Canadian Mennonite
Volume 10, No. 15
July 31, 2006
Doctor’s visit helps bring healing
Borabur, Thailand
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Dolores Logan examines a Buddhist monk during a medical clinic at Living Water Church in Borabur. The monk, the uncle of a church member, was one of more than 425 people to receive medical attention. Organizers also offered a gospel presentation and showed the Jesus film.
Logan is part of a family of Canadian Mennonites who wanted to learn more about mission. The Logans, members of Grace Mennonite Church in Regina, Sask., are friends of Pat and Rad Houmphan who needed a physician for the clinics held in 10 villages surrounding Borabur the two weeks before Easter.
A Regina-based doctor, Logan checked eyes, ears and vital signs while answering questions and testing for diabetes and other conditions. Her husband, Murray, three of the Logans’ five children, the Houmphans and other church leaders assisted.
The Logans paid their own travel costs as a way to connect with the Houmphans—mission workers with Mennonite Church Canada Witness and Mennonite Mission Network—as well as reach out to unbelievers.
Pat said their visit is a partnership that helped bring healing to the Isaan people.
“They say in seminary that more people go through the door of a hospital than through the door of a church,” said Murray, a prison chaplain who preached Easter Sunday at Living Water Church. “We have a great love for the people here.”
After Thailand, the Logans left to help Witness /Mission Network workers George and Tobia Veith and Tim and Cindy Buhler with a clinic in Macau.
The Logans hope to continue visiting mission workers for their vacations, showing workers their support while learning about culture and helping others.
Reflections on a short-term mission
Regina
Murray and Dolores Logan and their family travelled to Thailand and Macau earlier this year to visit Mennonite missionaries working in these two countries. Upon their return, Murray Logan reflected on what he had learned from their trip:
- In Thailand, as well as in Macau, I learned that Christianity is seen as a western religion. Because of the particularly North American emphasis on materialism, money and individualism, as well as the militaristic and violent spin which they see in our movies, advertisements and products, they may be interested in the good news of Christ but they don’t want the North American baggage that comes with it. They want victory over sin, guilt, fear, the law, death, and evil and meaningless existence without attachments to the “cultural other.”
- Many fears accompany daily living. Many are filled by the need to appease spirits that plague them, working hard at a dead-end job to support families or buying unnecessary goods, in order to feel good and add meaning to life.
- In North America we seem to have taken the benefits of Jesus Christ so much for granted that the true meaning of Jesus Christ has become lost or buried in some sort of secular or apostate culture. We have found ourselves going the other way and embracing the very things they in Asia have sought to shed once they discover freedom from spiritual poverty and bondage.
- The Buddhist religious system suffers from the same attacks of apostate drift and indifference by the youth as Christianity does in North America.
- The social gospel—made manifest under the banner of the buzzword “peace,” which pays only lip service to evangelism and the resurrection of Jesus Christ in the face of real evil and poverty under our noses—will not have much success in bringing the gospel of Jesus Christ through his divinity to anyone hurting in this world, because it pays only minimal attention to the glory of God.
Baptism, water blessing part of contextualized worship
Borabur, Thailand
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Easter celebrations at Living Water Church in Borabur began and ended with water. Between the baptisms that began the morning and the songkran water blessings that ended it, church members used their own traditions—and some borrowed from others—to honour the Saviour who is changing lives across Borabur.
Much of the work of the Living Water congregation involves placing Christianity into the Isaan culture, which makes up much of northeastern Thailand and Laos. Other than the occasional hymn, most of the music uses traditional Isaan instrumentation and melodies.
Some Thais believe that Christians evangelize to spread western culture, not religion. Nukhan Latsaboon’s husband, a Buddhist who has thus far vehemently resisted Christianity, is one of those sceptics, despite his wife’s Easter baptism, which signified an end to her life of spirit possession and worship.
Presenting a saviour who feels at home in Thailand eliminates the contextual barriers that would apply to a western religion, according to Mennonite Church Canada Witness/Mennonite Mission Network mission worker Pat Houmphan. For Easter communion, the bread and wine of the gospels became balls of sticky rice and small cups of krajiep (rosella juice).
