects to graduate with her
certified nurse’s assistant certificate and a high school diploma.
She plans to attend Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo and then transfer to UCLA to pursue her bachelor of science in nursing. She would like to become a registered nurse.
Her platform is “Suicide in Convalescent Homes.” She said she chose it not only because of her grandparents, but because she loves elderly people. Hernandez said she feels that the elderly often begin to feel as if they are just a waste of space and cannot do anything right. Her own grandparents, who live with her family, have to wait for someone to help them get out of the house. She said
she cannot imagine how those living in convalescent homes feel not being able to leave, and in some cases never having visitors.
She said she would like to be Miss Dinuba because she believes it’s an amazing opportunity to walk alongside other community leaders and be a better leader in her community. She also said she feels it is a great way to inspire and mentor youth. She said she would also like to use Miss Dinuba to bring attention to her platform and making sure that the elderly feeling important is one the many goals for her community.
Thursday, September 5, 2019
| A8 | Mid Valley TiMes
Pastor's Corner: Making sense of immigration and faith
“A wandering Aramean was my ancestor.”
This is the opening line of the ancient liturgy of the Israelites once they have gathered a harvest in the new promised land, what they are to say as they bring first fruits to present to God in thanks for that new stable homeland as outlined in Deuteronomy 26:1-15.
They were to always remember that history, where they had come from, their ancestor Abraham was a wanderer. We might call him a migrant, an emigrant and
Michelle Magee
immigrant. That father Abraham who left one land to where God would lead him.
His descendants were made slaves but freed by God, who then
led them in another migration, eventually coming to inhabit that land of milk and honey.
Generations of wanderers seeking fulness of life and faithfulness to God. That is who they were, where they had come from and they were to remember that always as they gave thanks to God.
I feel the need to point this out because it seems the word “immigrant” has become tainted in such negativity in recent history.
I lived as an immigrant for almost four years in Argentina. I met my
husband there.
He has become a
citizen of the United States, but he will always be an immigrant. Because that is his story, where he comes from, another place.
It is not wrong or bad to be born in one place and then move to another. It is part of our history of faith and a part of the history of all the people living in this country.
Yes, Native Americans were here first but even they had a moment — millennia before anyone else — when they came from somewhere else.
And in Deuteronomy
26, that same passage that has the instructions for bringing those first fruits, that sacrifice of worship to God, it also makes clear that part of that offering is explicitly for other migrants, foreigners living among the Israelites.
Part of their worship and remembering their story was to ensure that others who also were immigrants into their land would be cared for, forever.
I know people of faith have different opinions about political matters. But when we talk about immigrants,
let us remember that they are us. They are first our sisters and brothers. Tthey and we are beloved children of God, and we all share in this story of people who move from one place to another, seeking fulness of life and faithfulness to God.
Peace be with you on your journey.
Michelle Magee is pastor of Palm United Methodist Church in Dinuba.
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