Hand in Hand Global Mission Support Blog Digest

Brian and Kristen Konkol are nearing the end of their service as ELCA missionaries in South Africa, where they have been coordinators for the Young Adults in Global Mission program. To support any of the ELCA’s 230 missionaries, go to www.elca.org/missionarysponsorship.

Kristen and Brian Konkol and their son, Khaya.

I have already begun to hear others speak of our departure from South Africa as the conclusion of our global missionary service.  I totally disagree with this assertion, for in many ways it is only the beginning. I believe wholeheartedly that God’s global mission through Jesus is about reconciliation, transformation and empowerment, thus a global Christian missionary is one who seeks to reconcile, transform and empower, by the grace of God, and for the sake of the world.  I cannot see myself stopping such activity at any point, as everywhere is the “mission field,” each day constitutes numerous “mission trips” and every local action has a global reaction.

In a world that possesses division and violence, I believe God is on a global mission of reconciliation, and I plan to participate fully within in. In a world were billions of people scrape through life in spirit-destroying poverty, I believe God is on a global mission of transformation, and I plan to participate fully within it. In the midst of a world that is thirsty for compassionate servant-leaders, I believe God is on a global mission of empowerment, and I plan to participate fully within it. And so, our global missionary work has not concluded, but it will transition to something new, and by God’s grace I look forward to this new, exciting, and challenging chapter.

Kristen, Khaya, and I will return to North America and always seek to learn about the joys and struggles of the people whom we are called to accompany. In addition, we will always discern who God is and who we are in the midst of such diverse settings, and we will always consider how we may contribute to what God is doing to and through an ever-changing and increasingly complex world. We will remain mindful of the lessons we learned in Guyana, South Africa and beyond, we will hold tight to the wonderful friendships formed, and we will continue to be shaped in the years ahead alongside whatever local and global community we are placed.

And so, as we enter into this process of transitions, decisions and additions, Kristen and I ask for your ongoing thoughts and prayers, for just as so many have loved and supported us throughout the past years, we trust that such encouragement will continue in the time ahead. We look forward to this next chapter of life and ministry. We thank God that so many will walk this journey alongside us, and we look forward to all that God will do “to us all” and “through us all” in the years ahead.

Pastor Brian E. Konkol
Project Co-Coordinator, South Africa
Young Adults in Global Mission

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Brian & Christine Palmer are ELCA missionaries teaching in Liberia. Brian describes how a computer project has aided publishing teaching materials and a Kpelle translation of the New Testament. To support the Palmers, or another of the ELCA’s 230 missionaries, go to www.elca.org/missionarysponsorship.

Bobby and Miss Mulbah

April 2, 2012

I was only here a couple of months before I got it in my head that I wanted to do two things.

First, teaching at the Lay Leaders and Ministers Training Center in Totota was done without any printed material. There were no books, no handouts, no sheets of paper with helpful pithy phrases, nothing. Teaching was done with a chalkboard and notebooks; this is the same as most teaching in Liberia. I found myself thinking it would be cool to figure out a way to inexpensively produce printed material.

The second “problem” I wanted to address involved the Lutheran Church in Liberia’s efforts to translate the Bible into the Kpelle language. The New Testament was translated and printed before the advent of computers and the translation team dreaded the thought of typing it all into the computer. I told them I would scan the text and have the computer “type” it. I never could have guessed what this whole Kpelle New Testament and cheap printing business would evolve into.

It started with Miss Mulbah.  I call her Miss Mulbah because when I first met her I wasn’t able to say her first name. Miss Mulbah is the daughter of one of my fellow instructors and was one of my physics students when I asked her if she wanted to do some work on the computer in the evenings. A couple of months after Miss Mulbah began working, I hired another of my physics students, Bobby. This was all a year and a half ago and all three of us have been on a steep learning curve ever since. The Kpelle New Testament project has been done for over a year now but we are still printing materials like crazy.

Nowadays we call ourselves Motherbird Publishing (Deuteronomy 22:6-7) and we are “Committed to simple dirt-cheap printing of helpful materials.” We do all kinds of stuff.  We type and print letters, invoices, booklets etc. We take and print passport photos. We’re even making a database of the books in the training center library so we can make an old-fashioned card catalog.

