Mosaic Mennonites

Missional - Intercultural - Formational

Mosaic from My Eyes

How May I Help You?

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by Jaye Lindo

Hospitality, by definition, involves other people. It’s not about you or me; it is about the We of Mosaic. As Mosaic’s Hospitality Coordinator, I love to see the many ways that Mosaic Conference embraces hospitality across our community.

Photo may be AI-generated.

We show hospitality through our actions as we love God and each other. Mosaic’s practices provide us an opportunity to show hospitality – for example, through mutual invitation or circle process in our gatherings. In our events, like the Oasis conference or delegate prep sessions, we have the opportunity to welcome each other across differences. And we’re invited to do so in our equipping and leadership development spaces, like the Ambassadors, or the new Art of Preaching cohorts.

This summer, I got to spend time with some of the Ambassadors at their closing retreat, leading a session on spiritual direction. I was struck by how they didn’t fear the unknown and were willing to share openly with each other. They were willing to go beyond their own communities and comfort zones, and the program is stronger because of it.

I have observed in many of our meetings how space is given for each person to be heard, engage, and grow in relationship with one another – even when our languages and traditions are different. In fact, we are creating new traditions together.

In the Centering Document published last year, I was struck by the encouragement for all of us, in our communities, to offer high expectations and gracious hospitality as we become, love, and live like Jesus. We consider where God is on the move, and if we are being faithful to God’s call as Jesus followers, in all that we do. We are gracious with one another, assuming good intentions, even when we don’t see eye to eye.

This can show up when we host someone in our home, each with our own different expectations about what hospitality looks like. Hosting and being hosted both require us to offer something and receive something. That is mutual hospitality.

It can also show up when we seek to learn each other’s languages, or when we work together, using a translation app, to understand one another. We are invited to challenge ourselves, learn about others’ cultures, and seek first the Kingdom of God.

We must remain centered and focused on Jesus, committed to serving God and each other in all that we do. Let Jesus show us that there truly are no differences in him.

3 John 1:5-8 reminds us of the value of hospitality. Read from the MSG Version:

Dear friend, when you extend hospitality to Christian brothers and sisters, even when they are strangers, you make the faith visible. They’ve made a full report back to the church here, a message about your love. It’s good work you’re doing, helping these travelers on their way, hospitality worthy of God himself! They set out under the banner of the Name and get no help from unbelievers. So they deserve any support we can give them. In providing meals and a bed, we become their companions in spreading the Truth.

Mosaic family, keep modeling this good work!

My mother never met a stranger. I try to embody that same sentiment every time I interact with you, via talking, text, email, or WhatsApp. If you are in need or have a question, I hope to consistently say with a smile:

“Hi, my name is Jaye Lindo, and I am Mosaic’s Hospitality Coordinator. How may I help you?”

And I hope that when I call you, I will hear you say:

“Hi, I am your Mosaic family centered on Jesus Christ. How may I help you?”

It’s the Mosaic way—mutually. Amen.

Jaye Lindo

Jaye Lindo is the Hospitality Coordinator for Mosaic Conference and serves as Pastor of 7 Ways Home Fellowship in Bowie, MD. She provides spiritual companioning relationships with Mosaic.

Mosaic values two-way communication and encourages our constituents to respond with feedback, questions, or encouragement. To contact Jaye Lindo please email jlindo@mosaicmennonites.org.

Learning to Walk Together

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by Marco Güete

After 36 hours of travel, three flights, and a train ride from Lisbon, we arrived in Porto physically tired but filled with anticipation. We had not even begun walking, yet we were already learning our first spiritual lesson: the Camino requires patience before it asks us for strength.

We began our pilgrimage in Labruge. We soon discovered that the distance would be 247 kilometers—seventeen more than we had calculated. During the first stage, we also took a wrong turn: we walked two kilometers in the wrong direction and then another two to return. Those four extra kilometers taught us that not every effort moves us forward, but even detours can become teachers.

Marco Güete and his wife, Sandra, on the Camino. Photos provided by Marco Güete.

