Mosaic Mennonites

Missional - Intercultural - Formational

intercultural

Taste and see

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Meridianby Emily Ralph, eralphservant@mosaicmennonites.org

Sitting at the kitchen table, savoring a vegetarian groundnut stew with Catherine and Michael and their two boys, I listen as they describe the racist direction of recent laws passed by the North Carolina legislature.  Christians in their community have mobilized, joining weekly protests and acts of civil disobedience.  The members of their small congregation in Chapel Hill continue to wrestle with their response as people of privilege in the midst of overwhelming injustice.

I taste.

Juanita’s eyes twinkle as she greets us at the door of her congregation’s meetinghouse in Apopka, Florida and leads us to the banquet table.  “Everything is homemade from scratch–my husband said the house smelled like Christmas this morning!” she laughs.  “It is like Christmas, because we’re going to celebrate!”  MC USA’s first Latina moderator is visiting Juanita’s congregation, and they are beaming with excitement as they urge her to fill her plate, present her with gifts, anoint her with oil, cover her with prayers.

It is good.

Elaine cooks one-hour grits (no instant here!).  The time it takes to prepare that staple of the American south reflects the relaxed pace of life in Meridian, Mississippi.  Church leaders serve themselves from a counter laden with southern goodies surrounding a vase of brown-eyed Susans and settle in for a chat around a table that seems to stretch on forever.  Their communities are struggling with an economic depression, outbreaks of violence, and rampant alcoholism.  Yet their stories show that, in the midst of this brokenness, church is a refuge, a companion.  Native Americans from the Seminole and Choctaw tribes worship alongside Anglo and Latino/a brothers and sisters, a sign of hope and reconciliation.

I taste.

With outstretched hands, four pastors in Dallas lead their congregations in prayer over our new moderator, a cacophony of intercession and praise to a God who cares for the orphan, the widow, and the “alien” among us.  Their delight overflows into a time of fellowship after the service as they gather in the parking lot to laugh and drink arroz con leche.  The sky darkens, but the conversation continues for hours.

It is good.

Each stop on our journey is too brief, but each face, each language, each food brings out another flavor of God, reminding us that the God who made us all is more than the idol we’ve built in our own image.  Each encounter is an invitation to taste and see that the Lord is good.

***

Emily is traveling with Elizabeth Soto Albrecht, the new moderator of Mennonite Church USA, on a three-week journey around the country.  

Incoming moderator launches nationwide tour

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Pastor Byron Pellecer, conference minister Owen Burkholder, Soto Albrecht, and executive director of MC USA Ervin Stutzman answer questions at Iglesia Discipular Anabaptista. Photo by Emily Ralph.

by Emily Ralph

Mennonite Church USA’s incoming moderator Elizabeth Soto Albrecht has begun her journey around the United States to visit MC USA congregations. Soto Albrecht will receive her charge as moderator this Friday, the final day of MC USA’s Phoenix convention.

A native of Puerto Rico, Soto Albrecht is visiting some of the congregations that are not attending MC USA’s convention in Phoenix because of Arizona’s rigorous anti-illegal immigration legislation; she will also drop in at pastors’ breakfasts, home communities, and regional gatherings to listen to the concerns and hopes of the diverse people who make up Mennonite Church USA. Many of these events in the coming week will be streamed live on her website.

After several short trips in May and June to Norristown (Pa.), New York, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C., Soto Albrecht, along with a three-person support team, began the three-week circuit on June 28 with a service of blessing and sending at James Street Mennonite Church in Lancaster (Pa).

During the service, Janet Breneman, Soto Albrecht’s pastor, presented the moderator elect with a photograph of the members of her home congregation, Laurel Street Mennonite Church, as a symbol of their presence with her, sending her and praying for her. Two days later, Soto Albrecht showed that photo to Lindale Mennonite Church (Harrisonburg, Va.) before she preached, saying, “I could not have taken this journey without my home congregation—they have made it possible.”

The sending service concluded with a prayer walk in the west side of Lancaster city. This was the second of what Soto Albrecht hopes to be many prayer walks on her journey; the first was with Philadelphia Praise Center in South Philadelphia. “It is so meaningful when those gathered in the church facility leave the comfort of those four walls and people witness our presence in the neighborhood,” Soto Albrecht observes. “We prayed for the peace of the city and people are more than willing to do that as part of their worship.”

