From Honduras. . .

Hello to all my faithful readers! I have arrived back to the April snow of Grand Rapids, a little tanner, a little more bug-bitten and a whole lot more in touch with that theological notion we call: the universal church.

In the span of 5 days, our team built 10 latrines in the mountain town of Consolation. One of the poorest villages in Honduras, Internatial Aid has set up a partnership between the people of Consolation and the congregation of Lagrave Ave. CRC. For those of you who know the denomination, there couldn't be a more startling contrast between good ol' Lagrave high church and the town of Consolation, with no electricity or running water. Nonetheless, two years ago the partnership began when youth group kids raised money and built stoves for many of the townspeople. In the intervening two years, the relationships once established were not forgotten. On our first afternoon in the villiage, American teenagers and Honduran school kids shyly smiled as they got reaquainted. One ingenious teenager printed off pictures from her previous trip to the village and was nearly mobbed by kids as she tried to pass them out. Knowing that these may be the only pictures these kids will ever see of their childhood brought home the seemingly endless lesson of the week about how very unevenly resources have been alotted in this world.

I grew up around third world poverty, in the sense that it was always outside the darly tinted windows of my air-conditioned car and outside the gates of my upper-class subdivision. I passed tin and cardboard shacks on my way to school every day for 7 years. Sometimes we would pass out crackers to the kids who were begging at the intersections. Sometimes we pretended we couldn't see them. All of this honest confession to say, I grew up thinking that the haves and the have-nots was not only the way of the world but also, in some karmic sense, the way the world was meant to be.

It has only been in the past 6 years or so that "Christian" has come to mean more than "really good devotional time with Jesus." "Christian" has come to mean, "Get off your ass and start loving the world, dark though it may be, and watch the light of my kingdom shine into and heal the whole broken mess of things." (And yes, sometimes the voice of God DOES speak to me that way.) I went on this trip, then, with a different set of eyes to see the socio-economic depravation of the majority and the oppulent indulgence of the few, not only a political but also as spiritual issues.

The trip was different from any I'd ever taken before in that our task wasn't to pass out tracts or facilitate mass revival meetings. We went to build latrines. Consolation is a villiage without a church and without a missionary or pastor but it is a Christian-ized town. At the opening ceremony for our arrival, the town leaders opened with prayers, translated from Spanish to English. Our group responded with gratitude and more prayers, translated from English into Spanish.

The word, which really isn't a word, that rolled around in my head all week was:
With-ness. I was talking about this idea with some of the teenagers on the trip and one said, "You mean 'witness'?" Funny how much difference a consonent makes. Witnessing is what I was taught to do - to evangelize and tell people about Jesus. Witnessing assumes a fundamental chasm between yourself (as the one with all the knowledge and insight) and them (who need converting.) And, of course, there may be a place for that kind of activity BUT, to paraphrase James, witness without with-ness is dead.

With-ness is what happens when prayers are translated into different languages to include us all (Pentacost is perhaps the most with-ness-y liturgical event of the year!)

With-ness is building a latrine alongside the hardest working 10 year old who ever lived! He put us to shame. That cement never got dried out and hardened on his watch. No Senor!

With-ness is singing praise songs at the top of your lungs, in Spanish, with a shovel in one hand, un pequinito mano in your other hand and about a dozen kids kicking up dust around you on the main road through town. (Think Latino Von Trapp.)

With-ness is meeting, mom-ing and messing around with 14 high-schoolers you've never met before in your life but, because you share the same bug-bites and sun-burn and bouncy car ride every day, become make-shift family by the time the week is up.

With-ness is praying together each night for the hurting loved ones at home and the hurting loved ones we've met during the day.

With-ness is what happens when, for even a short moment, the parallel path a priviledged North American seminary student meets with the path of a few teenagers struggling to fight their way through a jungle of lockers, gym classes and high expectations and meets again with the path of a small, overlooked villiage in Honduras.

I know that there is plenty of ministerial debate about the efficacy of short-term missions. I confess I have some of the same reservations. We worry that it's all about us instead of about helping others. But I guess I would ask: What if it needs to be about us? What if, physical poverty aside, we are the needy ones? What if we are the ones who need help in overcoming the darkness of our own narrow vision and infernal navel gazing? Can't we address physical and spiritual poverty with the same solution?

The Universal Church? It's about with-ness.