Coming Home to Myself

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Dear friends and family,

This first half of 2023 has been a lot busier with both planned and surprise international travels. In addition to the Presbyterian Peacemaking travel study seminar about forced migration and labor trafficking in the Philippines and Hong Kong, during January and February, I traveled stateside in March and visited Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman in April. This year also includes my 15th ordination anniversary as a teaching elder, in addition to our wedding anniversary. Our second four-year term of mission service will end in September, and we are making plans to continue serving for another term. In a few weeks, I expect to complete my coursework requirements for my peacebuilding doctoral program, with Qualifying Exams in late August. With so many things happening this year, I’m taking time for introspection and inviting you to listen too.

Twenty years ago, I was halfway through my year as a Young Adult Volunteer (YAV) in Cairo, Egypt, with two more volunteers and our site coordinator. Right before Holy Week, we finished our one month of temporary exile in Cyprus, to seek safety during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Our Cyprus hosts were former Reformed Church in America missionaries, Lew and Nancy Scudder.

[ngg src="galleries" ids="1173" display="pro_horizontal_filmstrip" show_captions="1"]When I recall that year of mission service, I was grateful for the many new experiences. I enjoyed the friendship and fellowship of living in community with other mission volunteers. I appreciated the opportunity to meet and minister to sub-Saharan refugees, as they shared the challenges of civil war and famine in Sudan and Ethiopia, as well as ongoing situations of vulnerability and racism in Egypt. I felt the Spirit’s stirrings to pursue ordained ministry, mission service, and long-term commitment with, then boyfriend, Juan. That year I felt like I was becoming the person who God had created me to be, shaping me through living in community with people serving in mission and serving with people on the move.

Last April, during an exploratory visit with Al-Amana Centre in Muscat, Oman, I felt like I was back in Egypt. Two Finnish Lutheran young women volunteers, Ina and Aino, greeted me during breakfast. During our chat, I warmed up to the “spirit” of that guesthouse, enlivened by the hospitality of these two new friends. “I have a very soft place in my heart – I feel like I’m coming home to myself,” I shared with them. Later that morning during a brief tour, I learned that our Cyprus host from 2003, Lew Scudder had written an authoritative history about Reformed mission in the Gulf region. Another coincidence happened when I met Pastor Tom, another guest who, only a few days before, arrived from Michigan – and pastored in Midland where our family used to live.

What brought me to Oman, in the first place? Half-way through the Peacemaking travel study seminar in the Philippines, Presbyterian World Mission colleagues from the Middle East, Elmarie Parker and Luciano Kovacs invited me for exploratory visits about migrants and inter-religious peacebuilding, in Oman, Bahrain and Kuwait, with partners from the Bible Society in the Gulf (bsgulf.org) and the Al-Amana Centre (alamanacentre.org/). BSG provides Bibles and Christian resource materials for the different Christian communities in seven different countries. BSG also facilitates many Bible Engagement programs that help interact with the Message of Scripture, including Trauma Healing training. Al-Amana Centre specializes in inter-religious peacebuilding that invites people to transformative dialogue about their diverse religious traditions.

Back in late 2020, while working from home because of COVID-mandated requirements, my Filipino colleagues from Churches Witnessing with Migrants (CWWM) asked to introduce them to different partners in the Middle East. Since Elmarie and Luciano had already been working with these Middle East partners, we enjoyed initial Zoom meetings. Although that initial meeting did not lead to anything substantial at the time for us in CWWM, this time they invited me to join them for exploratory visits.  

Although this surprise invitation coincided with the deadline for a term paper, I still felt compelled to join. I also tried to include Filipino colleagues who could contribute their insights and perspectives. In the end, only I could attend and asked for prayers from our email distribution list. Your prayers helped me to keep up my energies and get in tune with the Spirit so that I could be present with Asian migrants from Telugu (India) communities, Sri Lanka, Nepal and the Philippines. Our time was brief but meaningful. I was amazed by migrant farmworkers praying on their knees, after long working days. Migrant workers serving as domestic workers and drivers received us with trust and love, opening their homes and sharing the challenges and joys of their lives. The staff and the faith communities that serve these migrant communities are carrying out their ministries of sanctuary and accompaniment – they might not use this same language as the PC(USA) General Assembly from last summer (pc-biz.org/#/search/3000862), but I could see this ministry in their actions. I wish that I could write more, but for now, I plan to share more articles featuring these partners and the communities that they serve. I am also eager to share more with my Filipino colleagues, to explore how we might enhance our shared advocacy, based on these recent experiences.

For these next few weeks, I am grateful that I can “come home to myself” and take the time, space and energy to process and reflect further on this first half of this year. From our home which is our family of three, we are grateful for your prayers and financial gifts that support this calling of mission service, and the ways that God continues to lead us through the surprised and planned moments of our lives.

  Your friends in Christ, Cathy and Juan