Member Mission Newsletter #44 – Latins “at the Manger”      

December 2006

Here are some different “Christmas stories.”
They ask you to imagine what the birth of Jesus will mean this year to the people on the spiritual journeys you are about to read.

TWO STORIES

Working with the spiritual health and depth of Mexicans in the Sea-Tac area

Diane Aid is the bilingual lay Hispanic Missioner for Region E with seven churches in the Episcopal Diocese of Olympia in the Seattle-Tacoma area of Washington.  With a grant from Trinity Church, Wall Street for Hispanic spirituality, she began to work with Mexican people at San Mateo, Auburn – a congregation she had started.  In table conversations on Wednesday evenings, they talked about eight topics such as the sacraments and one’s spiritual roots.  With pages from a child’s coloring book of Mexican folk art, the members picked their favorite and talked about it.  It was an easy way to talk about life in their home villages.  She is in conversation with a few organizations to film and produce these table conversations for the media.  They will, probably, draw on talk about their “sacred places” – inside a church or at a home altar.  The goal is to see that, when we enter the world, we are also entering “sacred space.”  They are beginning to see that God is everywhere. 

At Santa Isabel in Burien, many of the people, especially the women, do not know Spanish and speak only Purepecha, an indigenous language that predates the arrival of the Spanish.  In Mexico, these indigenous people – some 96,000 in number – encounter a lot of prejudice.  In the U.S., there are many such groups and  they encounter prejudice here as well.  Diane is beginning to see that, as we look at popular Latino religion, we need to see its roots in indigenous stories.  She wants to dig these stories out.  For example, “The Dance of the Elders” is popular throughout Mexico.  The dancers wear colorful costumes and the “elderly” men have masks with white faces.  With the men moving stiffly at the start, they limber up as the music picks up.  It is a sort of comedy.  In research, she has learned that the dance was used to mock the Conquistadores, the white men from Europe.  The Purepecha people say it is much deeper than that for it has to do with the solar system – just how they do not know.  With leaders from the Purepecha community, Diane and the Purepecha people are exploring the origins of that dance. 

Diane started this congregation of Santa Isabel by hanging out with the people in the markets.  Early on, she had spotted the way Hispanics can be victimized by “efforts to help these poor people.”  These “efforts” fail to grasp the wholeness of Hispanic life such as found in their festivals.  This insight led to her hanging about the markets.  At the time she was serving on the board of an educational outreach program in the school district.  The board suggested she work with the Purepecha people because they did not have time to deal with them.  She met a couple of the Purepecha people at the market; met with them at St.  Elizabeth’s; and told them she wanted to start a church.  They now gather for the Eucharist on Sunday evening – about sixty in number with half of them children.  They also meet three times a week for their dances.  With a grant from the diocese, the hundred dancers acquired costumes and now perform “The Dance of the Elders” throughout the region.

At one point, attendance fell off because a couple preparing to marry at Santa Isabel were told by a Roman Catholic priest they would be “living in sin” if they married in that church.  The people began to return through Antonio who, while saying he is not religious, talks to others about close-mindedness and says, “If I pick a church, it’s the Episcopal Church;” and, then. he gives his reasons.  One step for returnees came during a dance a rehearsal on a Sunday night.  Diane said, “Anyone who wants to come to the Eucharist come,” and some trickled in.  The kids asked, “Can we really come into the Mass?”  Diane’s “Of course” led to forty kids there that Sunday.  When called out of church for more dance practice, they came back asking, “Can we come in and eat now?”  “Sure, you can!”

Diane started the San Mateo church with a weekend vacation Bible School for children.  Eight came.   That connected her with their families.  They lived in a decaying, drug-ridden section that was later condemned by the city.  As October approached, she asked what will you do to celebrate the important “Day of the Dead” – All Saints Day as we know it.  Knowing the community needed to be called together, she offered to bring some prayers to Maria’s apartment where Maria and others would set up an altar.  They brought food and Diane brought Evening Prayer for the Day of the Dead.  Nine people came – all through a nine-year-old girl who had been part of the Bible school.  In time, they asked for a first communion class.  That led to Spanish language Eucharists at the church.  One Sunday, after three years, there were thirty confirmations, fourteen baptisms, twenty-one receptions, and forty first communions.  Now six years later, congregations number about thirty and have their own core leaders.  Diane has been amazed to find members of San Mateo whose native language is Purepecha.  The children are told not to speak it any more.  They are now quite excited to be discovering their Purepecha roots.

Diane says, “Being a good missioner is going out into the community and simply listening; and, when you see a door is stuck that you know how to open, open the door!  If it’s getting licenses for micro-businesses, open that door.  Hold any door open, and people walk through!”

Contact: Diane Aid, Saint Matthew’s Episcopal Church, 123 L Street N.E., Auburn, WA 98002; 206-579-3011; sanmateo921@yahoo.com

 A church fire leads Hispanics into outreach through home meetings in Rhode Island

Central Falls is about eight miles northeast of Providence, RI on I-95.  St. George’s Church there was ravaged by fire in late October leaving its 9:00 A.M. Anglo congregation of 18-25 and its 11:00 A.M. Hispanic congregation and church school of 60-80 compelled to find some other way and place to worship.  For Sundays, the two congregations meet at St.  Paul’s Church in nearby Pawtucket.  However, more was needed.  Modesta Pellot, a lay leader, and Jose Roberts, their Hispanic priest and Hispanic Missioner for the Episcopal Diocese of Rhode Island, and Jose’s wife, Dolores, reshaped an idea that had been tried for home based worship among the lapsed Hispanic members.  In the past, it had met with little success.  Modesta reports that this time, after the fire, the response to their new pattern of home worship has been “extraordinary.”