Since then, Sandra and I have crossed beaches, forests, mountains, ancient streets, and modern cities. We have experienced scorching sun, fog, strong breezes, and cold. Our backpacks are already faded by the sun and somewhat worn, as if they too were making their own Camino. Almost every day, when we arrive tired at our lodging, we still have the task of washing our clothes waiting for us. Our bodies ask for a bed, but our clothes ask for water and soap. The pilgrim’s life also has its domestic liturgies.

Our feet have grown tired, and our legs have protested, but we have learned to respect each other’s pace. Walking as a couple does not mean always moving at the same speed; it means waiting, accompanying, encouraging, and recognizing when the other person needs to rest.

We have also discovered that love is expressed through simple gestures: sharing water, adjusting a backpack, offering a word of encouragement, or placing a wildflower in Sandra’s hat. On the Camino, marriage becomes a pilgrimage within another pilgrimage.

God has also spoken to us through strangers. Pilgrims from different countries have shared their stories with us. Some local residents have shown us the way when the yellow arrows disappeared. As we were leaving Vigo, a man walked four blocks beside us to make sure we returned to the correct trail. His gesture reminded us that God’s providence often has the face of someone who chooses to stop and accompany us.

We have crossed the Miño River in a small boat, rested our legs in the cold waters of the Atlantic, and embraced trees while giving thanks for their shade. We have also laughed at our mistakes, because the spirituality of the Camino is not separate from a good sense of humor.

Now we are drawing closer to our goal of reaching Santiago de Compostela. We are walking to support Hispanic Ministries, but also to allow God to continue working in us. We are deeply grateful to those who have been praying for our well-being and for this mission. Their prayers are also traveling the Camino with us, reminding us that we need God, that we need one another, and that we need those who choose to walk alongside us.

Marco Güete

Marco Güete is the Leadership Minister for Florida for Mosaic Conference.

Mosaic values two-way communication and encourages our constituents to respond with feedback, questions, or encouragement. To contact Marco Güete, please email mguete@mosaicmennonites.org.

Learning on the Path of Becoming Mosaic

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by Stephen Kriss, Executive Minister

As the great-grandson of immigrants from Slovakia, I have glimpses into the desire for autonomy. Many Slovaks fled the Magyarization process in the early 20th century, when Slovakia was absorbed into the Austro-Hungarian Empire. They longed for autonomy which was granted briefly under the Nazi regime and then after World War II with the (re-)creation of Czechoslovakia under Soviet influence. The Velvet Revolution eventually granted both Slovakia and the Czech Republic their autonomy after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The author’s great grandparents’ village in Slovakia, Spisskie Pohadrie.
Kriss visited his ancestral area for his 50th birthday. Here, pictured with Spiš Castle near the Jewish cemetery.

For better or worse, Slovaks can now chart their own path in the tensions of Central Europe. Yet even as an independent country, Slovakia has chosen to participate in something larger than itself through membership in the European Union. The history of 20th-century Europe was a constant process of absorbing and autonomizing, of forming and reforming identities and relationships. The current conflict between Russia and Ukraine is the most recent violent chapter in that long story.

I have described our journey over the last year in Mosaic as one toward autonomy.

Vaclav Havel, the Czech writer who led the Czech Republic in its early years as an independent European nation, suggested that the period after a major transition represents both possibility and danger. When an old system has passed away but a new one has not yet fully emerged, there is a sense of newness and disruption as new forces stake claims about identity and trajectory.

This has also been true for us in Mosaic.

For some of us, this season has felt like breathing space. Others of us are still mourning. Some of us wonder if we really belong. Some of us wish we could return to where we were. Others of us are charting a path toward a bright and hopeful future. As a leader, I have been living in the in-between of all of this.

Pastor John Ortberg writes that leadership is the art of disappointing people at the rate they can absorb. I have felt the weight of that in a new way this past year.

I spent some months mourning that we had not reached a reconciliatory place with Mennonite Church USA. At the same time, I also sensed relief in no longer navigating the tensions that had emerged through our membership. Our posture of partnership takes work and ongoing attention. There are not yet established rhythms or well-worn paths for these relationships. We have to build new paths while also reworking some of the old ones.

