April 13, 2009

The Growing Edge of PC(USA) World Mission!

Let no one despise your youth, but set the believers an example
I Timothy 1:12

Part of my joy in getting back to India was the chance to meet the Young Adult Volunteers (YAVs) who have been living in Kerala, South India, since last August. The six college graduates—who were interviewed and accepted into the program in April 2008—burst into our Gulmohar Park apartment with the vitality of a spring rain, filling our home with stories, laughter, and spiritual wisdom gained during their eight months of living as simply as most Americans would dare to live, under the supervision and guidance of our South Indian partners, the Rev. Thomas John and his wife Betty.

Living simply and serving in schools, orphanages, and homes for the elderly in South India, the YAVs take a break and visit the Taj Mahal:   Lindsey, David, Sudie, Ariel, John, and Rebecca.

Eager for hugs and grateful for every morsel of home-cooked food, these YAVs are participating in the best program offered by the PC(USA) (if you want my honest opinion)! This year’s group has three weeks for their “all India tour,” which includes Delhi. They planned their trip with a budget of 500 rupees per day per person (about 10 dollars).

What are the goals of the YAV India program? The prerequisite is respect for the people and the place where each young adult is assigned. In India, the YAVs are reminded that:

• They are coming to a place where the history of Christianity predates that of their own. The apostle Thomas arrived in A.D. 52. With much religious diversity in India, conversion of other people is not the intention of the program. YAVs come as “learners.”
• They are expected to have a faith commitment, but are asked to be open to rediscovering the meaning of their own faith in the larger socio-political context of south India.

These are lessons that every person who enters cross-cultural ministry, regardless of location, needs to learn—both long-term mission co-workers and short-term mission teams and visitors. As I rolled into bed the second night the YAVs were visiting, I said to David, “Every single young person in America would benefit from this experience.”

The character and attitudes of these young adults have been permanently impacted. As they return to the United States this summer, they will be light and yeast wherever God leads them. They don’t have all the answers, that’s for sure, and some are still wondering where and how Christ fits into their own lives and futures, but they have discovered the most important and critical questions we must all face in order to be faithful to the gospel in a world of injustice, inequality, and diminishing resources. Four of these folks are heading to seminary in the fall.

The Rev. Thomas John and his wife have had 10 groups of YAVs in their home, sharing their lives for the past ten years. They have been faithfully mentoring a new generation of Christians who will be better equipped to speak and live prophetic lives in the twenty-first century. I invite your prayers on their behalf so that they will not grow weary of “doing good.”  They have done what expatriates cannot do in a culture that is not their own. They have opened their lives and culture in an intimate Indian way of showing hospitality, so that the YAVS can:

• Realize that their journey is more than a year-long commitment, because it is a gateway into a lifelong understanding of faith praxis;
• Be willing to be satisfied with exposure to unjust social and economic structures, without engaging in direct charitable activities that lead to immediate and visible results;
• Learn not to show off their affluence, but share in the richness of Kerala’s poverty and participate in the life of those who live there;
• Be ready to change their concepts of what makes for a happy life;
• Open their minds to the realities of poverty and the exploitative structures that perpetuate poverty at macro and micro levels;
• Live among families and communities as anyone else in the community, with the same privileges and the same restrictions;
• Eat new, different, and sometimes very spicy food;
• Bear the heat and humidity that is present all year long, but is especially difficult in the summer months of March, April, and May. See the YAV India Web site for more details.

Not all of us have the time and opportunity to do this; however, the lessons to be learned are nonetheless critical for all of us who engage in mission across cultures, whether within or outside of the United States. How we “enter” into other peoples’ lives makes a difference. Do we ride on a donkey, in the same manner that Jesus entered Jerusalem, emptying ourselves, taking the form of servants? Do we even know how to empty ourselves in order to receive God’s grace through others? Do we leave “space” for ourselves to be evangelized?

These are tough questions. I encourage you to engage in a dialogue with one of these young adults who has embraced the challenge! They will be circulating back in the United States when they return next summer. Why not invite one to speak in your congregation? Invite them into your homes. Perhaps they can “ring the bell” for others to follow. These young people are “living resources” in the PC(USA) today.

Lord, open the doors for more young adults to discover the blessings and challenges of living in Asia, where the opportunities for transformation and growth are great. May these young adults bring the gospel back to U.S. shores in a new key and with greater relevance. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Your partner in Christ’s mission,

Sue Hudson

The 2009 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 106