This July I went to Poza Rica, Veracruz in Mexico to visit my boyfriend who lives there. This was my second trip to Mexico. Six years ago I went to Durango on a mission trip with my Southern Baptist church. That trip and those people (both my fellow mission-trip-ers and the Mexican people we met) forever marked me. I've loved Mexico ever since. A month after my second trip, I have had time to reflect on what I learned on my vacation.
On this recent trip, I was reminded again and again that the man visiting Mexico in 2012 is a completely different person than the boy who went in 2006. Perhaps because of that, I found the lessons I took away and the way in which I was "marked" this time, to be of a different variety than before. So here, in three lessons, is what I learned:
We don't need to "help" people by "reaching" them...we need to connect with them because we need them as much as they need us.
MISSIONS is a word used by American Christians to mean a few different things. Mostly we use it to refer either to service (serving the poor, painting houses, building sanctuaries) or evangelism (proselytizing). When I last went, it was on a trip to what the SBC had taken to call "unreached people groups"--ethnic groups of people who's knowledge of The Gospel (copyright SBC?) was at an extremely low level. When we got to Durango, we found a group of people who identified by and large as committed Catholics. Rancheros where the main attraction of the little town was the church. But of course, Catholicism didn't count in our version of the gospel. This time around I realized how dumb that concept of evangelism is...how self-centered, proud, and egocentric...the idea that American Christians somehow need to "help" these people who aren't Christian enough in their Christianity. Because their cultural version of Christianity isn't pure Christianity like ours...you know, the kind that pledges allegiance to the American flag at Vacation Bible School (an awkward practice when you take your VBS on the road to another country), the kind that thinks the "old songs" are ones written in 1950 and published by Stamps Baxter. I learned on this trip that my cultural Christianity is important to me because Christ transforms culture and culture is just another way of God's creative work continuing in and among us, God's children. At the same time, the cultures of other people, Christian and otherwise, are not in competition with my faith but are necessary to enrich it. We ought to send American Christians across the world on mission trips...the mission should be to learn how to be better Christians by observing how other brothers and sisters across the world do this thing we call "following Jesus."
Our immigration policy is immoral
This isn't a lesson about immigration reform, who to vote for in the coming election, or how to protect our borders. I don't even know the answers to those questions. I'm saying that we are asking the wrong questions. While we debate issues of national security, visit the home of your neighbors who don't have all the right papers in their chest of drawers and ask about the fears that grip them when it comes to their family, their immigration status, and the economic and social climate in their home country. While we talk about amnesty and obeying the law, go look into the face of a mother who wants her children to be safe and successful and the eyes of a young man who dreams of doing something significant and decide for yourself if geography is enough reason to ignore those wants and dreams. Our immigration policy in this country is confusing, unjust, unfair, imbalanced, broken, and ironic (as in great grandchildren of illegal immigrants, i.e. white people, deciding who gets to stay or go). But beyond all of that political discussion, it isn't just politics and policy--it's people...and how we treat these neighbors of ours is immoral and wrong. "When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God" -God. (Leviticus 19:33-34)
Church should be like a Mexican karaoke bar
One night I went out to a karaoke bar in Poza Rica. We drank tequila and people sang. And drank. And sang. And drank. And drank. But there was a marked difference between karaoke here and there. When the people in the bar knew the song, they sang out. Loudly. And as the night wore on, louder. These people who didn't know each other threw off their inhibitions to enjoy what they shared in common: love of a song. Those who didn't know the words were caught up in an atmosphere of community. The person with the mic was drowned out by those nearest me singing their hearts out. Church should be like that. People who might not normally become a community gathering in joy around something in common...in our case, Jesus. Singing our hearts out, unconcerned about how we look because it's about the song. Not reverently listening to one person perform, but becoming part of the performance ourselves, thereby lifting up the efforts of the leader but drowning them out as our song becomes a song of community...a chorus, not a solo. Nobody worried about singing too many verses. Those who don't know the song we're singing, still caught up in the atmosphere of being a community. No one bored. No one feeling awkward. No one excluded or left out (after all, if you don't know the songs we're singing, go pick your own and sing your heart out too!). Joy. Celebration. Communion. Singing. Fellowship. Diversity. Loud people and quietly smiling people. People apologizing to the next table for a friend who is a little over eager. All of these things should mark the community that follows Christ.
So many other lessons I learned on my trip--some too close to the heart to share here. But above all I learned that people aren't so different from each other. Language, culture, karaoke song choices, religions...they divide a humanity that is afraid to look at "the other" and see themselves. Perhaps, if we looked at each other and loved what we saw, we'd learn to love who God has made us too...for in each of us resides the image of God. In each of us also is the need to stop, rest, and declare with God about God's creation, "it is good."
