Friends and Amigos

A sterling choir from Switzerland started off "Serving Like Christ" day well. One of the cool things this morning was a report from Melani Susanti, a young Indonesian woman who served as an intern with MWC at the MCC UN office -- wearing her pale blue UN t-shirt. She reminded me of all those incredibly capable, confident Indonesian girls I've met over the past few years. I don't know what their secret is, but I figure the Indonesian churches are in good hands as long as they let women like her and Yanti Widjaja -- who we joyfully met up with at the assembly, along with Paulus -- exercise their gifts. There was also a report from the AMIGOS on the Global Youth Summit, and a pretty amazing choir of young people from all over the world singing a song they'd put together themselves. Jenny Neme of Colombia spoke on Isaiah 58: 1-10.

Well, my notes to TUMCers worked -- everybody showed up at noon at the main doors to have their picture taken, which he did -- as has become habit around here -- in front of the big Congreso sign out front. Jim Brenneman took it, patiently waiting for our appointed lunch date (with Terri and Quinn of course).

Some of the people we've run across from our past lives this week:
Dave (from my MCC days) and Millie Dyck
Matt Hamsher (Pasadena, now Ohio)
Paulus and Yanti Widjaja (Pasadena, now Jogjakarta)
Jim and Terri Brenneman (Pasadena, now Goshen)
Tom and Rebecca Yoder Neufeld (K-W)
Carol Weaver (winnipeg, now K-W, late addition - ran across on Chaco tour!)
Andy Prins (Uruguay, Winnipeg, once Jeff's roommate, now Morocco)
Neil and Hertha Janzen (Winnipeg, from Elmwood days)
Lynn Miller (late addition - ran into briefly in Puerto Iguazu, where he remembered Jeff from one afternoon in pasadena about 15 years ago!)
Jim Pankratz (Winnipeg/Dhaka/K-W)
Gary & Lydia Harder (Toronto), there with two succeeding generations!

The afternoon included a touching workshop with Herman Bontrager, who was asked to serve as spokesman for the Amish community of Nickel Mines after the school shooting incident in which 5 girls were killed and five others injured, one of them permanently disabled. He started out by telling the story as the news reports had it - including the efforts to reach out to Charles Roberts' widow and children, attending his funeral and relieving her of any guilt she might have felt for what happened. "This was one of the most profound experiences of my life," he said, reflecting on the meaning of forgiveness as the Amish understood it -- an expression of a community ethic and not just an individual one. They were the recipients of more than $4 million in aid, none of it solicited. While standing by their ethic of looking after one another, they understood that giving was one way others could grieve, and decided they couldn't deny others the benefits of giving, and that refusing a gift would deny themselves the blessing of receiving that gift. They shared that money with the widow so her children could be taken care of. Each act of kindness, every prayers and every gift comforts and assures us that our spirits will heal even though the painful loss will always be with us, they said. Bontrager said the world was amazed to hear of their forgiveness; the Amish were just as amazed the world was surprised. How could we not forgive? they said. Every day we pray forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. They take the Sermon on the Mount literally, he said, with "yieldedness" a major part of their ethic -- the belief that we must recognize that God has a plan and we must simply accept it. Yieldedness, among other things, means we give up the desire for justification or revenge, a factor that preserves the harmony of the community. Forgiveness is an integral practice; it blends together with nonresistance and humility in the concept of yieldedness. So the instant offering of forgiveness reflects the Amish renunciation of the right to revenge and the willingness to suffer. It's interesting to note, he said, that the parents of the girls killed said later they hadn't been thinking of forgiveness; just of their girls -- but they were glad the community had offered it at a time when they weren't ready to. Bontrager finished with an emotional coda to this story -- of visiting the home where the disabled girl lived and seeing a woman in slacks and spikey hair reading to her. She was the mother of Charles Roberts, who came weekly to offer what she could to the girl, and to whom that family had offered a space for healing. What a story!

Spent some time also at the Global Village, where there was a terrific Paraguayan harp quartet on stage and interesting stuff going on in the tents; such interesting interactions as Paraguayan women offer African women some Chaco goodies and Dutch kids work with indigenous Paraguayan men on an art project to illustrate their lives!

Evening featured the Menno Colony School Band - not bad! - and a hispanic group from Paraguay. A group from the Bruderhof community -- which once settled in Paraguay with help from Mennonites -- was interesting, even if it ended with this oddly dressed group leading us in singing "This is the Day." Elizabeth Soto from Puerto Rico delivered a terrific sermon on service that, among other things, made the point that we Mennos have a theology of service as "doing" but often lack one of "being." That our purpose is not to fix the world's problems, but to be God's instruments, hands and feet, walking alongside those who are suffering. To be humble people who know how to serve.

Finally, our bus group has warmed up a bit, thanks to the two little blond German boys who decided to start singing the kwazy-kwazy song as we waited for our turn to be led down the stone road to our diesel-belching bus. We joined in - more joined in - and soon we were having shades of Bulawayo! The back end of the bus sang all the way home, merrily. OK, it was just us, the German family and a Paraguayan family -- the other Paraguayans just ignored us -- but it was fun and we arrived at Casa Menonita in a happy mood. Fortunately, all the TUMCers had remembered to leave a note with a little reflection on the assembly, so I stayed up late putting some photos and annotations online for the gang back home to put on the Sunday service. Behinder and behinder on this blog!!

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