The students of Sidewalks 2010
With a little over a week under our belts, we feel like we’ve taken in a month’s worth of experiences, teaching, and conversations. Here’s a picture of the team (minus Bret and Betsy), followed by some of the things that have been most significant for the team:
- Joe Manickam, who oversees the Mennonite Central Committee work in Asia spoke to us during orientation about mission. If we are a Christian, we are a follower of Christ, which means we are a missionary. Mission involves 3 things: crossing barriers, proclaiming the good news in word (10%), and proclaiming the good news in deed (90%). Missional relationships are not about taking Jesus to the other side of a barrier, but seeing Jesus on the other side, already at work. Will we be gutsy and cross over to him? Joe challenged us to do the following things:
- Don’t ask “how can I help you,” but “what is your problem,” and walk with people in their response
- See Jesus as here already – here in the city, here in people’s lives, here at Arbor Place (teen center 4 of us work at), here at Water Street Ministries (health clinic and homeless shelter 5 of us work at)
- Look for our own transformation
- Listen and ask questions (vs. trying to provide answers)
- Weep (let our hearts break for the city like Jesus)
- Pray (be vulnerable to God)
- Every day ask “how has God messed with my life today?” Because if my life, my perspective, my understanding hasn’t been messed with, I haven’t crossed any barriers, and so am not being missional.
- We watched Gran Torino, a powerful film about an old white man who gets to know his Hmong neighbors, with many moving results. We discussed ways the film reflects our earlier study of Philippians 2. And we looked at examples in the film of the two different ways to approach cultural differences. An open, sensitive, trusting approach makes it much easier to respond well to the misunderstandings and fear raised by the differences than a suspicious, inflexible, or superiority-complex approach.
- We have had so many deep conversations as a house community and in smaller groups. After only a few days we were sharing things it normally takes much longer to feel comfortable saying. One person described these conversations as mental rehab – we’ve been processing and praying about our family baggage, relationships, and sexual pasts. Healing has been flowing!
- After only 3 days of volunteering, the Arbor Place team was starting to lose their hearts to some of the kids they’re working with. But they also heard about how 75% of the kids are unlikely to make it out of their tough situations. The excitement for the kids but pain for their situations resulted in confusion and swirling feelings about how to respond, and what will their involvement actually help, etc. Lots of stuff to wrestle through – genuinely caring, not making their pain about us, having radical hope, not being tied up in results, putting aside our “we’re here to accomplish something” mindsets and taking up the “we’re here to be a part of what God is doing” perspective. The following thing also helped us make sense of this:
- Last night we watched the Mother Teresa documentary. Seeing her love and care, sacrifice and obedience overwhelmed us. After the film we went straight into prayer. Part way through our prayer time we were so distracted by a big fight going on outside on the other side of the street. We could hearing lots of yelling, and a couple little kids crying/screaming. We switched to praying for God’s peace and love to overcome them. And actually the neighborhood got quiet soon after.