In addition to preaching at Lindale, Soto Albrecht visited Iglesia Discipular Anabaptista (IDA) in Harrisonburg, where she spoke on discipleship and joined Ervin Stutzman, MC USA’s executive director, in a time of Q&A with the congregation.

During that exchange, one member of IDA asked how those who remain behind will be remembered in Phoenix. “On the last night, we’re going on a prayer walk,” Soto Albrecht told him. Thousands of Mennonites will walk the streets, stopping to pray outside the detention center, and finally converge in a park to pray and sing together. “The prayer walk is the peace church making itself visible,” she said.

Both the prayer walk and Soto Albrecht’s keynote address Friday evening will be streamed live on her website.

After their Saturday and Sunday morning visits in Harrisonburg, Soto Albrecht’s team continued on to Chapel Hill, N.C., where members of Chapel Hill Mennonite Fellowship, pastored by Isaac Villegas, made their way through five inches of rain and flooded roads to worship together.

“The ongoing message that I’ve been receiving is people affirming my decision to have this journey, saying, ‘We’re with you. We understand why you decided not to attend Phoenix and to instead have this long journey before arriving at the delegate session on Friday,’” reflects Soto Albrecht. “Those comments affirmed over and over again that this journey is part of God’s plan for us and how important it is that we connect with one another.”

At the same time, however, her thoughts and prayers are also with the delegates gathering in Phoenix and she looks forward to joining them on Friday for the final delegate session and evening worship.

Although only a few days into the journey, Soto Albrecht has already reconnected with many old friends and become acquainted with many new ones. “I’ve found that people are pleasantly surprised that I’m taking time to stop and join smaller churches or larger churches, to listen to them,” she says. “It is especially important to connect with Spanish-speaking congregations, to let them know that I know their struggles and that we are committed as a church to seek justice on their behalf. I’m looking forward to journeying with them in their struggle and to continue to be sent for and by them to Phoenix.”

The vision sounds different

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by Emily Ralph, associate director of communication

Primera Iglesia Menonita de Brooklyn
Elizabeth Soto Albrecht prays with two pastors who are struggling through immigration issues. Photo by Emily Ralph

Admittedly, I’ve not been a huge fan of Mennonite Church USA’s vision statement.  It’s felt cliché as we’ve reiterated a utopic collection of Anglo American Mennonites’ favorite words strung into a sequence.

This past weekend, as I accompanied Elizabeth Soto Albrecht, Mennonite Church USA moderator-elect, to worship with Mennonite congregations in New York City, I realized something.

Our vision sounds different in Spanish.

It’s not just that the words sound different, although they do.  The meaning of the words takes on new depth when it’s being said by men and women who are faced with oppression, racism, anger, and uncertainty; nice words become a challenge to live like Jesus in the midst of struggle.

At Primera Iglesia Menonita in Brooklyn, immigration advocates gathered downstairs to connect immigrants with resources and an immigration lawyer guided them through the massive paperwork maze needed to achieve adequate documentation.  Upstairs, the congregation worshiped a faithful God who cares for widows, orphans, and “aliens” and shared their own stories of fleeing persecution, enduring economic oppression, and struggling to keep their families together.

How do we let la esperanza de Dios fluyan a través when we are paid less than minimum wage and when we watch helplessly as our families are needlessly deported?

At Garifuna Iglesia Menonita in Harlem, members of the American Garifuna community (people from Honduras, Belize, Nicaragua, and Guatemala of African descent) worshiped enthusiastically in Spanish and Garifuna accompanied by four sets of drums, flowing back and forth between languages as fluidly as the call and response of their leaders and congregation.

How do we grow as comunidades de gracia, gozo y paz when people tell us to “go back where we came from” or when simply walking the streets might lead to a stop and frisk from the New York Police?

At Iglesia Menonita Unida de Avivamiento in Brooklyn, where we said the vision together in Spanish, one of the congregation’s pastors sat across from Elizabeth over dinner and said, “Those of us in urban churches have been looking at our denomination’s leadership for a long time, waiting for someone we recognize.  This is a historic moment.”  It is a moment that could lead to la sanidad de Dios.

I’m beginning to realize that healing sounds different in Spanish.  And that true healing and hope also move us toward a new understanding of God’s justice, “that flows like a mighty stream.”

“God calls us to be followers of Jesus Christ, and by the power of the Holy Spirit,
to grow as communities of grace, joy and peace,
so that God’s healing and hope flow through us to the world.”

