Crossing Over (Guest Speakers: Joe and Jane Snyder)
Joe grew up on a multi-crop farm/ranch on Molalla land near Molalla, OR, moving to Portland for his last three years of high school. After graduating from Princeton University with a non professional degree in architecture, and marrying Jane Winters, he worked mostly as a designer/carpenter for several years (also bus driver, laborer, and part time faculty/staff at Oregon Episcopal School) before deciding to return to school to become a veterinarian, graduating in the pioneer class at OSU in 1983. He practiced veterinary medicine and helped raise three daughters in rural Myrtle Point, OR until 2011, when he and Jane returned to Portland. Joe and Jane have been Quakers for over 50 years and are both actively engaged in the Society of Friends. Joe has been involved with numerous boards and volunteer activities, including OSU Extension, the Coos County Livestock Association, SMART reading program, Oregon Tilth, the American Association of Small Ruminant Practitioners, the Animal Welfare Committee of the AVMA, too many Quaker committees and positions to count, the board of Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, as NW Regional Coordinator for the Friends World Committee; and is currently involved in organizing peaceful faith based resistance to I.C.E. He has made presentations at numerous veterinary and agricultural conferences, and served as part time faculty in the PCC Veterinary Technology Program. He has a long time commitment to working with children and youth. Joe and Jane first visited Guatemala attending a Quaker conference in 2006, where they learned of the Friends Scholarship Program. They became “hooked” on the program after being invited to attend a week long teaching English experience a few years later and have been regular visitors and contributors since. Both now serve on the board of directors of PROGRESA, the scholarship program. Jane and Joe currently live in the Johns Landing neighborhood of Portland in a small condominium, close to their three daughters and four grandchildren.
Jane comes from a family that has been in Portland for many generations, and is a retired teacher of children in various places and subjects, mostly in middle school. She now still does some volunteer teaching of English to adult immigrants and refugees, as well as teaching English to scholarship students in the Progresa Quaker scholarship program in Guatemala. She and Joe joined Multnomah Friends Meeting in the early 1970s. Jane has clerked Multnomah Meeting, North Pacific Yearly Meeting and Friends World Committee for Consultation, Section of the Americas. Jane and Joe are grateful to be with many Camas Friends at the peaceful witnesses for justice and due process at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Center in Portland.
Genesis 32:22-31 (NRSV):
22 The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. 24 Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. 25 When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 26 Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” 27 So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 28 Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans and have prevailed.” 29 Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. 30 So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, yet my life is preserved.” 31 The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.
Isaiah 55:1-5 (NRSV):
1 Hear, everyone who thirsts;
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.
2 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread
and your earnings for that which does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.
3 Incline your ear, and come to me;
listen, so that you may live.
I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
my steadfast, sure love for David.
4 See, I made him a witness to the peoples,
a leader and commander for the peoples.
5 Now you shall call nations that you do not know,
and nations that do not know you shall run to you,
because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel,
for he has glorified you.
John 6:1-15 (NRSV):
1 After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. 2 A large crowd kept following him because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. 3 Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. 4 Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. 5 When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” 6 He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. 7 Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” 8 One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, 9 “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” 10 Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was a great deal of grass in the place, so they sat down, about five thousand in all. 11 Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. 12 When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” 13 So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. 14 When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.” 15 When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.
Leviticus 11:33-34 (NRSV):
33 “When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. 34 The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the native-born among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.