Possibilities: They Are Where You Cannot Even Imagine!

When I arrived in the Republic of Nicaragua I found everything very different from Brazil, but I decided to open myself up to new experiences. Without creating expectations, I tried to accept this new country into my life. I chose to prepare myself for the “non-knowledge” of things. I opened myself to the new culture, the new place, and all the POSSIBILITIES that presented themselves to me while I watched everything carefully.

I came curious to work together with an NGO that works on issues of social justice, community development, and health, so after GMF training and training in the capital of the country, I went to the Caribbean Coast and started a cultural immersion that would change my life!

The Autonomous Region of the North Caribbean of Nicaragua is very interesting and fun. Interesting because it is everything different from what I already knew, and fun because that is how I see my learning process and adaptation! I love meeting people, and my biggest investments have been directed to new relationships I’ve made.

Even though sometimes people look at me as if I’m from another planet, it’s fun! Once I was accompanied by my friend from work and a very humble lady asked my Nicaraguan friend, “What country is she from?” I looked at her and answered in Spanish: “I’m from Brazil!” I smiled, but that lady was very embarrassed because I spoke to her without knowing her. After I said my name, she already gained more confidence and continued asking questions!

In Brazil I have always loved going out for a walk and having coffee outside the house every day; this is something important for me. However, in my place of work it is impractical, so I have reorganized my lifestyle. Now I like to make homemade coffee, wash clothes by hand with a specific soap whose smell I love, do exercises in the workshop room of my work (where I live), and sit on the porch talking to a work friend! I rewrite Bible passages and study my actions together with some friends of my GMF class! This is good!

We are all beings that adapt, and I can say that I am very happy to live as I live and to meet so many nice people. The important thing in all of this is to be well and have fun even in a complex context. I choose to smile every day in the midst of my sadness, and it makes me grow a little stronger.

My gratitude is for being able to do what I learned to enjoy. I continue to learn how to be, how to learn, and how to do. My learning is constant, and in Christ I can say with great confidence: everything is fine!

Ester Antunes

GMF International, Class of 2017-2019

Nicaragua

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Possibilidades, elas estão onde você nem imagina!

Quando cheguei na Republica da Nicarágua achei tudo muito diferente do Brasil, mas decidi me abrir para as novas experiências e sem criar expectativas busquei aceitar esse novo país na minha vida. Escolhi me preparar para o “não conhecimento” das coisas, me abri para a nova cultura, o novo lugar e todas as POSSIBILIDADES que se apresentavam à mim enquanto eu observava tudo atentamente.

Cheguei curiosa para trabalhar junto com uma ONG que atua em questões de justiça social, desenvolvimento comunitário e saúde, então após capacitações e treinamentos na Capital do país, fui a Costa do Caribe e comecei uma imersão cultural que mudaria minha vida!

A Região Autônoma do Caribe Norte da Nicarágua é muito interessante e divertida, interessante porque é tudo diferente do que eu já conhecia e divertida porque é assim que eu enxergo o meu processo de aprendizagem e adaptação! Eu amo conhecer pessoas e meus maiores investimentos foram direcionados a novos relacionamentos que fiz, mesmo que as vezes as pessoas me olhem como se eu fosse de outro planeta, é divertido! Uma vez eu estava acompanhada com minha amiga de trabalho e uma senhora muito humilde perguntou a minha amiga nicaraguense: de que país ela é? Olhei para ela e respondi em espanhol: Sou do Brasil! Eu sorri, mas aquela senhora ficou muito envergonhada por que eu falei com ela mesmo sem a conhecer, após dizer meu nome ela já ganhou mais confiança e seguiu fazendo perguntas!