“Dios nos llama a ser seguidores de Jesucristo, y por el poder del Espíritu Santo,
a crecer como comunidades de gracia, gozo y paz,
para que la sanidad y la esperanza de Dios fluyan a través de nosotros al mundo.”

********************

Emily is accompanying Elizabeth Soto Albrecht on her Journey to Phoenix this summer. 

Indonesia pioneer partnership bears lasting fruit

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By Richard Showalter, reposted by permission from Mennonite World Review

Indonesia-mission
Yesaya Abdi, left, of Indonesia and Richard Showalter of the U.S. ride a Dayak long boat in Kalimantan with Indonesian co-workers. — Photo by Tilahun Beyene

In 1978 Luke and Dorothy Beidler moved to Kalimantan, Indonesia — where the Dayak people live along wide rivers in a great tropical forest — as pioneer missionaries with Eastern Mennonite Missions.

In a groundbreaking partnership between an Anabaptist mission agency in the global South and two from the West, the Mennonite Mission Board of Indonesia (PIPKA), EMM and Mennonite Central Committee united to send the Beidlers and others from Indonesia and the U.S.

Paul and Esther Bucher were appointed by MCC in 1979 from the U.S. From PIPKA came Pak Darmono in 1977, followed by John Reiner Paulus in 1978 and Gusti Ngurah Filemon in 1980.

EMM already had a long history of sending workers to places where the church did not yet exist, and PIPKA was fired with the same vision. Together they went to West Kalimantan, a region of Indonesia to which Islam had come 300 years before but where a high percentage of its people still followed their traditional religion. MCC contributed skills in community development as well as in verbal Christian testimony.

The Beidlers found in Kalimantan a people who knew of, but did not worship, God.

“God speaks to us through the birds,” the villagers said. “Some are evil, and others are good. When we hear the chirping of the evil birds, we do not go to our fields for three days, and we must sacrifice pigs. We fear the birds.”

The Beidlers learned the Dayak language and began to share the Good News. Traveling by boat and sometimes living on the water in a bandung (house boat), they began initiating fellowships of new believers.

“We heard that when Jesus was baptized, a bird from heaven descended on him, and this was a special sign to us who feared the birds that God himself had come to us,” said believers at Jelemuk, a neighboring congregation. “We no longer fear the birds.”

Now 35 years later there are 19 PIPKA congregations scattered along the region’s rivers.

A team from the International Missions Association, a group of Anabaptist mission bodies, visited the region in March. It consisted of Yesaya Abdi, chair of PIPKA and president of IMA; Dri Soesanto, regional director for PIPKA; Tilahun Beyene, coordinator of IMA, and Richard Sho­walter; IMA coach and president emeritus.

Since EMM and MCC disengaged from ministry in the region years ago, little has been reported in the West. However, the seed sown then and now by PIPKA is far from dormant.

Long-remembered legacy

Everywhere the team went, people remembered the Beidlers, now members of Methacton congregation.

“They spoke our Dayak language, and they spoke it well,” said Pastor Hendrikus Kipa of Melapi.

The Beidlers’ and Buchers’ willingness to live among the Dayak villagers in primitive conditions is long remembered.

“Go back home to the United States and say thank you to the people who sent Luke and Doro­thy,” said Petrus Kipa, a young pastor and the son of Hendrikus.

“My grandfather heard the gospel from pastor Luke and met Jesus,” he said, close to tears. “As a result, my father became our pastor at Melapi. And now I’m a grandson in the gospel because of that witness.”

Today many churches comprise half a village’s population. At worship gatherings, the benches are filled with children, fathers, mothers, grandpas and grandmas. Village chiefs are staunch members of the congregations.

In the village of Uchung Bayur, Pastor Yusak Sudarmanto led the people in preparing an elaborate ceremony of welcome to the team of visitors from Jakarta, Ethiopia and the U.S. Dancers led a procession to the meetinghouse, festooned with palms, lights and ribbons. Seventy-five children formed a great choir.

The congregation Sudarmanto leads dominates the spiritual life of the village, but this brings challenges as well as rewards.

“What do I do when two of the candidates for village chief are in my congregation and they want our support against other candidates?” he asked. “I believe it would harm the church to take sides politically, but threats come if I don’t.”

Abdi, Soesanto, Beyene and Showalter offered encouragement and prayer, noting that tough political questions can torture church leaders in Kalimantan forests as well as in Jakarta and Lancaster, Pa.

