7 August 2005

Hi!

Wow! What a busy week we just finished! This was the annual sharing conference, where missionaries who are currently on furlough get together and, well, share with each other how things are going. Lora and I were sort of in limbo, as usual, since as returned missionaries we were participants in the conference, but as staff members here in Louisville we were also hosts. It was interesting, though a little hectic, to move back and forth between the two roles.

Last Monday was my first official day in a new position. I am now officially the program assistant of the Mission Connections Office of the People in Mutual Mission Section of the Worldwide Ministries Division of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), but I prefer the title “storyteller.” My job is to help missionaries write the stories they wish to share, to coach the telling of those stories, and to make the connections that will get more of them to more churches around the country. It’s a cool job, and in some ways it seems as though it was made just for me. Lora will continue as a missionary in residence working in the Global Education Office. She will be working on all sorts of things, including curriculum for kids in future sharing conferences.

Emily took part in the sharing conference, including playing her violin at the closing worship. Kinsey was busy with band camp. She returned hot and sunburned and tired each day, full of stories about her new role as co-drum major. Or drum co-major? Anyway, there are two of them.

One of the things that I realized as I listened to missionaries is that they don’t really pigeon-hole easily. (Maybe that’s true of most of us.) There are “liberals” who are passionately biblical, and “conservatives” who are working tirelessly for social justice and human rights. One of the more evangelical missionaries at the conference is working in reforestation in Madagascar! Take that, tree huggers! The lines that have been drawn, the areas colored red and blue on the maps, just don’t hold up. I think that our political system and our media encourage this divisiveness. It makes for “mandates” and big headlines. Let’s not let ourselves get sucked into that simplistic and hateful mindset, one of us-versus-them. We can do better than that.

The other thing that struck me is how many stories don’t make the headlines. I met a doctor from Bangladesh who treats patients dying of diseases that would be easy to treat in the United States, a teacher from Taiwan who helps the Chinese understand and value the native culture that they displaced, and a woodwind teacher who plays Debussy for villagers in northern Thailand. The world is a truly marvelous place, where such bravery and compassion and sharing can take place. And there were many more stories, enough to fill a whole newspaper, enough to fill us all with hope.

I wish for you many chances to be brave and merciful and just a little eccentric. Confuse roles; be the guest and the host at the same time. Reach across whatever lines of division confront you today. I predict that you’ll find them vanishingly thin and surprisingly unimportant.

Love and peace,

Bruce