Anne Lamott spoke at my church, in Santa Barbara, a couple years ago. She was the keynote speaker at a fundraiser for a church collaborative effort my husband helps to coordinate, offering shelter for neighbors without homes. Among various topics that evening, she described some of what she experienced in the aftermath of the mass shooting in Newtown, CT. As a volunteer Sunday School teacher, she recalled instinctively wanting to be with her kids and to provide them with more opportunities to create, to feel safe, and to grow.

At ICTG, we often refer to that leadership activity as "adding good into the world." Over the years, we've noticed how easy it is to talk A LOT about the trouble in the world. But changing that trouble happens when we offer more goodness in response. ​

At 2:30pm, beginning descent into Los Angeles International Airport, my fellow passengers from London, England, and I were gathering our personal items and ensuring our tray tables were up and our seats were in full upright positions. Of course, none of us imagined the terror occurring in Manchester at that same time. 

The first news I received, about 45min later, was when a colleagues simply posted "Manchester" on her Facebook feed. An ordinarily thoughtful and articulate woman, this one word signaled the truth: What words suffice in the aftermath of horror and devastation? ​

This post, written by AHyun Lee, originally was published on February 6, 2017, on the ICTG blog.

Life is full of stories.
There are many stories created by various people on the same day at the same time. Each story reveals our interconnectedness and these stories reflect our true self.  Also, God always relates to, and influences, our stories. My teaching experience in Haiti happened because of the interconnectedness of important people in my ministry.
 
The connection of the story of Mayville United Methodist Church’s mission and Haiti
In October 2016, I got a phone call from Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington DC, where I studied for my Master’s degree. They have a global program to teach theology courses for students around the world. During this phone call, I was asked to teach on pastoral care and counseling in Haiti.  At that time, Mayville UMC had already made special offerings to several organizations for Haitians who struggled with hurricanes and earthquake.  The congregation sent 300 dollars to the United Methodist Committee on Relief for Haiti from our rummage sale along with donating 700 dollars to Food Pantry in Mayville. I was so moved and inspired by their love and care for people in the community and the world. Mayville UMC’s mission story strongly influenced me to answer, “Yes” during the phone call from the Vice President, Kyung Lim Shin Lee of Wesley Theological Seminary. God’s call was delivered by my congregation’s mission story.
 
The connection of the story in a place, Cite Soleil in Haiti
On January 24 2016, I arrived in a place in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, called Cite Soleil. It means Sun City, and it is the poorest, most dangerous place to live in this hemisphere. It is hard for me to describe this place to anyone who has never been there. All you can see is the poverty. I can show pictures, but there are stories that I would need to tell to explain the trash, the dust, the smell, etc. It is a place where people experience death every day. It is a place where people don’t have any clean systems in place and where people have long burned garbage indiscriminately. It is a place where people seek food all the time. It is a place where you hardly see flowers. It seems the situation in Haiti is not good and for many it may be getting worse. It seems absolutely impossible to restore Haitians’ lives in several weeks, several months, or even several years because of the level of poverty and the reality of death.

I met a missionary, Simon Kim, at the airport of Port-au-Prince. He has been in Haiti since 2010 when 200,000 people died from an earthquake. He built the Love and Hope church, elementary, middle, and high school, a theological seminary, as well as 20 local churches. Jesus Medical Clinic has been recently opened under his leadership. He supplies 4500 loaves of bread to local orphanages each week at daily bible study times. On January 24, I met with 150 pastors and seminarian who have struggled to minister amidst the trauma in this place, in Love and Hope Theological School.

