Title: Women of the ELCA Proclamation Station ELCA NEWS SERVICE July 14, 1996 HANG A RIGHT ON JERICHO ROAD 96-WO-23-BC MINNEAPOLIS (ELCA) -- The "Proclamation Station" offers chances to go online, make a videotape, experience disabilities, tie quilts, and be refreshed -- besides making loads of information and many resources available. The exhibit hall of the Third Triennial Convention of the Women of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is open here July 11-14. The hall looks like most any other convention exhibit area -- booths and displays with flyers and pamphlets and even some computer terminals. Once a participant started visiting the booths -- by way of aisles bearing names of biblical significance -- he or she would find unique and meaningful opportunities and information. * Wheat Ridge Ministries calls conventioneers to prayer with bracelets. Beads and string are provided for making them. Each bead represents a different problem, need or ministry, and is to remind the maker to pray for each concern he or she put on the bracelet. Wheat Ridge Ministries is an independent pan-Lutheran organization supplying money and grants for new ministries. * MOSAIC, the ELCA's video magazine, gives participants an opportunity to make a videotape that can be used to report on the convention. Tapes are provided that already include greetings from ELCA Presiding Bishop H. George Anderson and Women of the ELCA President Jan Peterson. * Participants who are eager to get online or are afraid of computers -- either way -- can ease onto the Internet by visiting the LutherLink site. LutherLink is the Lutheran branch of Ecunet, a global computer network of religious organizations. The site includes six computers, helpers, an explanation of the World Wide Web and an introduction to LutherLink, an online site that is becoming a basic communication tool for the church. * With eight sewing machines, three quilting tables and thousands of quilt squares, the Lutheran World Relief station is the place to tie quilts. Many of the participants are accustomed to this work in their congregational Women of the ELCA unit, and those who aren't receive instructions to "tie into it." Fabric squares are also available to take home and to tie into quilts that can be donated to LWR. * Social justice is a major concern of this convention. Participants can write their congressional representatives, the President, Supreme Court justices or governors at the display of the Lutheran Office for Governmental Affairs. Sample letters on topics from campaign finance reform to welfare reform are provided. They can be personalized on the available computers. The letter can be sent from the convention by mail or e-mail. A separate letter-writing opportunity is provided at the Lutherans for Peace Fellowship booth. * The Lutheran Special Education Ministries of Detroit exhibit helps participants experience visual-motor problems -- copy a star while looking through a mirror. It also displays a scripture verse as a dyslexic person would see it. * At the Martin Luther Home Society booth, participants can earn a stress ball by taking on one of several disabilities, such as putting on huge gardening gloves to try to tie a shoelace bow. * Augsburg Fortress, publishing house of the ELCA, has a "store" for a variety of its products in the center of the Proclamation Station. * Resource booklets and information displays are provided by ELCA units, such as the Division for Congregational Ministries and Division for Outreach, and the church's eight seminaries and 28 colleges and universities. * The ELCAdvantage Program offers a variety of products and services as a collective, volume purchasing and stewardship effort of the church. Some of the products and services on display are cellular telephones and paging services, communication consulting, home-finding, vehicle purchasing or leasing and video conferencing services. * "Lutheran Vespers," the 30-minute weekly radio program of the ELCA, featured tapes of its speaker -- the Rev. Walter Wangerin -- and resources on how to get the program "on the air." The display includes antique radios supplied by the Northland Antique Radio Club. * Southern African Network of the ELCA had a "village" painted on a tarp that it used to teach about the difficulties of living with land mines. Walking down Esther Lane to King's Highway and taking a right on Jericho Road can tire the average convention-goer. So a number of booths provide rest, relaxation and refreshment. The Lutheran Deaconess Association is even washing feet. For information contact: Ann Hafften, Dir., ELCA News Service, (312) 380-2958; Frank Imhoff, Assoc. Dir., (312) 380-2955; Lia Christiansen, Asst. Dir.,(312) 380-2956