Sempre amei sair para passear e tomar café fora de casa todos os dias, isso é algo importante para mim, mas no meu local de atuação é inviável então eu readequei meu processo de qualidade de vida e agora gosto de fazer café artesanal em casa, lavar roupas na mão com um sabão específico que eu amo o cheiro, fazer exercícios na sala da oficina do meu trabalho( onde eu moro) e sentar na varanda para conversar com uma amiga de trabalho! Reescrevo passagens bíblicas e estudo minhas ações juntamente com alguns amigos de minha turma GMF! Todos nós somos seres que se adaptam e posso dizer que estou muito contente de viver como vivo e conhecer tantas pessoas legais, o importante em tudo isso é estar bem e se divertir mesmo em um contexto complexo, eu escolhi sorrir para a tristeza todos os dias, e ela me faz crescer um pouco mais forte.

Minha gratidão é por poder fazer o que eu aprendi a gostar, sigo aprendendo a ser, aprender, fazer e ser, minha aprendizagem é constante e em Cristo eu posso afirmar com muito consciência: vai tudo bem!

Ten Times Stronger

Assuming that all things were ready with my Honors Degree in Psychology and Theological academics, I packed my bags heading for Brazil full of hope, faith, expectations, enthusiasm, and zeal of participating in fulfilling the Great Commission. Through experiences of serving with communities through churches and different organizations in the past, my mind could only testify to my readiness for mission work beyond borders.

After serving God for more than a year in Brazil, I have realized that God wanted to mold me even more. Not only have I participated in the transformation of the world, but I also have experienced personal growth and internal transformation. My mission work experiences have taught me some lessons. Ask me about victimization, racism, depression, bitterness, desperation, hopelessness, and frustration, and I can deliver a thousand lectures. I never expected to experience such things, but for quite some time it has been my lunch and dinner. Maybe surprisingly I do not regret experiencing them but I am proud as I have become ten times stronger in different ways.

God taught me about patience, humbleness, contentment, perseverance, dedication, loyalty, and being positive. Life has a way of kicking us when we’re down. And just when we think we can’t fall any lower, we get kicked again. After all it is said, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed…” (2 Corinthians 4:8-12) and “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?” (Romans 8:35). In every situation we are molded by God for even bigger roles in His kingdom. God’s love for us is always in abundance. We endure and tarry in different situations for His sake as great promise awaits us. “And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms for My name’s sake, will receive many times as much, and will inherit eternal life” (Matthew 19:29).

I am humble that through the Global Mission Fellows program, God chastened and quickened me mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. At last I managed to participate even more than I expected. I’m kindly encouraging each and everyone to continue with the good work no matter what we go through. Let’s encourage each other to continue and start the good work. “And he said to them, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest'” (Luke 10:2). May our good Lord continue to bless those supporting mission work through finances, material resources, and prayers.

Peace, love, joy!

Blessing

Tapiwa Blessing Kanengoni

GMF International, Class of 2016-2018

Brazil

#3022239

Green and Dying

The poem “Fern Hill” by Dylan Thomas, is a magnificent weaving of the spell we cast upon ourselves. We are enchanted by the desire for times past, for innocence, for the power of knowing nothing outside of the gate of the front yard. The last two lines of the poem read:

Time held me green and dying

Though I sang in my chains like the sea

I first heard the poem when I sang “Fern Hill” with my University Choir. My understanding of it was all wrapped up into the images of green British countryside and the pastoral nostalgia of a man’s yearning for his childhood ignorance. I did not expect these lines to follow me to Tanzania. In the small town of Tarime, desperately searching for a role to take on, this poem now reads in a tone much more sinister. It names the prison I have build for myself. Sticking to “what the research says” and the most progressive models of community organizing are what responsible people do, right? It is best to maintain a structure that is familiar and recommended. If a community doesn’t respond well then there must be something wrong with them, not the plan. Just like a mind palace, I know where everything fits and how to get there as long as no one interferes. These plans keep me green, fresh, and hopeful. They keep outsiders irrelevant and inhuman.

As long as I have these expectations and have confidence that they will be met, I am shielded from a reality in which these expectations and my supposed knowledge are not enough. Whole systems are built to protect green bubbles of expectation. Missionaries are sent out, NGOs are formed, political parties created to implement these expectations and to insist that things are better because of them.