The connection of the story of pastors and seminarians at Love and Hope Theological School 
From January 25th to January  27th, I offered six lectures, from 9am to noon and from 1pm to 4pm. “What can I teach in three days?” “What can I offer them?” “What can they achieve in only three days of learning?” These questions were in my mind as I prepared to lecture about pastoral care and counseling for healing trauma and recovering the community.  The main goal of this course was to provide an introductory overview of the historical, practical, and theological foundations of pastoral care for pastors and seminarians in Haiti. I hoped to strengthen their identification as pastoral caregivers addressing people’s trauma and working toward healing the community. I designed experiences to develop each student’s capacity for empathic relationships with others. I focused on helping student’s ability to take the primary pastoral role for their congregations, to listen empathically to people’s suffering, to provide the space where people can express their emotions including anger, fear, despair, even joy and hope, and to share and receive God’s love and grace in their ministry.

I heard many stories about death, loss, and trauma from students. We talked about immediate financial needs due to poverty. We talked about their burdens of being a pastoral caregiver for the urgent needs of congregations. We also shared the powerful stories about how they have overcome their own trauma and found healing in their life. There were lots of stories of how they kept their lives together and of how God works through them. It was a very powerful time not only to connect with their pain and suffering, but also to engage with their hopes and dreams for their ministry.
 
The connection with the general resource of Institute of Congregational Trauma and Growth
While researching healing trauma and recovering the community, I contacted Rev. Dr. Kate Wiebe who had studied with me at Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary in the Doctoral program. She is a pastoral psychotherapist, congregational care consultant, and serves as the Executive Director of ICTG. I asked for some helpful resources. She recommended the General Ministry Guide. This guide book introduces three core relational components for healing trauma and congregational growth; calming, community, and communication. For each of these core relational components, there was discussion about how to practice being calm in the middle of the storm and hunger. We demonstrated how to listen to and communicate with each other. Also, we built up personal lists of supportive community in their ministry and in their life. We explored how to form the ritual of healing and lament. It was a very meaningful and spiritual journey as we built our relationship with each other and God. We learned how to listen to and grow with people and the community and to seek their hope, values, and dreams for the future. Then, we all gathered the stories together and connected with each story. Their collective story was one that will lead toward healing the trauma and recovering their community in God.
 
The connection of the story of God’s ministry 
It was about our relation to God. It was about our connection with the story of God’s ministry in our daily life. On the first day all I could see was the poverty. It didn’t take long to realize it was a place where we loved and cared for one another.  Over and over again, students and pastors told me how much it meant that they were able to learn about theology, to spend time with me, to get support in their ongoing ministry, and for the future of their communities. Over and over again, my friends, colleagues, ICTG, Mayville UMC church members, and my family sent emails with prayers and support. The love and gratitude was, and is, overwhelming and humbling. Although it was only for a few days, I was with the people of Haiti who were eager to work for God. I see the incredible bravery and patience of the people, and the countless ways God is at work. I pray it becomes a small step to connect the story of God’s ministry in all our lives toward healing and reconciliation.

To access the resource guide and other online training materials, visit the ICTG training manuals menu or browse our services. 

On behalf of the ICTG Board of Directors and Staff, thank you to financial contributors who provide funding for the creation of the ICTG resource guides and advisory support our staff offers to ministers like AHyun and the students she teaches with our materials. To provide resourcing for more ministers, make a contribution today.

As a nation of immigrants, our lives in the U.S. are increasingly becoming interconnected with people who are different than us. It now is commonplace to encounter in our neighborhoods, workplaces, and schools people of diverse ethnicities, cultures, and religions. Many family members dress in traditional outfits and speak in their own dialects as they live “at home away from home.” In addition, we get to enjoy sampling a variety of traditional cuisines and use globally-made products. This is what living in multicultural society looks like.    
 
According to the Pew Research Center, by 2055 the U.S. will not have a single racial or ethnic majority, much of this change driven by immigration.[1] Furthermore, at a time when traditional white protestant Christianity is on the decline, a number of immigrant churches continue to show growth.[2] And while many a small immigrant congregation shares worship space with larger white mainline church, there often is little meaningful interactions between the two. Although these diverse congregations share communities, worship and congregational life remain separate.
 