Sharing reports

The visiting team did more than observe. They preached, sharing reports of growth and opposition in the global church, with a special focus on Ethiopia and the Middle East. The villagers turned out in force even at inconvenient hours.

After visiting the PIPKA congregations, the team made its way to the isolated mountainous region of Silat Hulu, where PIPKA had been invited for a conference of pastors and revival meetings among churches planted by Worldwide Evangelization for Christ missionaries.

Abdi used peanuts to illustrate financial giving. Beyene told stories of the Ethiopian underground church to people who had never heard of Ethiopia.

Dri Soesanto, the PIPKA regional administrator, frequents the Putussibau region, helping maintain contact with the national and global Anabaptist community.

“The mission to Kalimantan is a model for partnership between agencies from different nations,” Abdi said. “Decades later, the fruit keeps growing.”

God knows why we won’t go to Phoenix

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Steve Krissby Steve Kriss, Philadelphia Praise Center (reposted from Mennonite World Review, by permission)

My church is made up of immigrants and migrants. We are political refugees. We have arrived here because of economic realities. We’ve been granted religious asylum. We’ve come to Philadelphia to find ourselves, to find flourishing space. We all landed in the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Compassion for different reasons, and we’ve become the largest Mennonite Church USA congregation in the city.

This summer, though, we won’t be going to Phoenix to join with other Mennonites to discern and fellowship. We’re staying home from the MC USA convention because we’re honoring those among us who are undocumented and would risk too much in making the trip to Arizona. We know that bearing witness this summer is important, but we won’t put our most vulnerable members at risk by traveling there.

While other churches in our denomination wonder what it might be like to break the law to assist the undocumented, we have no question about our call to ministry. We know that Jesus ministered to those who were on the outside. We know that in taking that call seriously we must live in grace and recognize that our community of Mennonites includes both the legally documented and those who are underdocumented in the eyes of the law. We know that God knows our statuses and names, can count the hairs on our head and extends to us all the grace of daily bread.

Over much of our congregation’s history, placards up front in our worship space have called for immigration reform. They are underneath our cross, behind our pulpit and next to our drums. This call for justice is interwoven into the life of our congregation and our existence as a community. We are not insiders or outsiders based on our citizenship. We are a community of people who have decided to journey together as Mennonites in the very locale where the Mennonite seed took root in this hemisphere.

We applaud and seek to support the efforts of churches that take the issues of immigration seriously. Immigration reform will happen when the hearts of citizens change. We celebrate all that will be learned at Phoenix for those who attend. We hope the hearts of all in our churches will continue to be touched by the complexity of the situation and the simplicity of grace. I hope that somehow in this journey to Phoenix we’ll realize that immigrants — documented or undocumented — aren’t outsiders in our Anabaptist/Mennonite communities.

The journey to Arizona invites all of us to reflect on our own stories of migration. For many of us, a journey’s purity is polished in the retelling. We have not all landed on these shores willingly, legally or peaceably. The reasons for migration and the outgrowth of those realities are just as complicated now as when the streams of Swiss/ German/Dutch Mennonites made their way into colonial Pennsylvania — where Africans were being sold on auction blocks along the shore, ripped and trafficked from their homes across the Atlantic.

Early Anabaptists followed the invitation of the Spirit toward witness — knowing that at times it required actions that were contrary to the law and that risked relational harmony. This summer at Philly Praise and in other MC USA congregations across the country, our absence at Phoenix will be a witness to our denomination.

As we journey and seek first God’s sovereignty, may we also discover the breadth of God’s love and re-encounter the Spirit that binds us together across language, ethnicity, culture and status, inviting us all to be redefined under Christ.

Who makes the grass turn green?

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menolanby Monica Bauman, Camp Men-O-Lan

Spring is here! And along with the change in season, I often find myself refreshed and excited about the “newness” that nature once again graces us with.

This year, however, I realized that I have taken it for granted and have forgotten the wonder and the excitement of little growth around us. Leave it to my son, recently adopted from Jamaica, to remind me.

I was cooking in the kitchen when he came running into the house and grabbed me by the arm. When I asked him what was wrong, he didn’t know how to explain it and instead pulled me by the sleeve outside.

He pointed to a bush.  “What’s that?” he asked.  “Why does the bush have those green things coming out of it?”