A Thai New Year tradition includes ceremonial washings of possessions and people to ritually remove the previous year’s dirt. At the end of the Easter service, Living Water leaders used it to celebrate Christ washing away sins, simultaneously blessing the elders.
As older members sat in a row, church members filed past, said a few words of blessing and slowly poured flower petal-scented water over the elders’ hands, head or shoulders.
Still, some western traditions blend into the Thai context. The Living Water children coloured eggs for an Easter egg hunt. The eggs then became part of a congregational fellowship meal following the service.
Asian-Canadian Mennonites share the ‘good news’
Macau
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The first-ever delegation from three Mennonite Church Canada Asian congregations visited Mennonite ministry sites in Macau and Hong Kong as part of a spring learning tour.
Leading the tour was Samson Lo, director of Multicultural Ministries for MC Canada, who was born in Macau. Interaction with the local Macau congregation and the city-state’s culture and history were key features of the learning tour.
Ken Tse, pastor of Edmonton Chinese Mennonite Church, led a session for the Macau church’s discipleship groups on how to relate to non-believing family members regarding issues such as ancestor worship and praying before meals.
On the eighth day of the 10-day tour, the group set out with other Christians from Macau Mennonite Church on a prayer walk, a first for most.
“Just as the beautiful lotus flower rises up from the mud in the pond below, so in Macau, [in] such an environment [with its casinos and gambling culture], God will raise up a church, not only beautiful, but giving the fragrance of Christ,” Tse prayed as he gazed up at the huge golden statue of the lotus flower, the official emblem of Macau.
Led by Truong Kinh Doung of Grace Chinese Mennonite Church in Vancouver, the three women on the tour taught a group of Macau mothers from the local Mennonite church’s tutoring program how to make Vietnamese salad. During a break, tour participant Irene Chui shared with the women how losing her son two years ago has shown her in a deeper way what it cost God to send his only son, Jesus, to die for humanity.
Murray and Delores Logan, members of Grace Mennonite Church in Regina, along with three of their five children, joined the group for a few days. Murray, a prison chaplain, preached at a service in the Macau prison and also led an evening session at Macau Mennonite Church on “Reaching out to the marginalized.” Delores, a family physician, volunteered time at the Baptist-run Hope Medical Clinic. Their daughter Faith helped out tutoring children in English and interacting with the youths.
The last day of the tour was a Sunday. At an inter-generational outreach barbecue at the beach, Paul Lee, an enthusiastic senior member of the tour group, shared his faith journey with the 70 people in attendance.
Lee joined Karen Chan, who ministers to Chinese seniors in Toronto, in singing gospel yuet kuk, a traditional style Cantonese opera.
Lo preached on “Jesus as the way, the truth and the life” in a compelling way that tied into his roots in Macau.
The learning tour visitors made an impression on the local Macau people.
“Their coming here really encouraged me because they were Chinese and some of them were my parents’ age, so I could see that it is possible for Chinese people my parents’ age to believe in Jesus and have their lives transformed,” observed Sarah Ho.
For most of the learning tour participants it was their first visit to Macau. In reflecting on their experiences, David Tran, who had shared his faith journey during Sunday worship, said, “I’ve seen that I can have a part in sharing the good news.”
Palestinian group gets MCC aid following Israeli attacks
Gaza, Palestine
Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) is providing $29,600 to a Palestinian women’s organization to help families and children cope with the trauma of Israeli attacks in Gaza.
Recent Israeli attacks on Palestinian targets, including public utilities, have cut electricity and water supplies in much of the region. Local residents are traumatized by gunfire, bombing and the sonic booms of fighter jets.
Culture and Free Thought Association, a women’s organization in Gaza’s Khan Younis refugee camp, operates community centres for children, teenagers, women and cultural events. The association is using MCC’s grant to hire five trauma counsellors and to purchase a generator and fuel to provide electricity at the centres.
The counsellors will work with a volunteer drama team from the association to help children deal with trauma creatively by writing and performing skits about their experiences.