Called “The Apostolic Twelve,” the groups meet on Wednesday nights.  The hosts invite all the members – inactive as well as active – who live near them to come and to bring with them their friends and neighbors.  The result?  Both active and inactive members of all ages come and they bring along their friends and neighbors.  Among the friends and neighbors are people with no church and people who are members of other communions.  Modesta, Jose, and Dolores recruited the first group’s hosts from a Bible Study group that had been meeting before the fire.  Then, at that first meeting, they asked for a volunteer who would host a similar group the next Wednesday.  This process has worked so well that, after four weeks, four groups are now meeting weekly.  Up to twenty-five of all ages have answered the invitations to each of the groups. 

Each new group follows this pattern. With Modesta’s and Dolores’ help, Jose leads a discussion of the day’s reading from Forward’s Dia a Dia – Day by Day in Spanish.  In a flow of eager response, the people discuss how it connects with their daily lives.  Prayer and singing accompany the reading and discussion.  Ginger flavored hot chocolate and bread have come to be the regular closing refreshment.  Spanish is the usual language unless the mix of people calls for bilingual talk.  Another feature of each meeting is “The Altar in the Home.”  Each host sets up an altar for the first meeting.  It remains in place for that household and neighbors to meet there daily for Bible reading and prayer.  From this first evening on, the hosts become the leaders.  Jose, Dolores, and Modesta promise to return when the regular participants reach twelve in number.  They will ask for sharing of what the gatherings have meant for the people and how it has affected their daily living.

On Thursdays, Modesta, Jose, and Dolores use the same pattern at Mision en Mesias, an Hispanic mission in Providence.  Also, they are offering home meetings for a Eucharist and home blessing to St. George’s Anglo members who, incidentally, have been gathering in larger numbers since the fire, as well.  Further, repairs on the burned out church are progressing enough for both Anglo and Hispanic congregations to be sure of celebrating Christmas in the Church Hall, if not in the church itself.  Modesta sees what is happening as “walking in the wilderness like Moses and the people.”  Most of the people know that they have to look for some new “place” or “way.”  Modesta happened to tell this story during the monthly Learning Community of teams from six churches that is sponsored by the Diocese of Rhode Island (see “Evangelism inside of mission in Rhode Island” in MMNews #31 on Newsletters at www.membermission.org). 

Contacts: Modesta Pellot, 35 Goff Ave., #205, Pawtucket, RI 02860; 401-724-8979; moepellot@webtv.net and The Rev.  Jose Roberts, Episcopal Diocese of Rhode Island, 275 N.  Main St., Providence, RI 02903; 401-274-4500 x-245; jose@episcopalri.org.                                                                                                                           

A couple’s home mission           

Karen and George are about to share a snapshot of the two of them before George began losing, by now, 147 pounds.  Just out of the top of the picture are their four grandchildren, aged 17 to 22. 

They were asked “How do you see God at work in your home?”
Karen: “In the relationships we have with family.  And with friends we invite over – especially when I am led to phone them without putting it off again.” 
George: “Sometimes I am resistant to things until Karen and I talk them over and she changes my mind to a better, more Christian way to do something.”
[Karen said quickly: “He does the same for me.”]
Next, they were asked “How does God help you in your mission at home?”
Karen: “When I get ideas and thoughts, I don’t push them away.  That’s God’s help.”
George: “God softens me up to hear what Karen has to say and strengthens her to follow through on saying it.”

RESOURCES

Share your resources! – The Rev. C. M. Khanna serves All Saints Church in Srinigar in the valley of Kashmir, India, a largely Muslim area.  I (AWS) met Mr. Khanna at a conference in 1995 and have been in touch since.  He is hard-working and effective.  Unfortunately, he has been without salary for four months from his Diocese of Amritsar, Church of North India, because they are out of funds.   He does have the support of $100 US per month from an NGO but only through December of this year.  Can you share some of your resources with him?

Rev.  C.  M.  Khanna, All Saints’Church (C.N.I.), Church Lane, Srinagar, Kashmir, INDIA – 190001; Tel: 0091-194-2475194; email: cm_khanna@yahoo.co.in.

“How to Find and Do God’s Work: Living Your Faith in Your Daily Mission Fields” – a teleclass that explores how your Monday-to-Saturday life is precisely the place where mission can and does happen.  These sessions introduce potential leaders to the member mission process for discerning your daily missions.  A later series will offer a full training experience.  Class size is limited to eight.  Sign up for two Tuesdays, February 6 and 13, 2007, from 7:00 – 8:15 p.m. (Eastern time) at http://eministrynetwork.org/mdlcministry.htm#howtofindanddo at a cost of $22.00.

On the Job Prayers (ACTA Publications, 2006) by William Thompson – Based on belief that God is at work everywhere, this book is a workplace prayer book with an integrated approach to prayer that offers Scripture, an excerpt from the literature on spirituality at work, and a short prayer. 

FOR MEDITATION

• Jacob Marley’s message to Ebenezer Scrooge was: “Mankind was my business!”

• We cannot trust our economic system to “make mankind its business.”  Adam Smith put too  much faith in human nature.  The hard truth is that contemporary capitalism will create wealth but is not self-regulating.  Left to its own devices, it will not “'solve the problems of poverty and inequality.”

• That’s where Christians and other justice-minded people come in – or should come in!

[Based on Peter Steinfels’ discussion of Adam’s Fallacy: A Guide to Economic Theology (Harvard University Press, 2006) by Duncan K.  Foley in his “Beliefs” column of the 11/25/06 New York Times.]

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God is most interested in how we live from Monday to Saturday.
Sunday – all of church life – helps us to do it better.

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