Both Miss Mulbah and Bobby have navigated the waters from total computer newbie to outstanding computer genius by any measure. They are the greatest. My hope is that the skills they have learned will be an ongoing blessing to them. I know my time spent with them has been a blessing to me. I can only pray that the work we have done together will be a blessing to others. Thank you Miss Mulbah and Bobby!

— Brian

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Patrick Meers is teaching English as an ELCA missionary in Japan. To support Patrick, or another of the ELCA’s 230 missionaries, go to www.elca.org/missionarysponsorship.

The old apartment with the “amazing” view.

 
I have recently said goodbye to my old apartment that I had lived in for the first three months of my stay here in Kumamoto. It was a nice apartment with a central location in the city near the Kumamoto castle and mall, so I will miss it a little. I am completely moved into my permanent apartment for the next two years of service here in Japan. It is a lot bigger and has a beautiful view of a small park, a giant improvement over my last apartment that had an amazing view of a towering parking garage.

But the view is not the only amazing part of this apartment. It has a lot of space and is located with all of the other missionaries that I am here with, making it a lot more convenient to get together with other English speakers. This apartment is also fairly close to the school I will be teaching at, Luther Gakuin. I will be teaching English in the junior high and high school at Luther Gakuin. Sometime after I start teaching, April 2, I will give you more information about my classes.

In March Japan had its first anniversary of the March 11, 2011, tsunami and nuclear disaster. Half of the day I was in a nearby city, Fukuoka, and the other half I spent here in Kumamoto. While I was in Fukuoka I visited a church called Tamana Lutheran. The church had a children’s service and an adult service. During the children’s service the mothers of the children performed in a choir some songs from the movie “Sister Act” singing “I Will Follow Him” and “Oh Happy Day” in English and Japanese. The children played rock, paper, scissors after the service and I was asked to join in on the fun.

When I returned to Kumamoto I walked down the long central mall in town and stumbled upon a parade of remembrance for the victims and survivors. All of the TV programs in the morning showed  images of the earthquake and talked about the anniversary. I can still vividly remember what was happening on March 11 last year and when I was in the tsunami hit area of Japan.

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The Rev. Miriam Schmidt is an ELCA missionary in Bratislava, Slovakia. To support  Miriam, or another of the ELCA’s 230 missionaries, go to www.elca.org/missionarysponsorship.

The Rev. Miriam Schmidt

So here we are, at home, in Bratislava — in Slovak, “doma v Bratislava.” We arrived on Feb. 3.

The Bratislava International Church, of which I’m the new pastor, has become the — often temporary — church home for a remarkably diverse group of people over the last two decades. Refugees, ex-patriots, teachers, businesspeople, students, volunteers, government officials and many more from more countries than you can count have come, and still come for Sunday morning worship. Off the top of my head, some of the countries of origin presently represented include Jamaica, Nigeria, Uganda, South Africa, Great Britain, the United States, Indonesia, Korea, Denmark, Norway, Israel, Mexico, Hungary, and of course Slovakia. but this is hardly a complete list. In addition, many of the people who come to the International Church have lived in still other countries around the world before they found their way to Slovakia — Jordan, Morocco, Togo, Namibia — to name a few.

The pastors who have served this congregation since 1994 have come from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, but those who come to Bratislava International Church come from many different denominational backgrounds: Presbyterians, Pentecostals, Assemblies of God, Church of England, Roman Catholics, to name a few. There are also Lutherans from the United States and from the Evangelical (Lutheran) Church in Slovakia.

But somehow by the power of the Holy Spirit and the call of God through Jesus Christ we manage midst all these differences to gather on Sunday morning around Word and Sacrament, to pray and sing, to worship and fellowship together. Thanks be to God that such a thing is possible at all! And I give particular thanks that my family and I have the opportunity to take part in this temporary church home of Bratislava International Church over the next (at least) four years.

Besides being pastor of the Bratislava International Church, my other work through ELCA Global Mission is to coordinate the ELCA’s Young Adults in Global Mission Program in Central Europe. I am now in the process of setting up sites for the four YAGM’s who will be coming to Central Europe next fall for one year. The young adults who come to serve here will intersect with the Roma (or Gypsy) people of Slovakia and Hungary.