With global neighbors at our door step, congregations can become the “cultural bridge” to connect diverse communities.  However, rather than focusing on what we can do for them, why not ask what can they do for us?  What is it that they bring to inter-cultural relationships? 
 
Having worked in immigrant churches for two decades, I would highlight several strengths immigrant congregations and families bring to intercultural relationships:

• People who live in multiple cultures often have cultivated empathy for those who are different.  Awareness of pain, suffering, discrimination, and alienation can escape those who live in the dominant cultures, where common values and privilege are often taken for granted. However, immigrant persons, living outside of the dominant systems, can have unique insights into the cultural ways of the majority as well as those living in the margins of society. The empathy that is needed to connect and form relationships with people who are different is nurtured in a diverse mileu.

 

• People who live in multiple cultures often have more creative resources for problem-solving.  Having been exposed to diverse beliefs and worldviews enables people to consider different perspectives, form new ways to solve problems and respond to complex situations.  Having been in varied social locations and often marginalized, these people are able to consider positions from many angles and make balanced and fair decisions.

 

• Immigrant families already have developed the skills to navigate multicultural contexts. Multicultural families live with two or more cultural mores, values, and languages, and often these clashes cause conflict. Living in such a diverse familial context makes it necessary to navigate daily through particular and nuanced ways of thinking, doing, and being in different cultural contexts. Skills of accommodating and negotiating become a lifestyle that are used in family relationships, friendships, work relationships, and through other encounters in communities.

Multicultural persons have the internal resources to live among many cultures and can bring those skills to connecting and building relationships.  Here are some suggestions of what your church community can do, individually and collectively, to form relationships and build cultural bridges.   

• Accept persons in all their authenticity. In my counseling practice, when new clients present or respond in odd and unnatural ways, I listen more deeply. What I have learned is that the more I hear about their life stories, the more their “eccentric” ways of being make sense. This can be said about clients who have had unconventional upbringings or who have been brought up in cultural contexts other than my own. Each person becomes a unique individual within the constraints and freedoms of the interactions between the biological and the cultural, social and familial environment. Accepting persons in all their authenticity is to respect the cultural influences on their formation and to value them in all aspects of their personhood.

 

• Connect on the human level through universally shared experiences. We are much more alike than we are different. Our bio-psycho-spiritual processes are similar, with many common experiences and shared responses binding us together. In spite of sharply contrasting cultural norms, customs, and mores, people from different cultures may have more in common with each other - between cultures – than with some in one’s own group. For example, parenting, as a global experience, with various aspects (immense joy at child’s birth, brokenness within our families, deep grief of losing a child) can help create empathy and connect people across cultures.

     

• Build relationships through sharing of cultural traditions such as food. Food is more than a source of nourishment and represents important ways of being in the world. Traditional food and eating habits embody the landscape, climate, and tradition of one’s cultural group, symbolically representing a people and their culture. Sharing food creates a new dynamic cultural space, generates conversations, and builds relationships by inviting others to participate in the emotional, psychological, and social life-source of a people.

 
Multicultural society displays the creative and diverse nature of God.  As a country founded on immigration, God is here in our midst.  We encounter God as we engage in relationships with our global neighbors. Through our familial and congregational intercultural relationships, we become skilled in creating a “new cultural space” where all people are welcomed to interact with one another.
 
Together we can transcend the binary tensions of majority-minority positions—and instead co-create mutual relationships.

School was supposed to start today in Texas. 

Of course, for many students, it's not. If they are not huddled with their families on the second floors of their house, some had to spend last night on the roof, praying for a rescue. Those who have been rescued are transported to one of the shelters available through the Red Cross, various churches and houses of worship throughout the area, and other facilities. 

No one can say for sure how long people will need to stay in shelters. Many must now make plans to connect with family, friends, or find a place to live for the next few months, if not years. 

Today is devastatingly far from what they planned. ​