October 2005
Editor's note: This letter was written in July 2005, then
lost in the mail, re-sent, then finally published on the Web
on October 26, 2005
Shocking News!
Dear Friends and Colleagues in mission,
Internet news services, television news programs, and daily newspapers
are filled with headlines which proclaim shocking news—“Hindu-Muslim
Violence Flares in India,” “Churches Attacked in Indonesia,”
“28 Die, Mostly Children, in Iraqi Car Bomb Attack,”
“Suicide Bomber Kills 2 in Israeli Shopping Mall,”
and more recently “Four Bombs Kill 54, Wound Hundreds in
London Subways and Bus.” Each morning as we open our computers
to read the news, we do so with a sense of apprehension. What
shocking news will we read today? What new atrocity will be committed?
Where will the next act of violence take place? Headlines about
the ongoing conflict in the Darfur region of the Sudan, the AIDS
pandemic in Africa, and the international debt burden in Latin
America are now so commonplace that they fail to shock; they pass
almost unnoticed. And yet they, too, were at one time shocking
news. Will the global violence that seems to be increasing each
day also become so commonplace that it will be accepted as “just
the way things are”? Will car bombs, suicide bombers, and
inter-religious warfare eventually fail to shock our sensibilities?
The shocking news of the daily headlines serve to remind us in
a most forceful way of the need for the reconciling presence of
the Spirit of God through Jesus Christ in our world. If we Christians
ever come to the point where we can accept the news headlines
as “just the way things are” then all is lost concerning
Christian mission in our world. And yet, one wonders.
Here is some more shocking news. “Shared mission support
funds—money that congregations send to the national church—fell
more than $2.9 million (or 16 percent) last year from what had
been budgeted” (Presbyterian Outlook, April 25, 2005, p.
3). In the words of one member of the General Assembly Council,
“That’s major news.” Have we Presbyterians reached
the point where the news headlines no longer shock? Have we reached
the point where we have accepted the news headlines as “just
the way things are?” Have we finally given up on global
mission?
The world is crying out for peace and reconciliation. The world
is crying out for food and medicine. The world is crying out for
inter-religious dialogue and understanding. The world is crying
out for education and social justice. The world is crying out
for the gospel of Jesus Christ. The daily headlines with their
shocking news are cries for help from a world that is sinking
deeper and deeper into despair. And yet our church—the Presbyterian
Church (U.S.A.) with its strong legacy of global mission involvement—has
answered these cries for help with a $2.9 million decrease in
mission giving! This is shocking news indeed.
This is shocking news for those of us who serve around the world
as mission co-workers in such areas as evangelism, education,
health care, social justice, and peace and reconciliation. We
live and work in cross-cultural situations, in inter-faith environments,
in places where there is great poverty and human suffering, and
yes, even in places where there is a threat of violence. We seek,
using every resource which God has given us, to change those shocking
news headlines. We seek, through the gospel of Jesus Christ and
the presence of the Holy Spirit, to bring some degree of hope
where there appears to be only despair. We do this because you—the
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)—uphold us with your prayers
and financial support. We do this through shared mission support
funds that congregations send to the national church. And now
we read this shocking news—these mission support funds upon
which we depend “fell more than $2.9 million (or 16 percent)
last year from what had been budgeted.”
What can we as mission co-workers do about this shocking news?
As for us, Dan and Carol Chou Adams, we will continue our work
in faith—faith that God will provide. We will continue our
teaching, training leadership for the Korean church, and providing
graduate theological education opportunities for church leaders
from Asia and Africa. In December we will go once again to Myanmar
(Burma) to give special lectures in theological schools and to
encourage the Christians who live and work in that land. We will
continue to teach a course on “Understanding Islam”
in an attempt to help our students understand what is happening
in today’s world and why. We will continue to raise scholarship
funds for needy students who are studying theology and Christian
education. We will continue to lead worship and preach in the
Jeonju English Church on Sunday afternoons. We will continue to
do research and give lectures and publish articles concerning
the role of the Christian community in today’s globalized
and postmodern world. We will continue to serve as mission co-workers
of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) working in partnership with
the Presbyterian Church of Korea. And we will continue to pray
for our world and for those who seek to change it for the better.
But now there is one thing more that we will do—we will
earnestly pray that the shocking news that we hear and read may
never become so commonplace that we will ignore it. We will pray—each
day—that next year we will read some good news. We will
pray that we will read: “Shared mission support funds-money
that congregations send to the national church—rose more
than $2.9 million (or 16 percent), an increase last year over
what had been budgeted.” We invite you to join us in this
prayer, and we invite you to give generously to the shared mission
support of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
Faithfully in mission,
Carol Chou Adams / Daniel J. Adams
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