Making sense of my weekend.
I’m still trying to make sense of my weekend. I had the privilege of being invited to participate in a conference held by the Baptist Union of Victoria (BUV). It was a conference pitched to migrant churches, and in particular the youth and young adults of those churches.
The BUV have 95 LOTE (languages other than English) churches. That is a significant amount of churches for a Protestant denomination.
One of the ways in which I was asked to participate was to lead some sessions for pastors and other leaders. I was staggered by the amount of leaders in these churches who engage in these roles as unpaid volunteers over and above full time work and family commitments. I was rapidly making connections between their experience of migration and that of my parents, aunties and uncles. When I think about the hours that these people had to work in precarious employment arrangements that is the casual and manual labour type roles often the lot of new arrivals, the calculus quickly results in an awareness of the degree of sacrifice required by incredibly faithful people in order that these faith communities can even exist, let alone thrive. But thrive they do, with so little resource and support.
I was constantly thanked for my input and I struggled to accept such a generous affirmation because I felt that the level of my “sacrifice” in preparing and presenting didn’t come close to their daily sacrificial efforts. These faithful servants work tirelessly in helping guide their next generation through the challenge of taking their place in a multicultural society yet they have to undertake this onerous task in the currents of various fears created by populist nationalism and tribalism.
My work was good. The interactions I had with leaders was life giving. There was transformation yet my drive home from the conference on both the Friday and Saturday night were for me sombre experiences. These faithful people are so under resourced and the importance of their work seems so unnoticed let alone appreciated if it is indeed appreciated at all.
This morning I responded to some lovely emails from leaders who attended my seminars asking for presentation slides and notes. I have just finished responding to them. It feels like a pathetic gesture when measured against their sacrificial commitment.
The last words of the conference were given by Charlene Del Santos, one of the two organisers of the conference. I had the privilege of working with both Charlene and Meewon Yang in the lead up to the conference. What a gift to be able to contribute alongside these migrant women, passionate about practising the kind of hospitality traditional cultures are known for, a hospitality that expresses itself in a way that creates a space for those who live between two worlds but are not totally at home in either so that they can feel some kind of normal for just a little while.
I also had a chance to speak to the youth and young adults. The subject I was asked to speak on was “Discovering your God given gifts.” What follows are my notes for my final point in my seminar.
Finally, what is the greatest gift?
It is a gift that only you have…
Migrants and the children of migrants,
Those who never make the move,
Those who are never forced to make the move,
Those who never have to leave home, move to another part of the world and build home from nothing all over again,
Do not have the gift that you do:
Your gift is seeing the world through the eyes of many cultures!
We face one of the biggest challenges in the world today:
The rise of racism globally…
The terrible fear and hatred towards asylum seekers…
The terrible fear and hatred towards anyone who is different…
When you only have one lens,
You can only see two kinds of people,
But in a great mystery, a great irony,
When you have more than one lens,
You can only see one kind of people,
I think that the greatest need in this world at the moment,
We need the wisdom that only comes to those who know how to live in many different cultures at the same time,
People who are able to cope with difference,
People who are able to reconcile difference,
Do not dare to say “I have nothing to give.” Do not dare say “I have nothing to contribute.”
You have a gift. You are a gift.
That’s all I had. I trust it was enough.
Thanks for bearing with me as I make sense of my weekend.
