la iglesia

A friend was recently asked by her church to provide pictures of ‘missionary activities’.  What exactly does that constitute?  I’ve been using the slow internet connection as an excuse as to why I haven’t been updating pictures myself, but plenty of the other Novas participants have uploaded pictures of the base, the dinner hall, the tacos, the tower, even the bathrooms.  Do those count?  I can show you pictures of the family that we have been visiting for the last few weeks and of friends swinging from a rope which hangs from their tree.  Does the simple act of laughing together as we spin around in circles count as a ‘missionary activity’?  How about pictures of washing clothes by hand or of one friend encouraging another that she really won’t die if she followed him up the water tower.  Bringing a camera into the prison wasn’t allowed and to the foster home wasn’t recommended but we have only been to each location once so even if I did have and post pictures of those it wouldn’t provide a true glimpse into what life is like here.  It would show how we spent one morning, but not how we minister to each other daily.

The apparent distinction between activities deserving to be deemed missionary work and everything else I find myself doing, like hanging out with the cook’s five year old daughter, keeps bringing my mind back to the first sentence of this blog and how it fits in with a book we’ve been reading this past week, Crabgrass and Oak Trees.  Highly recommended, it’s a cool analogy of two different ways of seeing the Church.  Although mostly review, it’s a reminder of how one can’t separate what you are and what you do.

“We all know that a church is the people and not the building.  We know it; we know it; we know it…and yet, do we?  It is impossible to think outside your vocabulary, and our vocabulary would say we don’t know it […] The most common language we use with church keeps it apart from us and has a beginning and end to it.  As something we do or take part in.  Not as something we are.  A node doesn’t choose to be a node while its roots grow and then disengage.  It is always a node, because it is always a node.  We are the Church.” (24)

I can’t help but think that that mindset applies to the definition of missionary too.  I don’t think location really matters- we can be hanging out at the base, or doing an ATL (ask the Lord) at the mall, or playing soccer with our ‘adopted’ family.  I could be at home with you guys and the calling wouldn’t be any less real, the responsibility any less significant. 
Actually I think staying is harder.  A week or two ago I was talking to Tag, the director of the Novas Project, and he asked why urban missions in the states has taken the back burner to more exotic locations such as Africa, India, Nicaragua.  I mentioned how for myself, going up to downtown Cleveland is just as much like entering a different culture as being here.  Even more so. 

We went to a hospital in Matamoros the other night to talk to family members who had to sleep outside all night because there was no room for them elsewhere and I ironically found it much easier to communicate with those who only spoke Spanish vs. a man I met who was fluent in English.  With the former I had an excuse to keep the conversation simple and short but with the latter it seemed like I had to keep coming up with questions and keep the conversation moving and fill every awkward silence with an encouraging comment.  Although he spoke my language, I found myself unsure of how to speak his- how to respond when he mentioned that he’s been sitting there for days- waiting for his wife and his sick newborn.  The great grandma carrying a huge large print Spanish Bible was relatively easy to talk to.  I had to speak loud and slowly anyways- the traditional tourist voice as if somehow that makes them understand.  (Better than what Estefany- the 5 yr old mentioned earlier – does.  Whenever I don’t catch what she says she whispers it in my ear as if that would help).  I let the elderly woman squeeze my hand and I smiled and all was well but it’s not always that easy- especially when the language barrier isn’t as obvious. 

Walking into a village behind bars, I thought of my brother learning how to run a prison ministry in an area much more challenging and more dangerous than I’d be willing to go to.  An area less than an hour away from the place I call home yet scarier than I’m willing to deal with at this point.  Maybe once I’ve been gone for a while I might gain the courage necessary to stay but for now, this is easier.  Ironically I feel I understand this culture a little better than the one just north of my home and I’m more comfortable learning more about it.  I know it’s no excuse for not ministering at home, but I feel safer here.  Each person’s baby steps look a little different, but I truely don’t believe missionary activity is limited to the Gateway or to our ministry family or even to a prison – whether in Matamoros, Mexico or in Cleveland, OH.  It’s not just what we do on occasion but a lifestyle and I just hope the habits built and the strength found here can carry me into a harder mission field, whether across the ocean or just down the street.