I took a deep breath and realized that he was experiencing, for the first time in his life, the growth that spring brings. I explained, “It’s spring time! It’s getting warm so the trees are starting to grow leaves, the grass is going to turn green, and the bushes and plants will grow flowers!”

My son looked at me. “Who makes it do this?”

And to that, I answered, “God. Only God can create such beautiful growth in his creation.”

Thank you Lord for such an amazing reminder to slow down, examine the growth around me, and to remember You, the Creator.

Philadelphia partnership sings a new song

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Kingdom Builders Music
Back row, l – r: Curtis Wright (Philadelphia Mennonite High School), Karlton Glick (Nueva Vida Norristown New Life), Fred Kauffman (Mennonite Central Committee East Coast, Philadelphia Program), Lam Nguyen (Vietnamese Mennonite Church), Bernard Sejour (Solidarity & Harmony Evangelical Church), Ray Bergey (Rock Hill Mennonite Church), Wendell Holmes (Second Mennonite Church), Sharon Williams (NVNNL).
Middle Row: Iwan Susanto (Nations Worship Center), Beny Krisbianto (NWC), Teng Hou (Philadelphia Cambodian Mennonite Church), Anita Nguyen (VMC), Crystal Nguyen (VMC), Minh Kauffman (VMC), Barbara Wallace (Second Menno), Anne Hess (Oxford Circle Mennonite Church).  Front row: Tam Tran (VMC), Tony Kauffman (West Philadelphia Mennonite Fellowship), Aldo Siahaan (Philadelphia Praise Center), Pete Prunes (OCMC), and James Krabill (Mennonite Mission Network). Photo by Nereida Babilonia.

by J. Fred Kauffman, MCC East Coast, Philadelphia Program Coordinator

On Saturday, May 4, 2013, at Philadelphia Mennonite High School, twenty musicians exercised their creative talents at the Sing a New Song workshop.  Kingdom Builders Anabaptist Network of Greater Philadelphia (KB) organized the event, and James Krabill of the Mennonite Mission Network provided leadership.

Krabill engaged participants with an interactive style of teaching as he reviewed the Biblical roots of worship and the shift from “place-centered worship” (Jerusalem) in the Old Testament to “person-centered worship” (Jesus) in the New Testament.  He then led the group in reflections on Biblical texts related to Pentecost.

The group then divided into five small groups that spent two hours composing new songs based on the Pentecost texts.  It was a wonderful challenge, full of interesting conversations, creative brainstorming, tentative suggestions, and lots of laughter.

Near the end of the workshop, the groups performed their new songs for each other and talked about how they approached the challenge.  Some worked out lyrics first, while others started humming tunes and supplied the words later.

As people gathered for a final prayer there was a sense that new ground had been ploughed and new seeds planted—both in the music written and the relationships formed.

Musicians from a variety of ethnicities participated: Vietnamese, Indonesian, African American, Hispanic, European American, Haitian, Taiwanese and Cambodian.  Ten churches were represented, five from Franconia Conference, two from Lancaster Conference, and one each from Eastern District, Alliance of Mennonite Evangelical Congregations, and Harvest Fellowship of Churches.

The musicians will perform/lead these new songs at KB’s joint Pentecost worship service on Saturday, May 18th at Philadelphia Praise Center, 1701 McKean St in South Philly.  Want to join the celebration?  There’s a 5:30 PM potluck, and worship begins at 6:30.

No Greater Love–Peace and Justice for Vulnerable Veterans

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Pointman Soldiers Heart Ministries
James Abram & Ari Merretazon from Pointman Soldiers Heart Ministries share about caring for vulnerable veterans. Photo by Emily Ralph.

Minister Ari S. Merretazon and Deacon James Abram of Pointman Soldiers Heart Ministry describe their day-to-day work as “vulnerable veterans helping vulnerable veterans.” Today they shared from their personal experiences as veterans on a path of healing and from their engagement with many other vets they have met, befriended, and supported through experiences of isolation, pain, and injustice from systems where they expected to find help. Listen to the podcast and learn how you might become a participant in the well-being and just treatment of those in our neighborhoods who have been deeply wounded by war. Ari’s PowerPoint.

Ari’s story is featured in the book Bloods, Black Veterans of the Vietnam War: An Oral History and in the movie Dead Presidents.

[podcast]http://www.mosaicmennonites.org/media-uploads/mp3/Pointman-Heart.mp3[/podcast]