Green and dying

So money is raised, rousing speeches made to cheering audiences, all with confidence that we can make change, that we have the answer and the means to that end. We talk about success so loudly we fail to hear the dying just beyond the fence. We fail to realize that insistence on This Way kills the chance for A Way. But who cares? We can only see as far as the green grass of the front yard.

I sang in my chains like the sea.

We create our own prison, we never reach the land because everything we touch becomes part of the green green sea and we never see the dying. For Thomas to write this, he must have at least glimpsed something beyond the “apple boughs” and the “dingle starry.” It must have scared him, for this poem is indeed a longing for those chains, for that green prison. Maybe this is not the most hopeful message, but it is a message that we must hear. As people of God we are called to step outside of the gate, to set aside answers to questions that no one is asking, and to see the dying.

The Good News is that in seeing how we destroy ourselves, we have an opportunity for life. We have opportunity to do what we fear we cannot do outside of a singing prison. If we let go of the illusion of green, we allow the possibility for spring to blossom in its time.

Bernadette M. St. Amand

GMF International, Class of 2017-2019

Tanzania

#3022334

The Battle of a Social Justice Advocate

As a Social justice advocate and missionary, I root my battles in the concepts of human rights and equality. I hope to participate in the movement towards a socially just world. I also hope to make my voice heard by promoting the idea that all people should have the same and equal political, social, economic, and civil rights. I strongly believe that injustice, inequality, discrimination, and racism do not apply to Christian teaching. In addition, the Bible teaches us that it is wrong for a Christian to have feelings of superiority. Philippians 2:4 says, “Not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.” On the other hand, believers are told not to make class distinctions among themselves. James 2:5: “Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?”

John Wesley placed primary emphasis on Christian lives, putting faith and love into action because he saw the love of God in loving neighbors and correcting societal problems. Many Christians today tend to focus more on loving God whilst ignoring loving their neighbors. Jesus told us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. That is one of the recommendations that a true Christian should put in practice. Love is never only verbal but rather love is action. Many Christians today arguably do not care about social action but rather prefer addressing prayers to God expecting to see the Messiah come to feed the hungry, house the homeless, and so on. Churches as well at times preach the gospel without responding to people’s needs. Why we can announce the gospel without taking into account the social reality?

Anany Kasongo

GMF International, Class of 2016-2018

Brazil

Shade and Fresh Water Project

#3022192

Trumpets of Thanksgiving at Matola

Grateful hearts at Harvest Thanksgiving Sunday (Accao de Gracas) at Matola Circuit

Giving thanks to God in the midst of Trials and Tribulations.

Since time immemorial, it has been the culture of United Methodists to meet in celebration of what is commonly known as the Harvest Thanksgiving or “Accao de Gracas” in Portuguese. Hundreds of congregants gather in their respective circuits to give thanks to God and to celebrate and acknowledge God’s favor and kindness to them. Thanksgiving is such a genuine and most valuable event in the history of the United Methodist Church and more importantly in the history of our Christian faith. Harvest Thanksgiving is a time to reflect and be thankful from our innermost souls for all that God has done to us. I had previously experienced Harvest Thanksgiving in my home country Zimbabwe, but this present year 2017 I was honored to witness a vibrant, live, and blessed Harvest Thanksgiving Sunday at Matola Circuit of the Southern Save Conference in Mozambique where I am currently serving as a Global Mission Fellow of the United Methodist Church.

On August 6, 2017, more than a thousand congregants gathered at Matola Circuit as they celebrated and expressed their gratitude to God, where Rev Naftal, a fellow GMF, and Rev Joao Diogo Inguane are currently serving as the pastor in charge and the assistant pastor respectively. The following Sunday, August 13, 2017, was followed by a visitation to one of the local churches–Joaquina Nhanala Local church, named after the resident bishop–where we continued with the Accao de Gracas. This is still a small local church that is slowly growing into an independent big circuit, and the congregants worship in an incomplete building. l was happy to see dedicated congregants, who despite economic hardships are striving to finish up the church. May we remember them in our prayers for God to continue give them strength and resources as they labor in his vineyard.