We have not navigated any of this perfectly. Yet I have landed in a place where I trust Jesus’ promise that “the gates of hell will not prevail.” Peter is told that the church will be built on people like him, who are passionate, faithful, fickle, and fumbling. Brokenness and beauty exist alongside one another, including within our failures. Peter’s story is one of conversation, progress, and slippage; of missing the point sometimes, yet continuing to strive toward the kingdom.

I am learning that God is with us in the process.

I am learning that the path ahead for Mosaic is to keep moving at the pace God reveals.

Havel once encouraged his people not simply to stare at the steps ahead, but to take the next step. Faith involves trusting that the next step will appear in its time.

For me, this is what becoming Mosaic looks like right now: taking the next step, together. Breathing deeply. Paying attention to where God is leading. Trusting in the way and words of Jesus who is by our side every step of the way.

What Three Years with Mosaic Have Taught Me

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by Brendan Sagastume

A little over three years ago, I started my first summer as an Ambassador with Mosaic without fully knowing what I was getting myself into. I didn’t expect it to reshape how I think about discipleship, community, or my own place in the church. I want to share what these past three years at Mosaic have taught me and how they’ve shaped me.

One of the most formative parts of my experience has been the chance to meet, interact, and work alongside people from all different backgrounds and walks of life. What’s struck me most in those moments isn’t the difference itself, but the shared desire to seek God, love others, and build a world with peace at the center. At the same time, I’ve learned to recognize our troubled pasts and difficult histories, and to learn from them, rather than around them, in order to create an intercultural community.

Brendan visits Crossroads Community Center in Philadelphia, PA. Photo by Danilo Sanchez.
Brendan visits Redemption Church of Bristol (PA), spending time with their Mosaic Ambassadors this summer. Photo by Danilo Sanchez.

Mosaic has invested in me summer after summer, giving me many opportunities to learn and grow. One of the lessons I learned early on was that I’m not always going to feel ready for everything, and that’s okay. I can take chances and take on the responsibilities in front of me without feeling fully qualified, knowing I have the support of people around me and can trust in God.

I don’t think that kind of trust and support is unique to me. I see it in the many young leaders across the conference who are doing amazing work in their own communities. That, I think, is part of what it means to be discipled in community, not figuring everything out on your own, but growing into who God is calling you to be because others are willing to walk alongside you, trust you, and catch you when you stumble.

Over these past summers, I have really gotten to see what a true mosaic this conference is. Getting to build personal relationships I carry with me—people I still talk to, learn from, and think about—has been one of the most valuable parts of this experience. Those relationships have changed how I see myself and what I hope to become, not just for my own sake, but for the sake of the community around me.

Brendan joins the Mosaic Ambassadors Gathering in Colombia in July 2026.
Brendan joins the Mosaic Ambassadors Gathering in Colombia in July 2026.

I want to be someone who reflects Christ well, and I have learned that I cannot do that alone. I need the people Mosaic has connected me to, and I hope in some small way I have been that kind of person for others too.

If I were to name a challenge that I have faced during my time, it would be realizing that there is a real gap between what I hope the church can be and the slow work of actually becoming it. I have felt and seen that gap in myself, in moments when my first instinct was not the most Christlike one, and I have seen it in the wider community too. Though I do not think that is necessarily a failure, but I think it is what it looks like to be in process, together, and still willing to keep going.

I am sure my time with Mosaic looks different than other staff who will write reflections on what they are learning in their work, and that is the point. Each of us has been shaped differently by this community, and I am looking forward to hearing those stories too.

As I begin my last year of college, I am not sure what comes next for me. There is a part of that uncertainty that is uncomfortable, but these past three years have given me something to carry into whatever comes next. This is who I am becoming. I am grateful for the mosaic I have gotten to be part of, and I look forward to seeing who we all become together.

Brendan Sagastume

Brendan Sagastume has spent three summers serving as a Mosaic Ambassadors, splitting time between Conference-Related Ministry Healthy Niños Honduras and Mosaic Conference. This fall he is serving as Mosaic’s Assembly registrar. He attends Messiah University and is a member of Perkiomenville (PA) Mennonite.

Mosaic values two-way communication and encourages our constituents to respond with feedback, questions, or encouragement. To share your thoughts or send a message to the author, contact them at bsagastume@mosaicmennonites.org.