Relief Agency to Deliver Christmas Cheer

A cargo plane stocked with 65,000 shoe boxes filled with Christmas gifts collected in the western United States will leave Long Beach on Wednesday for Mexico City.

Accompanying the boxes on the trip will be 11-year-old Veronica Pomeroy of Calabasas, a cystic fibrosis patient who collected 300 boxes last year from classmates at Bay Laurel Elementary School.

This year, Veronica collected 400 boxes. She was invited to fly to Mexico City where she, a child from Minneapolis and the Rev. Franklin Graham will hand-deliver hundreds of gifts at schools, hospitals and orphanages.

Operation Christmas Child is a project of Samaritan’s Purse, the global relief agency in North Carolina that is headed by Graham, the future heir to father Billy Graham’s evangelistic organization.

From 28,000 boxes distributed five years ago, the project last year grew to more than 1 million boxes. As many as 1.5 million boxes are expected to be distributed this year. Three Antonov 124 cargo planes will airlift 200,000 of the boxes from three U.S. airports.

Shoe boxes containing gifts from children in the U.S. and six other countries this year will go to youngsters in 35 countries, including Bosnia, Croatia, Armenia, Kenya and Vietnam.

In the final days before the flight, a spokeswoman said, volunteers are needed in Long Beach to check the contents of each box and make sure gifts are safe and not leaking. (562) 982-7522.

CHRISTMAS MUSIC

Christmas music will ring through churches in coming days while special Las Posadas walks and concerts at Biola University take the holiday outdoors.

At Biola in La Mirada, a gospel choir, a chamber orchestra and other performers give campus visitors options for recalling the Christmas story at 7 p.m. Friday and next Saturday. The theater offering this year is “Away With the Manger,” called a “spiritually correct Christmas story.” Each night ends with the lighting of a tree. Tickets are $16 and $14.50. (562) 906-4548.

In Los Angeles, Lloyd Holzgraf will end nearly 38 years as resident organist at First Congregational Church, 540 S. Commonwealth Ave., by presenting his final Advent concert at 4 p.m. Sunday. The organist’s concert will include Dupre’s variations on “Adeste Fideles,” Saint-Saens’ “Fantasie in E Flat” and Holst’s “Christmas Day.” $11 donation. (213) 385-1345.

Thousands of people are expected to take part today in Pasadena’s Posada, a candlelight AIDS walk through the city, to raise money for AIDS Service Center. The 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. event begins and ends at Pasadena City Hall. The annual interfaith service at nearby All Saints Episcopal Church begins at 3:30 p.m. Pastor Lee Barker of Neighborhood Church in Pasadena will speak. (626) 441-8495.

A traditional La Posada will unfold on the California Lutheran University campus at 6 p.m. Sunday, starting at the Samuelson Chapel. The reenactment of Mary and Joseph’s search for shelter for the impending birth of Jesus will conclude with a 7 p.m. service at the pavilion. Free. (805) 493-3228.

“The Child,” a musical drama on the life of Jesus, will be presented at 8 p.m. Friday at Shepherd of the Hills Church, 19700 Rinaldi St., Porter Ranch. Four other presentations will be at 2 p.m. Dec. 13; 2 p.m. Dec. 14; 6 p.m. Dec. 14, and 8 p.m. Dec. 15. Free tickets but reservations required. (818) 831-7880.

Other Christmas music will include:

* The 20th annual “Christmas Celebration” at Beverly Hills Presbyterian Church, 505 N. Rodeo Drive, at 8 p.m. Thursday. The concert will be dedicated to the memory of actor James Stewart, who died in July. The longtime church member was the Christmas concert’s Scripture reader for 16 years. $20. (310) 271-5194.

* Handel’s “Messiah” will be performed Sunday in at least two churches. At Westchester Lutheran Church, conductor Michael Ramirez will lead choir, orchestra and featured soloists from the Los Angeles and Orange County Master Chorales in a 4 p.m. concert at 7831 S. Sepulveda Blvd. Donations $10. In Laguna Hills, the Lake Hills Community Church and its choir and baroque orchestra will present “Messiah” at 4 p.m. and 6:30 p.m at 23331 Moulton Parkway. (714) 837-7729.

* “The Bethlehem Story,” an original musical composed and conducted by Olindo Marzulli, will be performed at Malibu Presbyterian Church, 3324 Malibu Canyon Road, at 2 p.m. Sunday and 7:30 p.m. Dec. 13 and 14. $5 and $7. (310) 456-1611.