This has made me to reflect how more often people ask why they should give thanks to God when faced with trials and tribulations. Sometimes I also reflect and ask myself whether amidst all the social challenges people are facing nowadays–from poverty and global diseases such as cancer, H.I.V./ AIDS, and malaria; to violence, terrorist attacks, and civil wars in which people of the same nation wage war against one another; to natural disasters such as floods, cyclones, and hurricanes, which have become the order of the day–are we able to find something to be thankful about? Do these challenges mean that God has turned his back on us during these trying times?

Absolutely not. Job, a man who was blameless and upright before God, who feared God and turned away from evil, was tempted. He was a great man of worth who possessed all the wealth in the world, but when he was tempted he lost everything–his children, wealth, status in the community, and health–and yet he didn’t turn away from God. In the midst of trials and tribulations, give thanks to God for who he is, for the mighty works he has done, and for what he continues to do.

Of all the reasons for giving thanks, we see the gift of salvation as the most important one: “For God so loved the world that he have his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Since we have received such love and mercy, let us thank him for his dear life, “the bread of life,” which has come down from heaven for the salvation and strength of our immortal souls. This becomes the root cause of thanksgiving to every Christian who has received Christ as his/her personal Savior.

Let us be thankful as well for the service of creation–that God created us in his own image and sent us into the world to live for his Glory. Psalms 95:1-6 says:

O come, let us sing joy to the Lord; let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation! Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; let us shout joyfully to Him with Psalms! For the Lord is a great God, and a great king above all Gods, in whose hands are the depths of the sea; the peaks of the mountains are His also. The sea is His for it was HE who made it, and his hands formed the dry lands. Come let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our maker!

Let us render thanks, not only with our lips but through our lives as well. As Christians we can show thankfulness to God through a proper enjoyment of his gifts to us. If God blesses us with the good things of this life, we are not going to be selfish where we think of ourselves only. Rather, by all means let us try to be good stewards by showing compassion to others, ministering especially to those who through tiredness, sickness, poverty, violence, and adversity are in need of our help.

Lynnette Hlatywayo

GMF International, Class of 2016-2018

Mozambique

JustaPaz Center of Study and Conflict

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Reflections on my Cross-Cultural Experience

Whither is my destiny? My hope, at the end of the day, is to inspire myself and others to realize our sole identity and vocation. Lately, I have been doing some reflections on my cross-cultural experience. I realize that people are awesome. We are amazing, but we are also oblivious of this truth. I give thanks to people who’ve been so good to me. It’s a good feeling to be surrounded by friendly people. On the other hand, I have also struggled with some differences. I have a dilemma between acculturating and focusing on a single task in my limited time.

In a cross-cultural context, having a good support system is of utmost importance. Just imagine, as a foreigner, living in a community where locals rarely see or know anything about people of your kind. Regardless of this fact, you still have neighbors who come to give you food literally every evening. Isn’t it amazing?! I’ve seen people who like to give, not because they seek some favors in return but because it is inherently part of their culture to give and to offer.

However, in my personal reflections I’ve also come to realize the roots of some misunderstandings in the communities. In a culture that is hierarchical, overlooking or undermining certain procedures can make you unpopular. Young people who want make choices–anything from small to life decisions–may seek direction from an elder, or women may seek direction from men. Consequently, this had led me to ask questions such as, “To what extend should I learn my new language?” “When should I eat local food?” “How should I contribute my views and opinions concerning social issues, etc.?” Ultimately, what brings us closer is what matters the most.

With that said, I believe successful acculturation in a cross-cultural context may include being humble and engaging in dialogue. There is no way focusing on a single task is going to work.

Edmund Makowa

GMF International, Class of 2016-2018

Cambodia

Community Health and Agricultural Development program (CHAD)

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