A mate story

 Accompaniment is hard, at least for me. The ELCA model for global mission is at the same time fantastic and frustrating. Let me try to explain. The basic idea is that we are coming alongside people and "walking together in solidarity that practices interdependence and mutuality." Basically it is all about relationships. It is a drastic change from other models of mission in that we are not bringing something new to a community, rather we recognize that God is already active there and join in with the mission that is already occuring.

In theory I love this idea. Everyone coming together as equals, and supporting each other so that together we can further the work of the church. So what you might ask is the problem? Well, living out accompaniment is not as simple as it sounds (or at least sounded to me). Because the focus is building relationships, there is often not a tangible project to work on, thus there is also no tangible result. I had never realized how much the importance of this was ingrained in me by growing up in American culture.

In my work with the church here I am doing a lot of accompanying. I literally go along with the pastor when he goes places and then sit there and listen while he does stuff. Most of the time it is hard to see how this is any different from him going by himself to these things. Though I know that accompaniment is about relationships and so my presence there is important, it is often hard to remind myself of that. But every once in a while I will have a shining ah ha moment where I feel like I really get it. This is the story of one of those moments:

A week ago I went to Buenos Aires for the weekend to go to a churchwide assembly about life and mission in the church. One of the people who went with us to represent Nuestro Salvador (my church here in Montevideo) was Marisol. She is the mom of the kids me and the pastor work with on Saturday mornings and she also cleans the church. She is really nice, but I hadn’t really talked with her before last weekend. But in Buenos Aires we drank a lot of mate together and had some bonding moments. On Friday while I was in the office we got to have a good conversation and drink mate together. Then on Saturday morning when we got to her house she wasn’t there, but she had left her mate and terma with hot water ready for us on the table.  Drinking mate together with someone is how you share community here. When someone offers you mate they are inviting you into their life. I felt so loved and included by the simple action of Marisol leaving her mate there on the table for me.

I felt like for the first time I really understood how accompaniment could work. The relationships that I am slowly building here are more important then any project that I could do. My presence is enough and I need to stop trying so hard. But this is easier said then done so I pray that God will continue to remind me of this when I get focused on "achieving" things, that I won't lose focus on the people I am here to love.

I am a caterpillar

"We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty." ~Maya Angelou

I feel like that butterfly.

Let me rephrase that,

I feel like that ugly caterpillar.

Confused by what is going on around me, inside me.

Am I changing, am I growing?

Or am I stuck here, trapped

Unable to see beyond the present

To see the end result of this struggle

To see the purpose of this pain

Why does it have to be so hard?

Like the caterpillar I feel trapped in my cocoon

Confused, frustrated, angry at times

Unable to understand what is happening

But as hard as it is to understand, 

To have hope

I must continue the struggle

For only in the struggle

Can the caterpillar break free

And finish the transformation

Into that beautiful butterfly.


*Just to clarify the quote is from Maya Angelou but I wrote the poem*

Life as a leaf

The wind is swirling all around her
the tree branches sway
the clothes on the line flutter, like a butterfly's wings
a single leaf blows by
and comes to rest by her side
as the wind blows
the leaf scuttles around
forward, then back
a pause, forward then back
unable to control its destiny
it continues to scuttle
when the wind pauses, it does too
all the while, the girl continues to watch
fascinated, where will the leaf go next
"oh to be a leaf" she thinks
"no cares in the world, simply floating along in the wind"
she imagines it for awhile
up in a tree, floating in the breeze
gently falling down to earth
when...CRUNCH!
a small child gleefully smashes the leaf with his toe
the leaf, unable to do anything must simply lie there and accept his fate
the girl ponders this for awhile
maybe the life of a leaf isn't so grand after all
maybe life, with all its crap and difficulties but also moments of glee, joy, happiness,
is worth the pain
"I can do something to change my situation,
I am not a leaf"
and so, she got up and walked off
in search of a friend, a hug, and some quality time together
and while she walked she though of the others
who hadn't yet realized that they are not leaves,
that they too can get up
and she felt a single tear roll down her cheek
she thought "I'm gonna help them to realize what they truly are,
God's querridos, created to live and to love"