Independence council goes bilingual

In what a local pastoral minister believes was a first in Independence City Council history, the weekly invocation to open Monday night’s meeting was given in Spanish.

Josef Walker of the Independence Ministerial Alliance said the opening prayer conducted by Hilda Beck, and translated in English by Lee Ward, directly correlated with the city’s ongoing effort to improve diversity and ethnicity relations between citizens. Beck is the director of missions at St. Mark’s Catholic Church and Ward is the director of pastoral care.

“To the best of my knowledge, we have never prayed in any of the other languages that are represented here in Independence,” Walker said. “We have so many languages spoken now in the Independence School District – you would have to double check that, but I think it’s 27 primary languages – for people to speak and hear prayer in all kinds of imported words in a tongue that is native to them is very, very important.”

Ward said the invocation was a prayer, a lesson and an opportunity to be servants to those who are represented in the community, by representing the love and understanding of the Lord to each other.

“It was something that needed to be done,” Ward said.

“I was a little nervous, but I think it was something that needed to be done,” Beck said. “I’m not originally from Independence, so I didn’t know that it was always done in English.”

Beck added she has noticed a growing Hispanic population in the city and the prayer was a fitting tribute to those that compromise that segment of the community.

“Within the last two years we have seen a tremendous increase in our parish,” Beck said of Hispanic worshippers. “It’s growing quite a bit in our small community there.”