Hand in Hand Global Mission Support Blog Digest

Marj Leegard (left) and Sue Edison-Swift in 1999.

I learned most everything I think I know about storytelling from theologian Marj Leegard (1920-2010).  In her monthly “Give us this day” columns in Lutheran Woman Today magazine, Marj would connect a “daily life” story to the Gospel story.  Missionaries are storytellers, too.  Their stories of daily life in international service illustrate, illuminate and inspire our “hand in hand” journey with global companions.

Earlier this month I met with new ELCA missionaries and gave them this list of 20 questions to prompt storytelling.  You don’t need to be a missionary to use this; we all have stories to share.  As you sit down to write your next devotion…or companion synod presentation…or Missionary Sponsorship column for your congregation’s newsletter…or a family holiday letter, ask yourself some questions.

20 questions to prompt effective storytelling

1.         Where’s the hope?
2.         Where’s the faith?
3.         Where’s the companion? 
4.         Where’s the growth?
5.         Where’s the thank you?
6.         Where’s the call to action (prayer, advocacy, giving)?
7.         Where’s the humility?
8.         Where’s the humor?
9.         Where’s the heart?
10.       Where’s the calendar connection (liturgical season, special days)?
11.       What’s to be learned (from vocabulary words to life lessons)?
12.       WIIFM?  What’s in it for me? Why should your reader care?
13.       Who would love this story (Sunday school children? Global Links committee)?
14.       How is this different from home?
15.       How is this similar to home (a small world example)?
16.       Who has inspired you? Helped you?
17.       How did you learn an important lesson?
18.       Who’s your neighbor?
19.       How does this illustrate God active in the world?
20.       How can I make this shorter?

–Sue Edison-Swift, July 2010
Sue Edison-Swift, associate director Global Mission Support, served as managing editor of Lutheran Woman Today magazine from 1988–2000.

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“While chasing down a sponsorship story, the Runner’s Club caught me,” is a feature article on p. 4 of the July-August 2010 issue of Seeds for the Parish. To view the article and a related sidebar about Dr. Jim and Carolyn Brown (ELCA missionaries serving in Cameroon), visit www.elca.org/seeds or click here to go directly to p. 4. 

To entice you to read the article and sidebar, here are two “bonus features” that didn’t make it in print.   Blessings!  Sue Edison-Swift, associate director for Global Mission Support.

Bonus feature #1

Dear Linda!  Dear Runner’s Club!

Oh, my goodness.  You made my day.  This is THE BEST story.  Way to go, women!

Your story is dear to me on so many levels.  I was the associate editor of Lutheran Woman Today for its first 13 years and my mom and her various circles were faithful subscribers to Scope. I have been a part of the team that produces the ELCA Good Gifts catalog…filled with ways to make giving concrete and fun.  (You were pioneers in that endeavor!)  And, now I am privileged to help raise needed funds for ELCA missionaries. 

 Linda, you wrote the story so well that I can “see” it all…including the “little box” that holds the offerings.

 This is a stewardship story.  This is a women’s story.  This is an evangelism story. This is a missionary story.  This is a story of Christian community linked “hand in hand” between South Dakota and Cameroon.  WOW!

 Good story blessings,  Sue
P.S.  WOW!

Bonus Feature #2

“Covenant sponsors,” like the Runner’s Club, make a financial, communication, and prayer commitment to support an ELCA missionaries like Dr. Jim and Carolyn Brown (Cameroon).  Learn more in the Hand in Hand Guide for Covenant Sponsors (www.elca.org/missionarysponsorship). 

With or without a covenant commitment, your gifts to ELCA Missionary Sponsorship make it possible for more than 240 missionaries to teach, preach, grow, build, heal and nurture with companions in 50 countries. You may donate through your ELCA congregation or Women of the ELCA organization, by calling 800-638-3522, by visiting www.elca.org/4missionaries, or by mailing a check directly to ELCA Global Mission Support at 8765 W. Higgins Road, Chicago, IL 60631.

Your gifts and your prayers make a world of difference.  Many congregations pray for missionaries each Sunday and many individuals use the Global Mission Annual of ELCA missionaries as a prayer prompt.  The 2011 Annual will be mailed to all covenant sponsors at the end of October, 2010.  Others may reserve a copy by calling 800-638-3522 or by sending their name and home address to RIS@elca.org.

 As you read and hear the news, as you read “missionary stories” on the Hand in Hand Blog Digest (http://blogs.elca.org/handinhand), pray for our missionaries and companions; it’s a great way to turn worry into action and thanksgiving into praise.

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Kate Hagen, a return Young Adult in Global Mission, served in South Africa.

The Beauty of Being, a new ELCA Story of Faith in Action , profiles returning Young Adult in Global Mission Kate Hagen.

As she visited the classrooms, students asked: When are you coming back?
 
She answered honestly, telling the children she’s not sure when she’ll return.

The good-byes closed a year of eye-opening experiences for Kate Hagen, who serves as a Young Adult in Global Mission in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) Ministry Upstream and Downwind program.

This ministry is a partnership with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Southern Africa.

Kate arrived in South Africa with the North American idea of productivity as doing.

During her first few months of teaching in a small town elementary school, she found that “doing” became more and more difficult because of language barriers and a financially strapped school system.

These challenges created opportunities for Kate to just “be” with her students, making room for something greater: Relationships.

“In the relationship-focused culture at school, I feel a revitalized awareness to the beauty of being,” Kate explains.

This new awareness also allowed Kate just to “be” within her host family.

A particularly touching time came while participating in her host sister’s coming of age ceremony, where her host family welcomed 400 guests with “humility and selflessness,” Kate says.

The emphasis on hospitality underscored the importance of interdependence.

“In U.S. society, dependence is often seen as weakness,” Kate says, “yet, in order to survive and thrive, we need to realize our interdependence.”

Affirmed in Her Faith
The 23-year-old St. Olaf College graduate from Appleton, Wis., feels faith surround her in her service in South Africa.

“My faith is affirmed every time someone squeezes my hand, lights up with a soul smile and sings to glorify God without reservation. The best feeling is to feel loved for exactly who I am and to feel united by love with my brothers and sisters in Christ.”

She already misses the children, who were just a sea of faces at morning assembly nine months earlier.

“On my final day, I looked out at the hundreds of faces and saw unique personalities,” she says.

The members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Southern Africa’s Youth League call her “Kethiwe,” which, in Zulu, means, “Chosen One.”

“They tell me that they love me,” Kate says. “I love them, too.”

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