* More than 180 musicians will present three performances of new and traditional music at San Clemente Presbyterian Church, 119 Avenida de la Estrella, starting at 7:30 p.m. today. Sunday performances will be at 5:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. An offering will be taken. (714) 492-6158.

CONFERENCE

Ten Jewish specialists in the mystical and contemplative side of Judaism will lead a conference next weekend on “Rediscovering Jewish Meditation” at a North Hollywood synagogue.

Open to beginners and advanced practitioners as well as to non-Jews, the program features panelists including Rabbi David and Shoshana Cooper of Boulder, Colo.; Nan Fink and Avram Davis of Chochmat HaLev, a Jewish spirituality center in Berkeley, and Rabbi Jonathan Omer-Man, founder-president of Metivta, the Los Angeles-based conference organizer. (310) 477-7143.

The conference, at Adat Ari El Synagogue, 12020 Burbank Blvd., opens at 6 p.m. Dec. 13 and will continue through Dec. 14.

DATES

Free turkeys, groceries and toys will be distributed at 8 a.m. next Saturday at Los Angeles First African Methodist Episcopal Church, 2270 S. Harvard Blvd., in a holiday giveaway provided by Ralphs Grocery Co. (213) 730-9180.

* A forum on Christian sexuality, with a keynote address by theologian John Cobb of Claremont, will be held Sunday from 2 to 4:30 p.m. at Hollywood United Methodist Church, 6817 Franklin Ave. The organizer is the Mobilization for the Human Family, a self-described progressive Christian movement. Among panelists will be New Testament scholar Jeffrey Siker of Loyola Marymount University and psychologist Andrew Weaver of the University of Hawaii. $5 donation. (909) 625-8722.

* Erwin Chemerinsky, USC professor of law and political science, will talk about “The Vanishing Wall Separating Church and State” at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in a talk sponsored by the Americans United for Separation of Church and State’s San Fernando Valley chapter. The free lecture will be at the Church of the Foothills, 13425 Glenoaks Blvd., Sylmar. (8i8) 998-5414.

* The University of Judaism’s Rabbi Elliot Dorff, a leading ethics scholar in Conservative Judaism, will discuss recent issues in medical ethics from a Jewish perspective at 7:30 p.m. Sunday at Shomrei Torah Synagogue, 7353 Valley Circle Blvd., West Hills. $8 at door. (818) 346-0811.

FINALLY

A Jewish book festival--with authors ranging from rabbinical leaders to mystery writers Jonathan and Faye Kellerman--began this week and will continue through next weekend in 25 events in the San Fernando Valley area.

The Kellermans will expound on their separate paths to best-selling novels in a 10:30 a.m. brunch Sunday at the Skirball Cultural Center in the Sepulveda Pass. Advance registration was required.

Rabbis Daniel Gordis, Harold Schulweis, David Wolpe and Isaiah Zeldin--authors all--will address issues of Jewish identity in the next century at 7:30 p.m. Monday at Congregation Valley Beth Shalom in Encino. $6. Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, who has written nine books while serving a synagogue in Sudbury, Mass., will speak three times next weekend, starting Friday, at Temple Aliyah, Woodland Hills.

The brainchild of ex-schoolteacher Seville Porush, the first-time “Five Valley Jewish Book Festival” refers to the suburbs north and northwest of Mulholland Drive and the region’s growing Jewish population. For information, call the West Valley Jewish Community Center in West Hills at (818) 587-3619.

HOLIDAY

Expected heavy rains have altered the Los Angeles Archdiocese’s plans for Sunday’s Our Lady of Guadalupe Mass in East Los Angeles.

The Most Rev. Gabino Zavala, auxiliary bishop for the San Gabriel region, will be the principal celebrant of the 67th annual Mass, but the event will be indoors rather than at the East Los Angeles Community College Stadium. The Mass at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, 4018 Hammel St., will begin at 1:30 p.m.

Weather reports prompted cancellation of the pre-Mass procession of floats and costumed dancers in East Los Angeles, Father Gregory Coiro said Friday. The Dec. 12 feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe is one of the most important celebrations in the Latino community. It recalls the stories of four apparitions by the Virgin Mary in 1531 to peasant Juan Diego.