Recent Israeli attacks in Gaza began on June 28 in response to attacks on Israel by the Palestinian Hamas movement. Israel is demanding that Hamas release a captured Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, and halt rocket attacks on Israeli communities. Hamas is demanding the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
Alain Epp Weaver, an MCC representative for Palestine, Jordan and Iraq, says that the violence is contributing to a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
“All of this comes on top of the fact that you have a very high poverty level in the Gaza Strip,” he says. “Up to 80 percent of the population is living on well under $2 a day.”
Since the recent violence began, Israel has almost completely closed Gaza’s borders, and food and fuel have grown scarce.
Epp Weaver says that MCC is working on plans with partner organizations to deliver humanitarian aid in Gaza.
MCC monitors worsening Lebanese situation
Beirut, Lebanon
Thousands of Lebanese are fleeing southern Lebanon to find safety in other parts of the city and country.
Back in Winnipeg, Rick Janzen, director of MCC’s Middle East programs, says MCC is responding as it can by providing funds for food, water, medical supplies and emergency shelter for some of these displaced people. MCC is working in partnership with three local Lebanese organizations to provide this assistance.
Lebanese civilians are bearing the brunt of the brutal conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, says Janzen.
A city park situated close to the MCC office in West Beirut has become a makeshift refugee camp.
Damage to roads and bridges, along with ongoing safety and security concerns, creates enormous logistical challenges for local groups providing emergency aid, says Janzen.
Bassam Chamoun, a Lebanese citizen who has worked in the MCC office since 1985, is now coordinating MCC’s relief efforts. Chamoun, along with his family, has moved to Beirut from their village in southern Lebanon, a region where many of the Israeli air strikes are taking place.
As of press time, MCC’s North American workers, Ken and Kathryn Seitz were still in Beirut waiting to join the evacuation of U.S. citizens currently underway.
MCC continues to monitor the situation in Lebanon and is planning a more comprehensive emergency response when the conflict dies down, says Janzen.
People wishing to contribute to MCC’s emergency response should mark their contribution “Middle East Emergency Assistance.”
MC Canada Assembly delegates walk for justice
Edmonton
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On July 6, Mennonite Church Canada assembly delegates joined Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) Canada members and supporters to deliver a petition of 80 signatures to the office of Edmonton-Strathcona Member of Parliament Rahim Jaffer. The petition calls for an end to secret trials in Canada; as well, it wants those currently held in jail under “security certificates” to be released from custody or formally charged.
The government of Canada, using a secret trial security certificate under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, can declare any refugee or permanent resident inadmissible to Canada, have them arrested, held indefinitely without charge or bail, and refuse to allow either the detainees or their lawyers to see the evidence. Currently, five Muslim men are being detained in Canada on security certificates, having served between three and six years each without charge.
Delegate Judith Doell, pastor of Whitewater Mennonite Church in Boissevain, Man., admitted that she was not aware of this issue until she saw information at the assembly. What drew her to the walk was a passion for justice, an uneasiness with growing militarization in Canada, and the message of the assembly’s ministers conference held two days before. “We talked about three spiritual disciplines of the Anabaptists—peacemaking, truth-telling and economic sharing. Speaking out against these secret trials is peacemaking and truth-telling in action.”
The walk began at the Delta Edmonton South Hotel and attracted representatives from the Edmonton Coalition Against War and Racism, the Raging Grannies and Women in Black. After walking more than three kilometres, the group of more than 20 arrived at the office of MP Rahim Jaffer. In his absence, the group presented the petition and background information to Jaffer’s staff.
CPT co-director Doug Pritchard noted to those gathered that Jaffer, in attending Edmonton area vigils, had supported CPT during the four-month kidnapping crisis in Iraq, which took a CPT delegation of four hostage. “Now, we’re urging Mr. Jaffer to consider a similarity and use his position as MP to call for the abolition of this unjust legislation,” he said, adding, “As former hostage James Loney wrote in an open letter to MPs, delivered last month during Supreme Court of Canada hearings on the constitutionality of security certificates legislation, ‘Insofar as these five men have not been charged, they are subject to an unjust deprival of freedom just as I was.’”