Those who come here have no small task. In fact, I am a little in awe of the (as yet unknown!) young adults who will come to be Central European YAGMs next year.  But even more, I am grateful for the chance I have to meet and accompany these young adults through a year of life and work abroad. I hope to provide comfort, prayers, and some practical nuts-and-bolts assistance along the way.

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The Rev. Paula Stecker is an ELCA missionary in Haiti. Here is a condensed version of some her thoughts on Haiti two years after the 2010 earthquake. To support Paula, or another of the ELCA’s 230 missionaries, go to www.elca.org/missionarysponsorship.

LWF staff chat with T-shelter recipients on a shelter porch.

March 11, 2012
The following piece was one I planned to share with you early in February. The first draft written Jan. 13, but life got busy and suddenly I was home in Iowa, gathering with my family as my father was dying from complications of a knee replacement surgery. Dad would have been 83 this week and he seemed much too strong to die. We were not ready to say goodbye, but we have felt grace surrounding us as we try. Finishing this story, the strength of the cloud of witnesses shines for me even more boldly. We miss you, Dad.

Love and Peace, Paula

As I flew back onto the island in January, I was amazed that there really was a visible change over the past year, even from the air.  But, the change that moved me the most was to discover that those who survived Jan. 12 , 2010, have come a long way toward weaving the earthquake and its consequences into the lives they are reclaiming.

We held a special memorial service at the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) office on Jan. 13. About 30 members of the staff and some visitors gathered to remember, to pray, and to share what this earthquake has come to mean in their lives. As we planned the service, we did not imagine that people would share more than a few words, or the name of a loved one lost. We heard the hope of scripture. We prayed for one another and then the invitation to share was passed around the circle.

Ruth Esther, our psychosocial officer, was helping to facilitate this sharing and she went first. Ruth told about being at St. Trinity School teaching music to eight little ones. She escaped with all the children and now associates Jan. 12 with God’s grace that helped get all of them and herself out of the building which was destroyed. She passed the talking stone to the left. Would anybody else speak?

Not only did they speak, but they told their goudou goudou stories as integrated pieces of their very narrative lives. We heard of heroic walks and futile searches for hospitals, of holding dying cousins in their arms and collapsing in the street at the sight of one’s children safe and sound with neighbors. Some had had troubling visions or dreams beforehand. There were memories of the last words exchanged and the agony of not being able to contact loved ones. Others stressed the importance of knowing we are alive today for a purpose; how important it is to make sure Haiti will be better prepared next time. They witnessed to how strangers had helped them, offering a bed sheet or a hand out of the rubble.

For over two hours we listened to these sacred stories: an unpolished mix of English, French and Kreyol translations, sharing the pain, letting the tears flow, even as we marveled at the healing. These were not the same people whose lives were shaken two years ago at 4:53 in the afternoon. They had been transformed and they knew it.

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The Young Adults in Global Mission (YAGM) program is reliant on coordinators who facilitate the young adults’ ministry and provide mentoring and spiritual guidance.  The Rev. Peter Harrits is the coordinator for Malaysia. To support a YAGM coordinator,  go to www.elca.org/missionarysponsorship.

YAGM participants navigate a labyrinth.

“In the beginning was the Tao (道), and the Tao was with God, and the Tao was God …”

These words, the opening words to the Gospel of John as translated into Chinese, sound both comfortingly similar and utterly different to my ears. The familiar “Word” has here been rendered into the unfamiliar word ”Tao” — and with it the passage unfolds in a slightly different manner.

Of course when we use ”Word” in English translations of the Bible, we don’t actually mean the words we see on a page or speak in everyday speech; rather it is an attempt to reflect the original Greek word “logos” — a term pointing to the reason or logic behind all that is.

Likewise, when the Bible was translated into Chinese the character that was chosen was not the one for the spoken or written word but Tao — a rich word meaning path or way, pointing to regularity, order, and harmony. In all three languages, in this text, the word in question ultimately refers to Christ.

I learned all of this on a retreat I took with the Young Adults in Global Mission (aka YAGMs) I serve to Hong Kong. Staying at Pilgrim’s Hall at Tao Fong Shan Christian Center, we spent our days learning about Chinese spirituality and other religions in the region, trying to bridge the gap between Eastern and Western thinking, and contemplating the claim and the call God has already made and extended to each of us.

