CCCU International Forum--Friday

It has been another full day here at the CCCU International Forum. There continued to be serendipitous moments.

Tim Elmore—Morning Session Devotion:
Yesterday we heard about “inhabiting time” and today Tim Elmore used the term “habitudes”. His basic message was, “Good leaders take what is cultural to say what is timeless.” He challenged the group to keep an eye on our purpose, i.e. God’s mission.

Wendy Kopp –Morning Session Keynote:
Wendy founded Teach For America. What an incredible story she embodies! As she was finishing her undergraduate work she began to realize that her “me generation” wasn’t as apathetic as everyone thought. Instead the problem was that they were not being called upon to serve. The hunch behind Teach For America was that indeed students would serve if they heard someone call them to service as well as provide an opportunity for them to serve. Are we calling our students to serve? And are we giving them some tangible ways to think about why they serve (the educational and social justice piece) as well as preparing them to serve (the spiritual formation and opportunity piece)?

When speaking about Teach for America Wendy said, “Our urgency is related to our optimism.” The felt urgency of the need for educational equality is driven by the conviction that it is actually possible to change people’s life trajectory through education. This quote struck me as I think about the theology of my own denomination. We have great optimism for the work of transforming grace in the life of human beings. If Teach for America can live forward with optimism despite the huge challenges and seeds of change they experience, can’t we? Does our optimism create urgency for us to both listen for God and participate in his activity in the world?

Educating Global Citizens vs. Training Global Nomads—Break Out Session:

I came away with a list of articles and books I want to add to my reading list. A good question asked at this session: “What happens if we allow our ‘homecoming’ to be the guiding metaphor for our educational praxis?” Study abroad and short-term missions often create a sense of homelessness in participants. Many of us go abroad, our lives are changed, and all we want to do is return abroad. There was something “over there” that seems more real than “back here”. So we return home only to begin to plan when we can leave again. The problem isn’t so much the plan making to return as it is a conscious or unconscious choice to not connect with the place we find ourselves---back at school or church or creating a whole new life. The great challenge is to learn how to make anywhere we reside into a home. One of the presenters who runs the study abroad in Australia said, “The magic isn’t in Australia, the magic is where YOU are.” The magic is there when we are present to our selves, God, others and our place no matter what “place” we find ourselves in. Again I’m convinced that a part of the integration piece for any of our time abroad must include a way to take what we’ve learned and put it into practice in our “homes”.

The speakers referred to students who go abroad for mission/study abroad as pilgrims rather than tourists. Tourists seek experiences and the end goal is their pleasure, and their desires. Tourists have barriers between themselves and the true life of the place they visit. Pilgrims however, “remove boundaries between themselves and the other”. They “set limits” for themselves on the way they live—this could be submitting to their cultural context or choosing a simple life upon return. Pilgrims are open to learning from the places they inhabit and tourists are just using the place to get the preconceive notions of what they came for. It occurs to me that students (or anybody really) can choose to be a pilgrim or a tourist in the University setting.

Lunch—Serendipity Conversation with Hamlet from Uganda

I sat next to a gentleman from Uganda during the mid-morning session. He has a name with many accolades around it. I’ll refer to him as Hamlet. Hamlet asked incredible questions and had some very insightful constructive criticism for the presentation we had both heard. I am reminded how easy it is to talk about mission to or with a different culture without really taking the other into account. In order to talk about the other, we so need to hear their voice!

After the session I struck up a conversation with Hamlet and he invited me to join him for lunch. We ventured off to find the box lunches and found a piece of carpet to sit on. This was a stretch for him he said. In Uganda the men do not sit on the floor! As we talked I realized I was sitting with a former member of parliament, the chaplain of the Parliament, and a chancellor of Universities in Uganda. He got his PhD at Fuller. I wish I could have recorded our conversation because he spoke so eloquently and I was hanging on every word. It is looking like I’ll be going to Uganda this summer and I’m hoping to meet up with him to learn more about his work there.

I walked away from the conversation with another connection in Uganda and 2 “learning’s”. 1) Finding out what we can “do” for anyone anywhere involves first and foremost and intentional relationship. Without relationship we are just charity givers. We want to create partnerships! 2) Issues such as human trafficking, terrorism, thievery, and prostitution involve a people who live in desperation. In order for these injustices to stop we have to look in the mirrors and ask, “how are we a part of the global system that is keeping the poor in desperation?” When there are no jobs and no affordable education the only thing left is…selling the only thing you have…. or stealing what isn’t yours… There is so much more needed than just stopping human trafficking or prostitution. There has to be a way of creating alternatives to help people out of their desperation.

International Justice Mission—Afternoon Breakout session
The session began with a video recorded interview with Nick Woltorstorff. This is a new name to me.

“Benevolence and charity can be an instrument of oppression unless justice is in the mix.” Nick Woltorstorff

The presenter gave a good description of the differences between justice and charity. Charity is something you are in control of and there is often an expectation of gratitude. Justice is often de-centered and involves a lack of control. You listen to the call coming to you from the other. It is a “response to the call of the presence of the other”.
Justice promotes peace or flourishing.

“Justice is on the ground floor of the diminution of people’s flourishing.”

After the video a panel of people from several Universities talked about the IJM chapter on their campus. I’m even more convinced that we need a chapter on our campus too. The IJM campus chapters serve as a place for student formation and education around issues of justice.

Evening Banquet/Session—Dr. John Perkins

There was so much about this session that I won’t put in words here and how. If there were any one voice at the conference that I wish my friends and colleagues and students could have heard….it was this one. There is good news. The session will be available soon.

One of the many “take-aways” form Perkins address exposed our new generation of students in a way that calls all of us to reconsider our own convictions. Perkins spoke about how he travels the country speaking to young people. He said we are at a point of crisis and opportunity. The crisis relates to the sate of our nation's economy and health care as two examples. The opportunity is the state of our young people. For the first time in United States history, Perkins suggested, we have a post-racist generation. Instead of fearing this generation of post-moderns we need to embrace them because within them is a people who are being primed to lead us in a new way of being. Perkins said that every time there is a movement it is when students/people enter into the pain of the people or the pain of the moment they live in. And from what he is gathering the students across our nation are more aware of the pains of the moment. There are not as many boundaries when it comes to catholic and protestant, black and white, democrat and republican. The up and coming generation doesn’t value the distinctions as much…they are integrating values rather than separating them out.