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 |