If I understand it correctly, and believe me when I say I’m a novice, part of the Tao is recognizing that everything has its own way or form of being. Year in and year out flowers and trees will bud and bloom in one way, cancers and diseases progress in another. There is an inherent beauty of regularity and balanced order to it all.

In my role as country coordinator for the ELCA’s YAGM program in Malaysia, I’m learning that there is truth to this concept embodied in each of the eight absolutely unique young adults who have been called to serve here. They each have their own sense of humor and areas of strength, as well as remnants of brokenness and moments of vulnerability.

While the theological language I’m most familiar with speaks in terms of each young adult being lovingly created in the Image of God, equipped with a certain set of gifts, talents, skills, and abilities and called to be bearers of Christ, the Word, in all that they do, the word Tao reminds me that each has a certain mode of being as well.

Through their year of service, of walking as resident aliens in a strange land, it is my hope and prayer that they may begin to discern the path — Christ, the Way — that is both before and within each of them.

For the opportunity to accompany them in that journey, and your prayerful support, I give thanks.

— Peter

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Austin and Tanya Propst are the new ELCA Young Adults in Global Missions (YAGM) coordinators of Madagascar. They have recently completed their language studies. Here they share a video of a gift of song they were welcomed with at a Lutheran church near Antsirabe. The YAGM  program is reliant on the coordinators who facilitate the young adults’ ministry and provide mentoring and spiritual guidance.  To support a YAGM coordinator, go to www.elca.org/missionarysponsorship

Singers offer the gift of music to Austin and Tanya Propst, who were visiting the congregation in Madagascar.

We’ve learned it is not uncommon for a congregation to share their gift of song with visitors.  We have been blessed many times with such beautiful singing.  Enjoy this (rough) video from a Lutheran Church outside of Antsirabe we attended. Click this link: Worship Music

Enjoy the tunes!

- Austin & Tanya

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The Rev. Dirk and Sarah Stadtlander are ELCA missionaries in Linguere, Senegal, serving in parish ministry. To support the Stadtlanders, or another of the ELCA’s 230 missionaries, go to www.elca.org/missionarysponsorship.

Malick Sy

Samba Coulibaly

We took these photos of Samba Coulibaly and Malick Sy to help them get visas for Israel. Samba and Malick are Bible translators, currently working on translating the Old Testament, or Hebrew Bible, into Pulaar.

The opportunity arose for them to enter the Study Program for Translators of the Hebrew Bible at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Though it came down to the wire in getting visas approved by Israel, everything came together just in time for them to leave Senegal at the end of January. At the end of their six months (January — June), they will return with a Certificate in the Translation of the Hebrew Bible.

Though the parish (and especially Dirk as pastor) misses having these gifted translators around, we are excited that they have this opportunity for travel and study. We pray that their studies will be fruitful and allow for a wonderful, authentic and “dancing” Pulaar translation. We also pray for their families during this long absence as well as all who are surrounding their family with care and support during these months of geographical separation.

Most of the funding for these scholarships is from you through ELCA — Global Mission. Thank you!

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Christine Eige is an ELCA teaching missionary in Japan. To support Christine, or another of the ELCA’s 230 missionaries, go to www.elca.org/missionarysponsorship.

Christine Eige

On March 11, 2011, the Great East Japan Earthquake devastated Japan.  The tsunami and fires consumed homes, schools, and lives. It is confirmed that 15,786 people died in this disaster, and 161 minors are still listed as missing. As we remember this tragedy and mark its one year anniversary, let us join together in prayer.

Heavenly Father,

We cry out to you on behalf of all the peopled impacted by Japan’s earthquake and tsunami. Even now, so many people are suffering and in pain as they grieve. Send your peace to surround those who have lost loved ones, homes and a sense of security. Let your hands still the tectonic plates and calm the earth’s movements. Take away the intense fear that survivors feel as they wonder when the next earthquake will strike and whether or not it will be a big one. Send your hope and comfort as people rebuild their communities and lives. Help the people of Japan to feel your love surrounding them during this time.

In your mighty name we pray, AMEN.

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