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Thiessen Newsletter May 2008 |
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Dear friends,
The twenty four days have gone by swiftly, probably more so for me than for Anne, though. We all survived, except I've returned with some deep-seated cold thing.
I wrote in the last letter about going over to "puzzle", among other things, with Grant and Chris. We did a lot of that amidst the hours or even days of travel in the searing 110 degree heat around northern India, and the moments between interviews. We chose the swath of north India from Pakistan to the far side of Nepal, where some of the largest unengaged groups of the world dwell. This is also one of the oldest seats of religion and civilization. For the travelogue details and photos, please visit Chris Leake's blog: www.leakespeak.com
We visited with nineteen different individuals or teams (six Indians, two Africans, one Guatemalan, one Chinese, one Norwegian, the rest Americans). That was from nine organizations (three of those Indian) and a Hindu background South African turned "swami" in India for the last ten years. All of them are involved in church planting work, and this is where some of the puzzling came as we tried to understand the differences.
There's a general idea that foreigners (white ones, let's say) are too conspicuous out in rural areas (where 70% of India lives in over half a million villages/cities). Almost all missionaries are based in large cities (where a million habitants is small). The Indian leaders consistently informed us that white missionaries would actually cause harm to grass-roots efforts, and are better placed either behind the scenes or in teaching roles among leaders. We puzzled about how outsiders with no cultural or language knowledge of India could teach leaders already fairly successful in starting house churches. We were reassured that it was possible. We're still puzzling.
One leader told us that the groups he's associated with will have a church in every one of India's 660,000 village/cities within ten years, twenty at the most. Another told us of huge increases among the Dalits, or the outcastes. Most told us of very little growth, often not keeping up with the population increase, and discouragingly small advances over long periods of ministry. The higher castes especially are resistant to "Christianity", but to them that means being ripped out of their own culture and relationships, being forced to accept a foreign (Western) cultural package of responding to God. More puzzles as we listened to explanations of "insider movements" and "contextualization" and defenses of "traditional" Christians.
Traditional missions saw all of Hindu culture as so infused with demons and idol worship that nothing could be taken up into a proper response to Christ. Even the identifying marks that indicate a woman is married (dot on forehead, smear of red in the hair part) are wrong. Certainly the outward forms and instruments (flowers, candles, incense, coconut, types of drums, small hand bells) of Hindu worship are straight from the devil. They tend to find fault in other slightly different forms of responding to God, demand a pure worship; and only occasionally open themselves up to small changes.
Contextualizers understand God to have been at work among the Hindus from the beginning of time, and that His creativity can be seen in the wonderful diversity of colour, forms and even content that has arisen in this ancient people. They want to help spiritual seekers find the one true path to God through Jesus Christ, and enjoy and employ all that helps them help Hindus find Him. They use common Hindi words to describe what they are doing, like satsang instead of "church" and bukta Yeshua instead of "Christian." Among themselves (including the insiders, and the occasional tradionalist) they discuss, sometimes argue, about what is enough, too much, not enough; and build each other up in their journey.
Some missionaries straddle the fence, working with both types of responder, encouraging whichever form that takes people into a relationship with God. We kept wondering where in this conundrum we feel placed to fit. We also wondered what the parallels to our own situation in Mexico and the Catholic context are.
And what about our North American culture? Do western missionaries sometimes demand of new believers a response to God that even after two thousand years we have not managed to practice well? Have we been freed of the gods that inhabit our own world and the forms of worship they demand? Have we managed to come to the place where there are neither Jews nor Gentiles? Does our freedom to choose marriage partners really mean we are so much better off socially? Poverty related to class, culture, and ethnicity is no longer a problem, right?
We agreed to some ideals, when the dust settled. It was Giovanni, the Guatemalan missionary, who perhaps summarized it best. “Come and learn from the local people, and leave aside your plans for at least a while. Trust God enough to let Him use these “pagan” people to teach you what He is already doing. Open yourselves up enough to who they are to begin to love them “as they are.” Suspend judgment, remembering the mote in your own eye. Share your story, and God’s story, as you enter into their story. Trust that God can use your incomplete efforts; you don’t need to “figure it all out.”
I’ve been using the “we” form only to get the point across. Anne and I are sticking to Mexico for the next good while, as far as we can see. There’s lot’s to do here, and this trip helps us see better what to do here, how to encourage future missionaries, how to mobilize for global missions. A lot of how we go about missions here was reaffirmed in India. We’re not the only crazies out there. Some of why we won’t do certain things was reinforced. We saw the need there, and remember the real need here (certainly smaller in terms of just numbers). We’re involved in four networks of missions that train and church plant, we are doing “church planting” ourselves here and encouraging that among the Mixtecos, and even though fresh out of apprentices, welcome new ones.
So keep praying, please. Pray for Manuel (heading up a Baptist student movement of missionaries, placing close to twenty six-week volunteers this summer and several one-year volunteers). For Nathan (newly heading up a Frontiers-like missions agency for Mexicans, mobilizing, training, apprenticing). For Jack and Vasti (heading up YWAM discipling efforts, starting a new year-long experience-based school in 2009). For Grant and Chris (heading up their school, about twenty students, many of these family people, and the ten or so one-year apprentices, most of them on the church planting team; and their plans for reaching out into Thailand and India).
We’re traveling in the US and Canada this summer, mostly in Canada. We’ll leave in June and get back in mid-Aug. We want to keep missions and the puzzling that accompanies that fresh in the hearts and minds of those that support us in so many ways. We want this struggle to influence believers and churches in our own culture so that all the cultures that surround us so closely might also know of God’s infinite love. Cross-cultural missions can be everywhere, if we look with open eyes and minds. We can even find that we are part of a group no longer in touch with what we think of as our “own” culture. Paul said he would do whatever it takes so that some (new) people might respond to the Saviour. He found those new people everywhere he turned, not just far from home. Pray for this, too.
Many blessings to you, as we have been so blessed by you all, Robert.
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