November 17, 2004

Dear Friends in Christ,

I started the semester thinking that I was teaching just another of the many expository writing classes that I have taught in more than seven years at Lithuania Christian College, but I have found this small group to be a reaffirmation of why I am at LCC as a missionary of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

We begin each writing type with a discussion of topics that are significant but focused. The day we began to examine topics for essays of problem and solution, something unexpected happened in the room. Students spoke with passion about significant problems facing them as young adults from several different countries. A Lithuanian student of Russian heritage spoke of the human impact of the closing of the Ignalina nuclear power plant. A Belarusian student spoke of the lack of hope for the future among the young people in her country. A Latvian student spoke of the rights denied people of Russian heritage in their declared status of non-citizen. A young women spoke of the effects stomach ulcers have had on her life for the last five years. Perhaps most moving was a young Lithuanian’s acknowledgment that attention deficit, which he considered to be his problem, was really a problem of alcohol abuse.

Not only was there a genuine concern for each other’s problem, but a new spirit entered the discussion, which I perceive as one of the ways in which education is mission. At first the student affected by the closure of the power plant said she could not write an essay of solution because she believed the problem to be unsolvable. After discussion about the possibility of rural tourism for the region, she told me that this was the first time she had believed that even a limited solution might be possible. We are exploring funding possibilities for the region. The Belarusian woman concluded that a political solution to problems facing her country was impossible and explored the feasible options for young people to make a difference on an individual level. The young woman suffering from ulcers wrote with joyful hope about the possibilities of acupuncture and homeopathy available to her. The young man wrote an overview of alcohol education beginning when children are young that he believes might have made a difference for him.

In part, it does not matter to me if these solutions work. What matters is that students began to see the dark parts of their lives as being problems capable of solution. They began to demonstrate real hope that those problems can be solved. The head of the Salvation Army program in Klaipeda told me that the philosophy she worked under was that people could not hear about God if they were hungry—they needed to be fed first. Perhaps, one step of mission is helping young people to discover hope.

As for me, I thank God for the gift of establishing trust, that I am blessed with the opportunity to encourage in young people a belief in the rich and joyful life that God wants for them. Perhaps I won’t give up teaching expository writing just yet.

Jackie

The 2004 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 338